With new academic standards ratcheting up literacy expectations, many teachers are looking for ways to engage students more deeply in writing and reading assignments.
Lauren Leigh Kelly, an English teacher at Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills, N.Y., and an adjunct English instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University, has found that incorporating rap and hip-hop culture into the literacy curriculum can help connect instruction to students鈥� individual backgrounds and foster their interest in writing.
In 2011, Kelly designed a Hip-Hop Literature and Culture class at her school to engage students in the study of hip-hop texts, including songs, films, and music videos, as a means to develop media literacy and critical-analysis skills.
On the basis of the course, Kelly published an article this spring in the , published by the International Literacy Association, arguing that engaging with hip-hop texts in class can help students鈥攁nd especially female students鈥攔eflect on their identities and hone their literacy skills.
鈥淚 wanted the students to walk away from this class with [literacy] skills that they can apply to anything beyond texts,鈥� Kelly said in an interview. 鈥淭here鈥檚 something about using hip-hop specifically because of the role that it plays in the world right now that leads to more developed understanding.鈥�
Kelly鈥檚 Long Island school has a student body of approximately 1,500鈥�40 percent of whom are students of color. In its initial iteration, her hip-hop class was taken by a small group of 11th and 12th graders, including both white and black students. The course focused on four thematic units: hip-hop and its roots, hip-hop history and culture, gender and hip-hop, and hip-hop and the world. Kelly鈥檚 curriculum aims to get students to look critically at texts with multiple 鈥渓enses鈥� as a way of better understanding the cultural implications and social context of texts and their own lives.
Textual Analysis
The course encompassed class discussions, written reflections, critical reading, and analytical writing.
鈥淪o [I was] having them relook at the texts that they loved already or were curious about and ask really deep questions of them,鈥� Kelly explained. 鈥淭hey were pulling out more questions, more evidence鈥攖hey were looking at the voices that weren鈥檛 heard, like who are we not seeing or hearing and what would they be saying if we could.鈥�
Writing was a key vehicle for students鈥� responses to the texts. Kelly assigned multiple composition projects over the semester to assess students鈥� understanding and analytical skills.
One assignment was a literary essay in which students looked at a text, read literary critiques, and then wrote their own critiques on the text based on their reading and reflections. Another required students to choose a topic related to the class units鈥攕uch as race, socioeconomic class, or gender鈥攁nd write a lesson for a class presentation to explore that topic and facilitate a dialogue with the rest of the students.
For the midterm assignment, students created a mixtape of at least 10 songs and wrote reflections for each track based on how it connected to the concepts, topics, and questions explored in class conversations. For the final project, students produced a hip-hop autobiography in the form of an essay, film, music album, or graphic representation. Most of the students chose to write the two-page-minimum essay.
Emily Chiariello, an independent education consultant who designed Teaching Tolerance鈥檚 curriculum, said culturally relevant instruction of the sort used in Kelly鈥檚 hip-hop course can work well with the expectations set forth in the Common Core State Standards.
鈥淭he standards provide a huge amount of autonomy and flexibility in terms of the content that students are reading, and I see that as a good entry point to insert relevant and engaging texts and content that mean something to the students and that鈥檚 relevant to their culture and their communities,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no better way to teach literary devices than through hip-hop. Personification, metaphors, similes, rhyme schemes, and more鈥攖here鈥檚 so much richness in hip-hop.鈥�
Over the course of the semester, Kelly found that students鈥� written pieces became longer, more developed, and more critical. They went from writing brief responses and answering only the question they were asked, she said, to bringing in more questions, specific evidence, and other things that they noticed.
The quality of the students鈥� writing varied, but overall, their work became more detailed with clearer explanations of the significance of the students鈥� ideas, Kelly said.
鈥淚n their writing, they were able to really reflect on where they saw themselves in the music and where this music comes in their lives,鈥� she said.
Cultural Connections
Kelly said that bringing hip-hop into instruction not only helped shape students鈥� writing, but it also helped them become more socially aware and engaged in the classroom. She believes that was partly the result of the class becoming more student-driven as the students began to bring in their own notes from home and to take a greater role in guiding the discussions.
鈥淎ll I really provided was the opportunity by having the actual class where it happened and inviting them to bring in their lives and their full selves,鈥� Kelly said. 鈥淩eally, the students on their own introduced their histories, their experiences, some of the questions they were grappling with, and that became a part of the class texts and curriculum. It was tense at some moments, and difficult, but at the same time, very powerful for them to further explore those identities and for them to do it together.鈥�
Ideally, Kelly said, high school students should be in the driver鈥檚 seat in their courses, leading and facilitating classroom instruction, but they can never do that if they feel like what they鈥檙e learning about isn鈥檛 connected to them.
鈥淪tudents need to see themselves in what they鈥檙e reading and what they鈥檙e writing and what they鈥檙e doing in school ... otherwise it feels so pointless to them,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey need to feel like experts sometimes, they need to be able to teach each other about things, and it鈥檚 really hard to do when what they鈥檙e learning about has no bearing鈥攐r at least they don鈥檛 see it having any bearing鈥攐n their lives and they don鈥檛 see it as connecting to them.鈥�
One of Kelly鈥檚 intellectual influences, , a professor of educational policy studies and African-American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that there are various ways to make such connections with students.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 put too much emphasis on the hip-hop but the relevance,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t could be Coolio鈥檚 music or rock metal. It鈥檚 looking at ways in which to engage young folks in ways that they find relevant, while also building skills and critical analysis. And that could be hip-hop and it could not be hip-hop.鈥�
Kelly鈥檚 hip-hop course is currently offered only one semester every other year at her school. In the meantime, she has been contacted by professors, special education teachers, and elementary school teachers who want to know how her class can be transformed for different audiences. She鈥檚 also planning a hip-hop and poetry summit for New York City students in the winter as a way to help share experiences and engage in creative wordplay.
鈥淚t鈥檚 great to see how this is [showing] the power of hip-hop literacy to go across geographically and even across communities language wise, racially, and economically,鈥� she said.
