Writing with Rap

While in grad school, I had the great opportunity to work one-on-one with a fifth-grader over several weeks.  I was tasked with having him respond to a piece of literature in a way that was meaningful to him.  He chose to read Drive-By by Lynne Ewing, a novel about a boy whose older brother is killed in a drive-by shooting and has to learn to survive without him.

When we started to talk about what kind of product he wanted to create about the book, his school insecurities came out.  He didn't think he was a good artist and didn't want to take any risks on a creative project.  He also decided that he really wanted to write about football.  After a discussion about why he loved football and what he thought might have happened if the main character had played football, he decided to try to write a letter to the character to convince him to join a football team.  We tried brainstorming to get ideas for the letter, and I quickly realized that his go-to method, cluster diagrams, was not working for him because he thought in sentences, not topics.

I remembered that he had said he loved Drake and other rappers, and he said he thought he could rap, too.  I played some music and had him start talking/rapping to the main character while I typed what he said.  We rearranged the sentences, filled in what was needed, and he turned the words into a rap song.  I let him record the song, and I burned him a copy on cd for him to keep.  He seemed to be really proud that he had created something smart and cool that he could share with his friends and family, and I learned a valuable lesson about finding alternate routes to meet the same learning goals.

Below is a video I made explaining the creative process and showcasing his rap.