Teaching Popular Music. Ernest Morrell

At Northwest Passage Charter School, my niece did a project where she interviewed people asking them; What is youth culture to you? She was involved in this project to find out more about her own self identity and culture. For youth to find out about origins of Hip-Hop and compare it to different works from different eras and relating it to social events gives youth a chance to think more deeply about their culture.



"It's Urban Americans expressing their struggles in Urban America where they were forced to deal with poverty and alienation." This is a definition that a student came up with while doing the Hip-Hop Research project. It fantastic that students can use a part of music to express themselves. What about the youth who don't listen to the music? Where do they fit in to all of this?



Students gained structure on how to conduct research, plan interviews, write notes, and publish papers. The hip-hop project seems to be a great stepping stone to pull in students interest and get them to learn some basic tendencies of an English class.



"Selecting songs that may not have the largest appeal, but are important for the large goals of the class," (pp. 70).