HipHop with Ms Ryan

HipHop has been in the spotlight this week, for good and for bad. On one hand, the 'culture' has been blamed for the London riots. On the other, Channel 4 aired the highly celebrated 'Life of Rhyme'. I was really impressed with the show, and grateful to everyone involved in creating it. Too often, I feel as though I have to explain myself; justifying the need for HipHop in the classroom and reassuring people that I don't use any of 'that gangsta stuff' (rolls eyes) From now on, I'll tell them to go and watch 'Life of Rhyme' here before making assumptions.

Personally, I've been inspired to incorporate it more and more in my lessons next year. Partly because of my own passion; partly because my students always lap it up; partly to prove that it is relevant and necessary. When I speak of HipHop, I don't mean throwing in a few raps here and there for the novelty factor, it's bigger than that. So, aside from looking at the linguistic aspects, it also allows the opportunity to explore wider social and historical contexts. Namley, the cultures, history and influence of Africa and the diaspora, an area that MUST be taught intrinsically in our curriculum. 

Here are a few ways HipHop (and the extended 'culture') will creep into my classroom next academc term...

English (Key stage 3 and GCSE)

Benjamin Zephaniah's 'Dis Poetry'.

Students learn and explore figurative language (similes, metaphors, personification, assonance, alliteration)

'My Addidas' by Run DMC.

Students study the rap then create a their own rap that personifies a treasured, inanimate object.

Malorie Blackman's 'Noughts and Crosses' and 'Nothing's Changed' by Tatamkhulu Afrika.

We read Blackman's novel about an Apartheid state with a twist; Blacks are the ruling class. Pupils learn the history of Apartheid in South Africa, using Tatamkulu's poem as a stimulus. Students write an essay, that will also be delivered orally, on the representation of racial divides in literature and how this relates to the world they live in. Students also look at Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and their roles in the US Civil Rights Movement.


'Refugee Boy' by Benjamin Zephaniah

This novel explores the story of Alem, a half-Ethiopian, half-Eritrean boy, who seeks refuge from his war-torn home to come to England. It allows the opportunity to explore the geography and history of this part of East-Africa, as well as issues of asylum, refuge and race. Students create a marketing campaign for Refugee Rights; poster, leaflet and a speech or a rap (depending on skills and interest!)


Attitudes to Spoken language (GCSE English)
Last year we looked at 'electronic' language (tweets, texts and MSN). My students completed great coursework analysing JME and Stephen Fry, using their tweets to explore their idiolect and sociolects. My lesson ended up on The Sun online! 

This year, we'll focus on transcribing actual speech. With a focus on the language of social class, sub-cultures and age. I will definitely use these two videos to get us started:


Dizzee Rascal Meets Paxman:





David Starkey on Newsnight:





GCSE Poetry 'Checking Out Me History' by John Agard, linked with 'I Can' (3rd verse)by Nas.

Students will look at the forgotten and misrepresented history of Africans by exploring both texts. They will undertake research projects on Toussaint L'Ouverture, Mary Seacole, The Maroons, The Zulus, Kush and Timbuktu. 

Riots Debate
Almost as soon as we get back, my year elevens will plan and execute a debate about the London Riots; Newsnight style. This will be assessed for the Oral GCSE.


I use this when teaching Macbeth (thanks Flocabulary!)

Other Poems:

'Half-Caste' (Agard); 'Still I Rise' (Angelou); 'Hurricane Hits England' and 'Island Man' (Nichols); 'Limbo' (Kamau Braithwaite);'I Sing of Change' (Osundare).

Other Raps:
'For Women' (Talib Kweli); 'Fight the Power' (P.E.); 'Lose Yourself' (Eminem); 'I used to love H.E.R.' (Common); 'Me Against the World' (Tupac).





Media Studies (GCSE)

Representations of specific groups during the riots
Media Representations can be challenging topic for 14 year olds. Very often, they hold the stereotypes found in the media, as their own viewpoint on people. The riots present an excellent opportunity to explore misrepresentation of groups of people and the power of media propaganda to infiltrate public opinion.

Music Promotion
This will be my third year teaching music video, and I'm really looking forward to it. The students enjoy it too, of course! Generally, the most popular music genres for my students are HipHop, RnB and Grime. I always seize the opportunity to show them more innovative, 'undergound' artists, who they normally haven't heard of. We look at various issues surrounding music video including:

• Independent labels, Major labels and Unsigned artists.
• The power of YouTube and social media.
• Controversy in Music Video.
• Representations of people, places and ideas.

Students then undertake planning and pre-production for their own music video, where they create an artist who provides a countertype for the misrepresentations.


Floetry - Rap Club


I run a rap club at school, where we meet once a week to write and perform rhymes. Here is what I hope to achieve with the group this year:

• Create a hip-hop/lyricist wall of fame in my classroom, giving students to study the history of the culture.
• More audio and video recordings of the students' rhymes.
• Discover ways to use rhymes for revision.
• Visits from rappers/performance poets.
• Collaborations with rap clubs in other schools.

So there you have it, by no means exhaustive, but a taste of how I like to stretch the curriculum. There is a completely relevant place for HipHop in the classroom; it's contemporary poetry of the people, as socially relevant now as the 'master poets' of their day. I'll leave you with a little quote from Greg Tate concerning the future of HipHop:

"When asked whether he saw an end to rapping, Afrika Bambaata said he expected that MC-ing would be around as long as people were still talking. By this logic, the future of HipHop lies in the first cry of the next unborn soul, man or woman. If you want to know the future of HipHop, get thee to a maternity ward."