How to incorporate song writing into your scheme of work
Songs are a great way of consolidating information in a memorable, engaging way. Below are 3 ways in which songs and song writing can be used to for this function.
1. As homework
As an extended homework (suggestion – 3 weeks), students are to write a complete song. Verse 1 is homework for week 1 to consolidate learning of the introduction of EM waves. Verse 2 and the bridge are set for week 2 when the dangers and uses of EM waves are taught and writing the chorus can be set for week 3.
Assessment
Self assessment – Students are only able to write clearly understood lyrics if they have understood the learning objective and can reproduce it in their own words. This allows them to know when they have understood it.
Peer assessment - Students can perform the song to peers in class.
Teacher assessment – Students can perform their songs in class, submit recordings to the teacher, or for students who do not wish to sing, they may simply hand in lyrics and tell the teacher which tune it is to be sung to. The teacher may then wish to perform it or get a more confident performer to do so.
Differentiation
Extension students - Do not provide the cheat sheet.
Able students- Provide the cheat sheet.
Lower ability -Rather than writing their own song, they can learn the EM Waves song. Assessment can be done through the fill-in-the-blanks activity
2. As a series of plenaries
Song writing can be used as a plenary to sum up and condense the learning covered in that lesson. Over a series of lessons an entire song can be written. Before you begin, decide on a well-known song to change the words of. Split the class into groups of 2 or 3 and divide the learning objectives between each group. They have 5 minutes to write their learning objective into 2 lines of the song. Each group can share their lines with the class and if 2 groups have done the same learning objective, you can vote on the best lines for the final song.
Assessment
Can be peer or teacher assessed through verbal feedback when sharing with the class.
Differentiation
Extension students – Get students to decide on what the most important things from the lesson would be to put in the song.
Able students - Provide objectives from the cheat sheet so that they can be slotted into the final song easily.
Lower ability -Students to fill in the blanks of the relevant parts of the EM Waves song and then sing through them twice before the end of the lesson.
3. As an end of topic revision lesson
This method is useful as it keeps the song writing contained to one lesson if teachers feel that it would take up too much time over a series of lessons but it means that students are only focussed on a revising a handful of learning objectives from the whole topic. It can be tricky to fit everything into one lesson but with the right preparation and following the lesson plan a whole song can be written and sung in one lesson.