ASSIGNMENT: All students during the course will make a fifteen-minute presentation to the entire group (usually on Fridays) about a favorite song. In addition, all students will turn in a 600-word (2 pages) written response that expresses the key points of the presentation. [Honors students will be the first presenters and will be required to expand their written response (personal response and analysis) by two pages.]

[The song must be “school appropriate”—no glorification of drugs or alcohol, or gratuitous use of bad language or sexuality.]

Presentation

  • Twenty copies of the lyrics for students and teachers to share
  • Printed out and ready to distribute at the beginning of the presentation (half a page is fine)
  • The group’s listening to the song (not longer than five minutes) and reading the lyrics
  • Have the song ready either on a CD or MP3 player that can be used by the music room stereo or teacher computer.
  • Ten-minute presentation (no reading!) that includes the following:
  • Personal response to the song—Why is the song important/significant to you?
  • Interpretation of the song—What does the song mean?
  • the significance of the lyrics
  • examples of good writing—poetic language
  • Structure of the song
  • discussion of the song’s musical structure/characteristics and/or its poetic structure

[There are many things you can discuss in each of these sections; choose the points that you feel are the most salient—but be sure to include discussion about both the lyrics and the accompanying music.]

Writing

(to be turned in the day of the presentation)—600 words [Honors—1000 words]

  • Short song biography that includes details of the song’s recording and performance
  • songwriter(s) and date of the song’s being written; recording details of the version being played; other versions of the song
  • Personal response (paragraph)—Why is the song important/significant to you?
  • Interpretation of the song (paragraph)—What does the song mean?
  • the significance of the lyrics
  • examples of good writing—poetic language, meaningful images
  • Structure of the song (paragraph)
  • discussion of the song’s musical structure/characteristics, in its support of the lyrics
  • discussion of the song’s poetic structure

Missed Class

  1. Scheduling conflicts should be arranged two weeks in advance
  1. If you miss a class in which others are presenting—you must respond in writing to the song lyrics
  2. one page (typed/double-spaced) response that includes (1) personal response to the song, (2) discussion of the lyrics’ meaning and poetic language, and (3) discussion of the musical structure’s support of the lyrics
  1. If you miss a class in which you are presenting
  2. For an excused absence, we will reschedule; for an unexcused absence, the grade is a zero for the presentation component of the assignment