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Writing Across the Curriculum: iPod Lessons
using music, video, and podcasts to inspire writing in all content areas

"Music is the last true voice of the human spirit. It can go beyond language, beyond age, and beyond color straight to the mind and heart of all people." -- Ben Harper

Hello, my name is Rob Stone, a high school language arts and social studies teacher and the Page Host for this iPod-inspired Writing Across the Curriculum homepage here at Writingfix. And here is what I believe…

If you asked today’s students to rank the things that are most important to them, two things are sure to make nearly every list. As a matter of fact, for them, these two things supersede any mere list and move into an almost spiritual realm that includes things that are vital to their very survival. Those two things, of course, are technology and music.

The reality is that, though classic literature, chapter books and picture books will always maintain their well-deserved importance in growing minds, today’s students find inspiration in places beyond the published works traditionally used in the classroom. If we truly want to reach them and make connections, we have to meet them where they are and “link” our world as teachers to their world as millennial learners.

I passionately believe that one of the places to look for that missing link is where today’s technology meets music: the iPod. Skeptical? Pull out an iPod in class and watch the interest immediately appear on your students' faces. Put lyrics on the overhead and watch the focus in their eyes. Hit play and they are yours. Implement a well-designed lesson attached to that song and you can do magic…

So what would a lesson for students look like if it was inspired by something shared from the teacher's iPod? The purpose of this page is to answer that question. It contains many writing across the curriculum lessons created by many amazing teachers from nearly all curriculum areas. Each lesson is tied to the writing process, the writing traits and a “mentor text” which, in each poetry lesson below, is the song and its lyrics. Read, enjoy, and give some of them a try. We will consistently be adding great lessons to this page. Perhaps yours will be one of them.

Propose an iPod-inspired Writing Lesson! Join WritingFix's Family!

Propose your own ipod lesson to be posted at WritingFix! Here is our template for our iPod lessons. If we end up using your lesson at WritingFix, we will send you any two of the NNWP's Print Resources as our way of saying thank-you for sharing your ideas with the thousands of teachers who use this website.

Rob's iPod-inspired Writing Lessons

Inspired by: Ben Harper’s With My Own Two Hands as well as John Mayer’s Waiting On The World To Change.

Students write: a poem about how they might change the world.

Lesson:

Inspired by: Yesterday by the Beatles, Today by the Smashing Pumpkins, and Tomorrow from the Annie Soundtrack.

Students write: a poem exploring the past, present, and future.

Lesson:
My Adidas

Inspired by: Run D.M.C.’s My Adidas.

Students write: a creative piece of writing from the perspective of a personal object or item.

Inspired by: Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man and Harry Chapin’s Cat’s In The Cradle.

Students write: a poem about their own life's stages.

Tell Rob what you think of these lessons. Join his Listen Up! ning and post your thoughts!
Lesson:
The Legend Lives on

Inspired by: Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Students write: a poetic examination of a historical event.


Our October 2009 iPod inservice class will introduce this new on-line teacher community. Sign up now to join in on the conversations among teachers.

Off-site Web Recommendations:


www.songmeanings.net

On Rob's Bookshelf...

The Green Book of Songs by Subject: The Thematic Guide to Popular Music

This book also has an accompanying website.
Our Newest iPod Lesson
(Click on the image to access a newly posted lesson)


Lesson Title:
Oh, the Places You Can Go!

Past Lessons Featured at the NNWP's iPods Across the Curriculum Teacher In-service Class:

In 2008, thanks to support from the Washoe County School District's Technology Department (headed by NNWP Consultant Joe Elcano), the Northern Nevada Writing Project began hosting a new type of inservice class for teachers. Our iPods Across the Curriculum Course challenged educators to not only establish a classroom iPod, but it also showed them ways that an iPod might inspire excellent and thoughtful writing assignments in any curriculum area.

Between spring of 2008 and spring of 2009, one-hundred specially-invited teachers attended this course and participated as writers, using many of the lessons posted below. In exchange for proposing their own lessons at the end of the class, the specially-invited teachers received a classroom iPod and an iTalk. Further down on this page, you will find some of the lessons this course inspired from its attendees.

In fall of of 2009, the NNWP's iPods Across the Curriculum Course will be offered twice times annually, and although we won't have the funding to give away iPods any more, we are confident dozens teachers will continue to take the course to learn how a simple piece of technology--the iPod--can bridge the gap between teachers and learners while inspiring students to write about issues and ideas that are important to them.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Dena Harrison

Dena teaches middle school language arts in Sparks, Nevada. She became a Consultant with the Northern Nevada Writing Project in 2001, and she currently coordinates inservice classes that help teachers utilize 6-trait language better in their classrooms. She is also Page Host at WritingFix's Revision Homepage. You can easily access all of Dena's on-line lessons by visiting her classroom webpage.

  • One Minute in Time
    Overview:     Inspired by the Cure’s song 10:15 on a Saturday Night, students write about a slowed-down minute in time.
  • Color my World Grey and Blue
    Overview:     Inspired by Grey Street by the Dave Matthews Band and the song Blue is a Mood by Blu Cantrell, students will explore the role of color in a piece of writing

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Corbett Harrison

Corbett served as Director of the Northern Nevada Writing Project between 2002 and 2007. He currently coordinates the NNWP's Writing Across the Curriculum inservice courses and teacher workshops, and he as acts webmaster for the WritingFix website. You can easily access all of Corbett's on-line lessons by visiting his personal webpage.

  • Quest Item Poems
    Overview:     Inspired by Jim Croce's I've Got a Name and two stories from Greek mythology, students plan a poem about being on life's journey and walking down the road of existence.
  • Tribute to an Artist and a Painting
    Overview: Inspired by a Don McLean song (Vincent) and a Tupac Shakur poem (Starry Night) that both pay tribute to Van Gogh, student writers research an artist in order to pay a similar tribute.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Tamara Turnbeaugh

A full-time high school language arts teacher, Tamara became a Consultant for the Northern Nevada Writing Project in 2006. She is passionate about both literature and music, and she works hard to show her students how the two connect. Tamara also coordinates the NNWP's Literature Excerpts as Mentor Text inservice class.

  • Ain't That America
    Overview: Students rewrite a song's lyrics--John Mellencamp's Pink Houses--incorporating conflicts from literature they are reading, history they are studying, or conflicts an original character they create might be having.
  • Creating Memorable Advice
    Overview: Inspired by Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), students write advice on life to others.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Jodie Black

Former NNWP Co-Director and still-amazing Kindergarten teacher, Jodie has been an active Consultant for the Northern Nevada Writing Project since 1990. In 2008, Jodie coordinated the creation of the NNWP's Six by Six Traits Guide for Kindergarten and First-Grade Teachers, whose contents can be perused on WritingFix's Traits in the Primary Grades Homepage.

  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...
    Overview:     For this environmentally-conscious lesson, students will use a song by Jack Johnson to develop ideas about how to “green” up their own classrooms. Students will also learn clever songs written to the tune of old classics that will lead them to brainstorming ideas for reducing, reusing, and recycling in their own classroom.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Amie Newberry

After a hiatus from teaching to raise two wonderful children, Amie returned to the classroom in 2007 and immediately became a Consultant for the Northern Nevada Writing Project. Amie also serves as Page Host for WritingFix's Creative Publishing Page, and she Coordinates the NNWP's annual Chapter Books as Mentor Texts inservice class.

  • Advice to Youth on Things Now GONE
    Overview:     After comparing Gone by Switchfoot to a famous "old" poem, students will create their own song or poem about their philosophy of life.
  • The Next Thing on my List
    O    verview: Inspired by Nickelback's If Today Was Your last Day, students write a polished list that details the things each student would like to experience in their lives.
Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Yvette Deighton

Yvette is a both science teacher and literacy trainer who became a Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultant in 2008. Working for Nevada's Northwest Professional Development Program, she coordinates and facilitates trainings for Instructional Coaches. She is an admitted "NPR addict," which explains her passion for using their podcasts in her i-Pod presentations.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Amy Richards

When Amy became a Consultant with the Northern Nevada Writing Project in 2007, she shared with us a lesson she used with her fourth graders that was inspired by multiple interpretations of Gershwin's Summertime. The NNWP was developing its iPods Across the Curriculum that same summer, and Amy quickly became one of our first presenters.

  • Summertime-inspired Memoirs
    Overview:     Using various modern and classic renditions of Summertime, from the opera Porgy and Bess, students study mood as it pertains to musical style and attempt to add mood to a reflection of a summertime memory.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Kim Cuevas

Kim joined the Northern Nevada Writing Project as a Consultant in 1999 while working as a high school language arts and debate teacher. In 2007, she became Director of the NNWP, a job she does while simultaneously serving as Language Arts Program Coordinator for Washoe County in Northern Nevada. Despite her many responsibilities, she loves to find time to present lessons at inservice classes and workshops.

  • What's Important in Your World?
    Overview:     Inspired by Billy's Joel's We Didn’t Start the Fire, students catalogue important historical events in their own lifetimes in the form of a free-verse poem.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Karen McGee

Karen joined the Northern Nevada Writing Project as a Consultant in 1985 when she was teaching kindergarten. Before retiring twenty years later, she served as Washoe County School District's kindergarten coordinator as well as the head instructor for the NNWP's Summer Open Institute. Karen also hosts WritingFix's Alphabet Books Across the Curriculum Resource Page.

  • Things I Love Poems and Songs
    Overview: Inspired by Tom T. Hall's song, I Love, as well as Eloise Greenfield's poem, Honey, I Love, students will create a poem/song about things they love.

New Lessons Being Presented at the 2009-2010 iPods Across the Curriculum Inservice Class

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Temoca Dixon

After enrolling in every one-credit teacher inservice class offered by the NNWP, Temoca (along with her friend, Lisa Larson) finally joined the Northern Nevada Writing Project as a Consultant in 2009 by participating in its five-credit summer institute. Temoca teaches middle school in Sparks, Nevada, and we are thrilled that she is now presenting at NNWP inservices instead of just taking them!

  • Bucket List Poetry
    Overview: Using the song Live Like You Were Dying from the soundtrack for The Bucket List as a model, students will take a look at their values and the things they would like to accomplish in their lives before they run out of time. They will use their writing skills to create their own unique "bucket list," taking this piece of work through the entire writing process.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Lisa Larson

After enrolling in every one-credit teacher inservice class offered by the NNWP, Lisa (along with her friend, Temoca Dixon) finally joined the Northern Nevada Writing Project as a Consultant in 2009 by participating in its five-credit summer institute. Lisa teaches middle school in Cold Springs, Nevada, and we are thrilled that she is now presenting at NNWP inservices instead of just taking them!

  • If Today is Your Last Day
    Overview: Inspired by Nickleback's song, If Today Was Your Last Day, as well as the words of author Randy Pausch, students compose meaningful letters to loved ones.
  • Beautiful Noise Poetry
    Overview: Inspired by Neil Diamond's song, Beautiful Noise, students write poetry about noises they hear in their day-to-day lives.

Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Campbell Valle

Campbell, a truly gifted middle school teacher, joined the Northern Nevada Writing Project as a Consultant in 2007. Her committment to academic standards and student engagement is well known in her school district, and her classroom is observed often as a model classroom. Campbell also hosts WritingFix's Response Homepage.

  • Teaching Character Traits
    Overview: Inspired by the moral lessons from Free to Be You and Me, students will compose stories to be shared with elementary school children that teach character traits. They will watch videos and use plot charts to plan and organize their stories. Writers discover their own character by sharing their original stories with little ones!

Innovative Lessons Proposed by Participants of our iPods Across the Curriculum Inservice Class

Lessons from Math Teachers:
Lessons from Social Studies Teachers:

Linear & Exponential
Growth Poetry

Overview: Students choose numbers and units of measurements, and then create short poems that compare and contrast exponential (or multiplied) and linear growth. This lesson is inspired by several Schoolhouse rock songs as well as other videos that help students explore numerical growth.

Lesson Authors: Kellie Kareck, Nevada high school math teacher

Itsy-Bitsy Math Songs

Overview: Students write instructions for math procedures that can be sung to the tunes of familiar nursery rhymes or songs. Working first in small groups, then as individuals, this activity helps students put ideas from notes into individual words.

Lesson Author: Lisa Baehr, Nevada high school math teacher

Boogie Woogie with a B

Overview: After discussing both the word choice and the patriotic tones of the Andrews Sisters' "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," students create new songs (sung to the same tune) that speak of other WWII patriotic characters.

Lesson Author: Marie Johnson, Nevada elementary teacher

How Can We Say "Never Again"?

Overview: After WWII, it was said that never again shall the international community allow an act of genocide to occur in the world. What events in the world today would prove this statement false? Students will study the situation in Darfur and create a poster campaign.

Lesson Author: Vallarie Larson, Nevada middle school social studies teacher

Lesson:
Dancing with the Math Stars!

Overview: Using disco music and the inspiration of TV's "Dancing with the Stars," students write the biographies of equations and graphs that are dancing on a television show where math-inspired dancers compete against each other.

Lesson Author: Holly Young, Nevada high school math teacher

 

Lesson:
I Say to You...I Have a Dream

Overview: Inspired by Martin Luther King’s words and U2’s Pride (In the Name of Love), students will write speeches detailing their dreams for the future, using a format borrowed from King’s famous speech.

Lesson Author: Tami Ruf, Nevada high school social studies teacher

Lesson:
Your Own Personal Dream Team

Overview: Using the song Dream Team by Spearhead as a guide, students will craft an event program outlining and highlighting their own dream team. They will discover who is important in their lives, who motivates and inspires them, and how they can creatively describe these people to share with others in a fun and easy format.

Lesson Author: Whitney Foehl, Nevada high school social studies teacher

Lessons from Science Teachers:
Lessons from Music Teachers:

Lesson:
Podcasting Science

Overview: Students write accurate and organized summaries after hearing about current events in science from the New York Times weekly podcasts: Science Times. These summaries will go into student portofolis so that students can compare their ability to summarize at the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

Lesson Author: Nick Nemsgern, Nevada middle school science teacher

 

Lesson:
Singing the Blues

Overview: Inspired by some of the blues songs featured on Ken Burns' Jazz, student writers draft and publish original blues lyrics. Students may also perform their lyrics by using one of the tracks from Jamey Aebersold's Jazz CDs.

Lesson Author: Maribeth Burt, Nevada high school music teacher

Lesson:
Scripting the Great Train Robbery

Overview: After viewing scenes from the 1903 silent movie The Great Train Robbery, students will listen to silent movie music clips. Choose one scene and one or two music clips that best go together, students will script a short scene, inspired by a film clip, that can be read aloud while the silent movie music plays.

Lesson Author: Dwayne Hollenbach, Nevada high school music teacher

Language Arts Lessons:
Lessons with Comparison/Contrast:
Lesson:
What Else is Love?

Lesson Overview: Using Pat Benatar's Love is a Battlefield as inspiration, students create an original and unusual metaphor about love.  The metaphor is extended and unpacked for interesting details.  These details become a either a free verse poem or a poem that can be sung to Benatar's original tune.

Lesson Author: Corbett Harrison, Nevada high school teacher

Lesson:
Is Perception Reality?

Overview: Jack Johnson's Inaudible Melodies creates an interesting paradox of how society presents itself versus how society really behaves. Students will create a paradox of their own that they feel describes the difference between perception and reality. Students will then turn their paradox into an extended poem, using the song as a model for their own writing.

Lesson Author: Jamie Priddy, Nevada high school teacher

Lesson Overview: Both Sara Bareilles' song, Love Song, and Naomi Shihab Nye's wonderful poem, Valentine for Ernest Mann, talk about things you shouldn't ask for from another person. After comparing and contrasting the song with the poem, students write a You Can't Ask for That! poem about an original topic. Click here to access this lesson.

Lesson Author: Dena Harrison, Nevada middle school teacher

Lesson Overview: Using two songs by India Arie, students will explore their own self image. After analyzing the qualities that each student feels that they embody, they will compare these to the qualities that they portray to others. The students will then be creating and taking through the writing process an expository essay comparing who they are internally vs. who they are seen as externally

Lesson Author: Allie Eckert, Nevada middle school teacher

Lesson:
Where is the Love?
A Persuasive Essay

Overview: Inspired by two songs, students will think about worldly injustices and create an essay based on a persuasive argument. This lesson will hopefully help ignite a passion in students to stand up for change in their own persuasive essays.

Lesson Author: Abby Olde, Nevada middle school language arts teacher

Lesson:
My Favorite Things

Overview: Using the song My Favorite Things from the musical, The Sound of Music, as inspiration, students will create their own song or poem that lists their favorite things. Each verse will focus on their favorite things throughout a specific time during their lives--childhood, now and in the future.

Lesson Author: Shannon Devereaux, Nevada high school language arts teacher

Lesson:
Compare & Contrast:
Poems vs. Lyrics

Overview: After listening and analyzing song lyrics and poems, students will discover how similar song writing and poetry writing can be. Students will get their own chance to write a small version of each genre to truly see that songs are really poems just put to music.

Lesson Author: Chrystal M. Johnson, Nevada high school language arts teacher

Lesson Overview: After comparing a famous poem--"Richard Cory"--and song by Simon and Garfunkel written about the poem, students create an interpretation that explains why they think Cory kills himself. Students then create three pieces of evidence that--if found by a CSI team--would lead those investigators to interpret the poem the same way.

Lesson Author: Corbett Harrison, Nevada high school teacher

Lesson:
The American Dream

Overview: Using a song, two videos, and several readings, students will explore their views of the American Dream, and use a new personal understanding to create “animoto” videos that express a personal opinion or take on the dream.

Lesson Author: Cyndi Kirklin, Nevada high school language arts teacher

Lesson:
A Call for Change

Overview: Using Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as a model, students will brainstorm change. Their final product will be either a poem that models Dylan’s call for change or a prose piece which persuades someone to heed the call of this changing world.

Lesson Author: Rebekah Foster, Nevada high school language arts teacher

Lesson:
Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Overview: Using Van Morrison's Days Like This and Lee Ann Womack's I Hope You Dance as inspiration, explore and write about wisdom they have made about the world during their short time on this earth.

Lesson Author: Jennifer Reynolds, Nevada middle school teacher

Lesson:
How Will You Be Remembered?

Overview: In this lesson, students will be exploring self image. They will be analyzing how they would like to ultimately be remembered by writing a eulogy, inspired by Sarah McLachlan's I Will Remember You.

Lesson Author: Allie Eckart, Nevada middle school teacher

Lesson:
School Song Parodies

Overview: Using Weird Al Yankovic's "Eat It" alongside Alan Katz's picture book Take Me out of the Bathtub as inspiration, students create a song about something from school.  Students choose a song that the entire class is familiar with and craft new lyrics to the song.

Lesson Author: Tara Robertson, Nevada elementary teacher

Lesson:
Ain't Gonna Rain No More

Overview: Using Mance Lipscomb's blues rendition of "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" and Karen Beaumont's picture book I Ain't Gonna Paint No More as inspiration, students create an original four-line stanza that can be sung to this classic campfire song.  As they write to this quick-write, students study our language's helping verbs.

Lesson Authors: Jodie Black and Corbett Harrison, Nevada teachers

   
       

 

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