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 your own 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.
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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 multiple 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. |
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 Meet NNWP iPod Presenter/Coordinator
Rob Stone
Rob, a full-time high school language arts and social studies teacher, joined the Northern Nevada Writing Project as a Consultant in 2000. He has presented his iPod-inspired writing lessons to his students, to Northern Nevada teachers, and to audiences at national conferences. In 2008, Rob became the Coordinator of the NNWP's i-Pods Across the Curriculum class, which is offered annually in Northern Nevada. |
 Overview: Using Ben Harper’s With My Own Two Hands (as well as John Mayer’s Waiting On The World To Change), students ponder their roles in changing the world. After analyzing how a variety of important people changed the world, students evaluate the tools they possess to change the world and how realistic it is for them to actually do it. The final product is an original poem, taken through the writing process, in which students express their feelings about this topic.
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 Overview: After listening to three modern songs that capture this symbolism in words-- Yesterday by the Beatles, Today by the Smashing Pumpkins, and Tomorrow from the Annie Soundtrack --students will analyze their own experiences with these three concepts and then compare and contrast them with those of a character from the novel they are reading. Students will write poems or paragraphs that explore the concepts of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
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 Overview: Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man famously pointed out how life happens in stages, as does Harry Chapin’s Cat’s In The Cradle, which breaks a father-son relationship into four stages (verses). Each Student will describe some part (or all) of his/her life as four definitive stages in an original poem. Like Chapin, students will interject a thoughtful, themed statement (chorus) throughout the poem that ties this reflective and introspective activity together.
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 Overview: After listening to Run D.M.C.’s classic, My Adidas, students will think about everywhere their shoes have taken them and the story they have to tell. Using literary devices such as personification, point of view, repetition and rhyme scheme, students will creatively and vividly describe their life and experiences from the perspective of their shoes.
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 Overview: Using The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, sung by Gordon Lightfoot, as a model, students will write poems that tell a detailed story of a historical event. The poem will be brought to life using a combination of researched facts and descriptive assumptions. Student writers will convey strong details by including great verbs and adjectives, so their poetry can pick up where history left off and complete the story.
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 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. |
 Overview: The Cure’s song 10:15 on a Saturday Night explains what happens in one slowed-down minute as the singer is waiting for an important phone call, while also utilizing some catchy onomatopoeia to emphasize the seconds ticking by. For this quick-write, students will choose their own moment in time to slow down and use onomatopoeia to emphasize the passing of time as they write their own free-verse poems.
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 Overview: After listening to the song Grey Street by the Dave Matthews Band, as well as the song Blue is a Mood by Blu Cantrell, students will explore the lyrics and discover what role color can play when combined with a particular setting. Once they are armed with this information, students will choose their own color and setting on which to write their own poem or song.
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 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.
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 Overview: Dena also is a regular presenter at the NNWP's Picture Books as Mentor Texts inservice class for teachers. Her favorite picture book lesson to present is the lesson she created that was inspired by Dav Pilkey's Dogzilla. You can access this lesson by clicking here.
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 Overview: Dena also is a regular presenter at the NNWP's Chater Books as Mentor Texts inservice class for teachers. Her favorite chapter book lesson to present is the lesson she created that was inspired by Sharon Creech's Love That Dog. You can access this lesson by clicking here.
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 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. |
Corbett's first iPod Lesson:
Quest Item Poems
 Overview: Inspired Jim Croce's I've Got a Name and two stories from Greek mythology, students plan a poem about being on life's journey. Croce sings about three unique items he takes on his journey through life (a name, a song, and a dream); students do the same, choosing three unique items, and they write a poem that explores how their items will shape their future journeys.
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Corbett's second iPod Lesson:
Tribute to an Artist and a Painting
 Lesson 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. Using autobiographical research, students create a found poem inspired by both the life of their artist and one or more of their works of art.
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 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.
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 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.
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 Overview: Corbett also is a presenter at the NNWP's Picture Books as Mentor Texts inservice class for teachers. One of his favorite picture book lessons was inspired by Margie Palatini's Dragnet parody, The Web Files. Dragnet radio shows can be downloaded to your iPod. You can access this lesson by clicking here.
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 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. |
Tamara's first iPod Lesson:
Ain't That America
 Overview: John Mellencamp's song Pink Houses focuses on conflicts such as racism, poverty and shattered Amerifcan dreams. For this assignment, students will re-write the song's lyrics, incorporating conflicts from literature they are reading, history they are studying, or conflicts an original character they create might be having.
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Tamara's second iPod Lesson:
Creating Memorable Advice
 Overview: Inspired by Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), this lesson asks students to think about memorable writing--writing that has, in some way, touched them personally. Students will make multiple drafts of simple advice in order to make it more memorable.
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 Meet NNWP iPod Presenter:
Jodie Black
Former NNWP Co-Director and amazing Nevada 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 |
Jodie's iPod Lesson:
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.
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A Picture Book Lesson from Jodie:
Environmental Alphabet
 Overview: Inspired by Stephen T. Johnson's Alphabet City, students learn about the letters of the alphabet by photographing things in their homes that resemble the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. A class book is created through this process, and students can check out this book during classroom reading time.
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 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. |
Yvette's original iPod Lesson:
this i believe Essays...Science
 Overview: Students first listen to several episodes of the “This I Believe” podcast to understand the structure of these NPR essays. Next, they will listen to a “Science Friday” podcasts on current issues. Finally, students will write a "This I Believe" essay about a current scientific issue, which can be published on a classroom iPod or webpage.
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Two more iPod Lessons inspired by Yvette:
Using NPR's this i believe essay-format as inspiration, students write a podcast script from the perspective of a literary character or a historical personality. |
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 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. |
Kim's iPod Lesson:
What's Important in Your World?
 Overview: We Didn’t Start the Fire is a song by Billy Joel which catalogues historical events that happened during a period in his life, between 1949 and 1989. This lesson calls for students to take a closer look at some of the important historical events in their own lifetimes.
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A Literature-inspired Lesson from Kim:
Mechanical Monsters
 Overview: Kim is also a regular presenter at the NNWP's Literature Excerpts as Mentor Texts inservice class for teachers. Her favorite lesson to present is the lesson she created that was inspired by Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. You can access this lesson by clicking here.
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 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. |
Amie's iPod Lesson:
Advice to Youth on Things Now GONE
 Lesson Overview: Poetry and music are unmistakably intermixed. After listening to a modern song by Switchfoot and reading a famous "old" poem, students will create their own song or poem about their life philosophy.
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 Overview: Amie also coordinates the NNWP's Chapter Books as Mentor Texts inservice class for teachers. Her favorite chapter book lesson to present is the lesson she created that was inspired by Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring. You can access this lesson by clicking here. |
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 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. |
Amy's iPod Lesson:
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. They then attempt to add moods from the song variations to pieces of writing about personal summertime memories in the form of short narratives. Amy has also been known to present this lesson at the Narrative & Memoir Inservice sponsored by the NNWP.
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A Picture Book Lesson from Amy:
Emotional Monologues
 Overview: Inspired by the emotional and persuasive monologue by the narrator of Stephen L. Layne's My Brother Dan's Delicious, writers will write an emotional monologue. The monologues will focus on addressing an unpleasant abstract or body-less noun that the students will personify before writing. This lesson is often featured in the Persuasive Writing Across the Curriculum inservice class sponsored by the NNWP.
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Twenty Lessons Created by Teachers Who Attended our Inservice Class
(click on lesson titles or images to access the complete lessons on-line) |
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 language arts 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 |
Lesson:
Your Own Personal Bucket List
 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.
Lesson Author: Temoca Dixon, Nevada middle school language arts teacher |
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
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Click on the lesson's title or the picture thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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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:
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 |
Lesson:
Where is the Love?
 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:
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 |
Click on the lesson's title or the picture thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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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:
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:
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 |
Lesson:
Teaching Character Traits
 Overview: In this lesson, 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. Hopefully, they will build their own character by sharing their stories with little ones!
Lesson Author: Campbell Valle, Nevada middle school language arts teacher |
Click on the lesson's title or the picture thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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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 |
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:
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:
Things I Love Poems and Songs
 Overview: Inspired by Tom T. Hall's "I Love," students will create a poem/song about things they love. The poems will be modeled after Hall's song (with younger students) or after Eloise Greenfield's poem, Honey, I Love (with older students). The purpose of the poem is for students to show who they are by sharing what they love.
Lesson Author: Karen McGee, retired Kindergarten teacher and literacy trainer |
Click on the lesson's title or the picture thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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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:
What's Your Beautiful Noise?
 Overview: Students will first create a mind movie. Inspired by its images, they will then listen to Neil Diamond’s Beautiful Noise and record the images that he describes in the song. Finally, they will choose their own beautiful noise and turn the images of those sounds into a poem.
Lesson Author: Lisa Larson, Nevada middle 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:
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 |
Click on the lesson's title or the picture thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Lesson:
A Teenage Tale
(coming this Summer!)
 Overview:
Lesson Author: Nick Kuster, Nevada high school social studies teacher |
Lesson:
Character
(coming this Summer!)
 Overview:
Lesson Author: Sparrow Malvino, Nevada high school language arts teacher |
Lesson:
Dreams
(coming this Summer!)
 Overview:
Lesson Author: Matt Ochs, Nevada high school social studies teacher
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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 |
Click on the lesson's title or the picture thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
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Our summer project: Between June and August, we will be posting 36 more iPods Across the Curriculum Lessons, all created by Nevada teachers during three workshops presented by the NNWP during the 2008-2009 school year! |
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Copyright 2009 - The Northern Nevada Writing Project and WritingFix- All Rights Reserved
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