Transforming Hip-Hop into Knowledge


It is  a philosophy of mine that students will interact more and pursue the knowledge in the classroom if the topic is something that they can relate to. Reading the International Journal of Reading I learned more on how to put relatable topics in my curriculum, and also learned how to shape it in a way for them to learn. It is easy to teach students something fun they can have fun with, but I do not take in regard that they still need to learn.
The hip-hop project stuck with me and made me think over my unit plan. Students in this project were studying hip-hop. Not just to learn some new hip-hop artists or new songs, but to understand the impact of hip-hop and various other reasons in a relatable way for students. Students were experiencing the effect of hip-hop in their lives, why not put it in the learning process. This project helped students decipher hip-hop lyrics and discover the meaning, understanding the world we live in and out hip-hop society, and comparing hip-hop to other forms of African American music, such as jazz. One of the English teachers even aloud a hip-hop text to be in the curriculum, didn't even know there was such a thing. What was most important about this project is that students learned!
It is important to listen to students and let students have a say in their curriculum. For my unit plan, I am allowing a fun/difficult read because I want to listen to my students. Tolkien is a popular author for young high school readers, so I am taking what I have learned in the hip-hop project and applying it to my unit plan. Overall, I believe teachers need to learn and understand what is happening around a student's life, preferably the pop-culture aspect. A teacher could take what they are experiencing in media and form it into knowledge.



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