Podcasting

In a few of my other methods classes, we are talking about how to effectively engage disengaged students.  When audio production came up in this class, I thought about using GarageBand to engage those unengaged students that wouldn't typically want anything to do with a unit like poetry.  Using GarageBand, I thought students could either read the poem with some background music (spoken word style), rap the lyrics, or sing the lyrics to a song of their own.  In my example below, I had a recent high school graduate rap Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" to a beat that I simply created using royalty-free beats from a collection of local drummers.  I asked him to take the poem home, read the poem, and figure out which stanzas he wanted to rap (because the poem is so long).  He was excited about the project and called me only two days after I gave him the poem.  He told me excitedly that, "he was ready."

The Raven

I interviewed the rapper after the recording session and asked him about the process.  He immediately touched on some of the major themes in the poem: depression, death, and insanity.  He was surprised that he could rap such an old poem - he thought the language would be harder than it actually was.  He wanted to know more about Lenore and commented on the easily rapped rhyme and meter.  Having practiced rapping much of the poem, he said that he would probably remember this poem for a long time and could recognize it easily.

I believe that I effectively engaged this student and could use GarageBand as a pre-reading activity for a poetry unit.  The students would be forced to get to know the in's and out's of poem and become personally invested in it.  I believe I could use GarageBand to enhance some student's learning.