Using Cross-Genre Comparisons to Find the Message in Hip-Hop

There really are two sides to every story! Seventh graders analyze various texts and media types to compare and contrast how perspective is conveyed. The fourth and fifth days of the unit focus on learners writing first drafts of a...

The Vietnam Era produced a lot of media and texts that portrayed the events in lot of different ways. Kids take a look at historical perspectives and how they have been conveyed by various people. They use a variety of informational and...

Miley Cyrus' "Driveway" provides young lyricists with an opportunity to identify figurative language in songs. After a guided practice exercise, individuals use the provided worksheets to find examples in the song and to add images to...

What was the role of African Americans in World War II? How were these roles influenced by and manipulated by racial attitudes of the 1930s and 1940s? Class groups locate and analyze primary source materials before using GoogleDocs or...

The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...

To take "the definitive portrait of that person in that moment" is the quest of photographer and hip-hop historian Jonathan Mannion. In this short video, Mannion details his dedication to his art and the process he goes through to catch...

Jazz, Blue Grass, Hip Hop, Swing. Gospel, R&B, Ragtime, Disco. So many music genres born in the USA. After reading an article about the fate of New Orlean's Jazz after Hurricane Katrina, class members investigate the life cycles of...

So what about those Beastie Boys? Kids read a New York Times article relating the history of hip-hop and rap icons the Beastie Boys. They then answer eleven who, what, when, where, and why questions about the text they read.

Pick your poison: tobacco, alcohol, opiates, cocaine, or marijuana. An online exhibition launches a research project that asks groups to select one of the five drugs and gather information on how the use of the drug and the regulations...

Students examine hip-hop music. In this hip-hop lesson, students compare traditional aboriginal music with current hip-hop music. Students construct a recipe for writing a hip-hop song and identify literary elements in music.