I teach 6th grade Social Studies (world history) at Middle School 821 in Brooklyn. With my extensive training and professional development through Teach for America, coupled with my penchant for research, I am hungry for resources that will enhance the classroom experience for my students.  Presently, in an effort to create engaging lessons that truly make both history and current events come to life, I often use multimedia in the classroom.  A short movie clip, PowerPoint slideshow, or short song can really hook my students into the topic.

When I learned about Rhythm, Rhyme, Results, I was immediately intrigued—another resource! I have found the tracks to be much more versatile and captivating than music, movies, and slideshows.  While resources not made for the classroom can certainly be effective, they require incredible efforts to locate and contextual discussions inside the classroom.  The RRR tracks are not only incredibly engaging and educational, but they have so many uses in the classroom.

Earlier in this academic year, my students and I embarked on a travel to Ancient Greece.  In this unit, students represented members of the Athenian Assembly. We researched whether or not we (Athens) should go to war with Sparta. After reading the opinions of many fellow Athenians, we crafted speeches to present to the Assembly.  The day before students were to formally present their speeches, I used a RRR track called “Public Speaking” from the Language Arts collection.  Our “Do Now”, or what I call the “Brain Stretch”, was to rate how nervous they felt about presenting their speeches to the Assembly.  We then listened to the RRR track once, and students were instructed to listen for public speaking tips and write the tips in their notebooks.  After the first listen, most students listed at least 80% of the tips presented in the song.  By the second listen, all the students had complete lists.  The most impressive aspect was how excited the students were during the listening.  No one was talking—everyone was concentrating on the message.  By the second listen, many students were singing along.  We then made wanted posters to solicit the “ideal public speaker”.  The next day, before presenting our speeches, we reviewed the tips for good public speaking.  Each class was able to generate the full list of tips from the song.

Just last week, before we read poems about world religions aloud, I asked students what we needed to remember to be good public speaker. One student raised his hand and said, “Public speaking, don’t be freaking…”! At this prompt, other students’ hands shot into the air and we were able to recall each tip from the song. Amazing!

My students respond well to the music because it is well produced, authentic hip-hop.  They retain the information because it is fun to learn lyrics to songs!

Jenny Spalding
Brooklyn, NY
May 2008