This Lesson's Title:

Song Parodies about School

writing new lyrics for
"campfire songs"

This on-line lesson was inspired by NNWP Teacher Consultant Tara Robertson, who presented it at the 2005 Piňon Poetry Festival.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Take Me Out of the Bathtub by Alan Katz. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Click here to view this book at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

After celebrating (and singing) some of the delightful parodies from Alan Katz's Take Me out of the Bathtub, student writers will plan their own parody of a famous song.  Like the famous parody for Battle Hymn of the Republic that makes fun of school, students can write their parodies about topics centered around school that deserve to be made fun of.  The interactive button below gives great suggestions for famous "campfire songs" that can be used for the students' parodies. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is sentence fluency; working original words into another song's rhythm scheme is great practice for students who are learning about complex sentence structure .  The support trait in this assignment is idea development; encourage unique ideas from your students as they compose their song parodies..