Poetry in music- meaningful lyrics project

While doing the theme Human Ingenuity I always try to a have a lesson on music as a most popular and accessible form of art.

This year I decided to go for the lyrics rather than the soundscape and encouraged students to share the lyrics that resonate with them the most and prepare some questions for class discussion.

How did I go about it?

1. I created a presentation online where the students were to add their own two slides, one with the lyrics and the link to the recording (ideally ‘karaoke style’, with subtitles), the other to the questions they want to discuss with their classmates.

Check out a sample here

2. The students then took turns in class to present their content and discuss- each person was allocated 5-7 min for it, they could not play the whole piece, just the essential part.

3. To wrap it all up, I asked the students several questions regarding music eg:

- How important is music in your life?

- What comes first, the lyrics or the sound? What is more meaningful for you personally?

- Is all music art?

-How do you imagine the future of music in the era of AI?

4. Finally, the students were asked to pick their favourite album and treat one song as ‘a fragment of a novel’ or a poem in a book of poetry. Then, they were to prepare a 3-4 minute presentation (as homework), following the structure of IB DP English B individual oral, practise it in turns with a partner, inventing questions for the follow up on the go, keeping the time, and using the questions about music discussed before for the last part of the mock oral- general discussion.

It was fun, and engaging, I can recommend it!

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