The writing strategy that I have implemented in my classroom was the Rewrite strategy which incorporates a prereading and a post reading lesson. The strategy employs music to help students remember a key concept. I used this strategy in my two high school sophomore math classes to help them remember how to solve systems of equations. The Rewrite strategy was implemented in groups of four to five students. The students have been learning how to solve systems of equations by graphing and by the substitution method for the last six class periods. Still the students are having problems understanding how to solve the problem. Often they get lost because they cannot remember the order of the steps are they are unable to complete the steps accurately. For the musically framework of the Rewrite strategy I provided my students with eight hip hop instrumental tracks that I thought they might be able to recognize. The majority of the class were able to easily identify six of the instrumental tracks while a minority were able to identify the remaining two songs. The text that I have given them to analyzewas from an math website. I modified the text from the website so that it would mesh well with the previous lessons that I had taught the class. The text was nine pages long and was laid out in the following manner.
- What the goal of the problem is to find the point of intersection which occurs when the variables are the same value and both equation are equal.
- Explanation of the different ways to solve the problem
- The steps necessary to solve the problem and an example that illustrated the problem.
Students were introduced the Rewrite strategy by playing the hip hop song “Chemical Calisthenics” by Blackalicious. The song is a good choice because the students can relate to the music and the lyrics are talking about various aspects of chemistry. A copy of the song lyrics are provided at the end of the paper. I hindsight I should have provided the students with a copy of the lyrics to aid in understanding of the assignment expectations and to aid in comprehension of the example song. I moderated a classroom discussion aboutthe content of the Blackalicious' lyrics. Most students thought that the song was related to chemistry. We discussed some of the contents of the song and what made this song unique from other hip hop songs.
Since the students have had difficult with the subject of solving systems of equations I gave them some guided reading to help them understand the steps necessary for them to solve systems of equations graphically and algebraically. I had the students analyze the text by first doing a group reading followed by a reciprocal teaching strategy to help them analyze the text in a group setting. This is one way that I modified the Rewrite strategy, I provided the reading and required them to analyze the text but I did not give the students a written prereading or postreading anticipatory guide like the Rewrite strategy suggests. All students had an opportunity to summarize, predict, clarify, and question generate the pages of the text in the reciprocal teaching strategy. The reciprocal teaching activity occurred on the first day of the two day process.
After the students were done analyzing the text we had a post reading class discussion about the text and it contents. The remaining time ten minutes of the day were devoted to students working in groups to organize their lyrics to go with the songs. The requirements for the song were that all songs needed a chorus and at least three different song verses. The next class period the students were given approximately thirty minutes to finish writing and practicing performing their songs.
Two different classes participated in the activity. In the first class four different groups performed their song lyrics. The majority of the songs were extremely creative without losing their informational value. Students were able to accurately identify the goal of the problems and the steps necessary to complete the problems. Two groups had particularly creative lyrical verses that they performed. Another group had informative lyrics but they were unable to incorporate the lyrics effectively into a song. They instead performed their lyrics in the form of a poem. The long term memory retention value of this group’s project was diminished because it wasn’t linked musically into the long term memory. The final group in the first class was a complete disaster. I had trouble getting them started, maintain focus, and working together as a group. I the end one member of the group did song lyrics for the rest of the group. The first couple of verses were informative about the problem but the last verse devolved into a swearing tirade. The student needed to be removed from the classroom and his inappropriate actions explained to him and to the entire class. In hindsight there should have been better monitoring by myself. I should have done a better job of insuring that the groups were doing more self monitoring and double checked their progress more often then I did.
The second class wasn’t nearly as successful as the first class. Out of the five groups only two groups came up with songs that I would judge as successful. The other three groups did not complete the task in its entirety. These groups were unable to generate three separate song verses. The group’s primary difficult having full participation from all the group members. One of the reasons for this occurring I believe that the groups were formulate for the first time in this activity. Greater thought in the composition of group members and ability for individual members to cooperate with each other I believe would have achieved better results.
When I implement this strategy in the future I would like to require greater accountability of all the individual members within the group. I was originally hoping that the group members would pressure each other to work for fear that their grade would suffer on this activity. Unfortunately, grade threats are insufficient motivators for the majority of my students. In the future, I will grade the section in three parts to insure greater individual accountability. At each stage students will be require to argue for their grade and demonstrate the progress that they have made to the group’s completion of the song. At the beginning stage I will provide a grade for choosing the song that they will perform their lyrics, assigning group roles, and determining the content that they will write about. The second stage will be graded on the progress that they have made towards completion of the goal. The final component will consist of the performance value and accuracy of their song to the content covered.
The other aspect that I would change is to decrease the amount of class time available. I believe that the students did not use the time wisely. Decreasing the amount of time that they have to generate their song lyrics would require greater accountability. I believe in the future I would like to give them ten minutes at the end of one class and make a requirement that come back to the class with a completed song. I would them provide them ten minutes in the next class to organize their group and provide the finishing touches on their performance.
Overall, I think that this would be an excellent activity to help in student comprehension of course content. I think that the Rewrite strategy will have better successes in the classroom with further implementation. This will allow students to streamline the process and permit me to work out some solutions to the problems that occurred this time with the Rewrite strategy.
Lyrics for Chemical Calisthenics by Blackalicious
Neutron, proton, mass defect, lyrical oxidation, yo irrelevant
Mass spectrograph, your electron volt, atomic energy erupting
As I get all open on betacron, gamma rays thermo cracking
Cyclotron and any and every mic
You're on trans iridium, if you're always uranium
Molecules, spontaneous combustion, pow
Law of de-fi-nite pro-por-tion, gain-ing weight
I'm every element of brown
Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc, when I rap you think
Iodine nitrate activate
Red geranium, the only difference is I transmit sound
Balance was unbalanced then you add a little talent and
Careful, careful with those ingredients
They could explode and blow up if you drop then
And may hit the ground
Let it flow, yo, just let it go, get back
C-A-O-H-2 wine water solution of calcium hydroxide
Slobbin it, C-A-O lime will make bleach powder
Galvanic metal beats stomp out louder
Dried ice, C-0 squared refrigerant
N-O-2 makes you laugh, it's laughing gas used by the dentists
I nearly added acid glue, I'm like oil of a toil, the king of
chemicals
And the G heat gas waved all your mats
Chemical change, ice point, melt all your raps
Atomic weight, hold shocks, when you call
Refillable gas keep going way beyond
Biotch I'm only ill with buzzin, feel the ambiance
A diabetic process outta calm your ass
After I warm your ass, I'll give sodium, silicate N-O-2-S-1-O-3,
a water glass
Borax flexure full of brimstone sulfur
Boraxic acid, hip-hop preserver
C-O-2 could never put away the fire
Style aroma is scientific; the lyrical fuse would be connected
To teach you chemical calisthenics
The Theory is that all matter is composed of at least three
fundamental particles
Protons, electrons, neutrons, Protons charge is positive
By now you've guessed electrons are probably negatively charged
Neutrons don't follow either, neutral, in the middle, only no
apologies
Centered, unmoved by yin and yang ideology
Neutron, bomb songs, electron fury
Cosmic musical radio-activity
Different points in joints within infinity
Oxygen and hydrogen alive within all types of energy
Within all types of energy
Within all types of energy
Within all types of energy
Within all types of energy, inside a world, inside a world
Inside a universe, inside of me existing although I can't see it
Hydrocarbon, nitrogen cycle, ionization
Heavier than electric motor metals that weigh over a ton
This has been a chemist, Blackalicious creation
Clean out your desk, put your papers away cause class in almost
done
This is chemistry plus calisthenics
I'm calcium plus potassium, magnesium, newspaper of sodium,
sulfate
Your solvent, chloroform, remedy from the norm
glycerin, purest form Titanium
there is no way out, when this newfy is out
of all arms vibration, forming in a nigga
some bleachin' to teach ya religious is equal to pieces of
meteor
Eager to be here or is it, can see here I know all of all
I'ma pickin' up pretty little Cindy
I'm more, I'm thinkin of more,
I'm cookin a potion!