Music is an integral part of our human existence. It motivates us, calms us, inspires us, and at times irritates us. It serves as the backdrop against which we live our lives. Songs can bring vivid memories of persons, places, and events from our own past and serve to document our thoughts, feelings, and emotions at a given time or place.

I have students think about identity construction & representation through a music playlist. What this means is that I have them combine words, images, and music together into one representation of their lives. This is something they are usually already familiar with and requires them to think about literacy in a different way.

Music, expression, and identity can come in different languages and styles.

WRITE

Look back through the events you chronicled as you thought about the shape of your story. Consider the events that have shaped who you are, what you believe, and how you view the world. What major events have changed you, shaped you, influenced you, shook you? Are there times that were wildly happy or incredibly sad?

What moments have made you shift in how you see the world? They may be huge like the death of a loved one or your first day of school. Or they might have seemed insignificant at the time– like meeting your best friend or starting to play a sport.

Select at least eight events that were meaningful and identify a song or album that accompanies those events. After you have selected songs or albums to accompany each event, now bring order to the assembled materials.

Just as music producers do, try to create a progression in the sequence of your chosen songs/albums. For example, your songs/albums might be listed in the chronological order of the events they document. You might also mix the selections together so you don’t have all of the slow songs back-to-back. DO NOT just list them randomly. Put some thought into the order of your songs and the complete package you are presenting. Remember sometimes album releases include bonus tracks. 🙂

For each song/album, indicate the name of the song/album and the artist. Why is each song/album important to you? How does each song connect to your life? What does each song reveal about the kind of person you are and what you think is important in your life?

As an example, Ira Perry (also known as “S.C. Prince”) shares an example of how environment and decisions have impacted his life.

Organize these materials in a Google Doc to make it easier to create, revise, and share with others. If possible, link their selections to audio versions of tracks or albums on Spotify, or the music service of their choice. Increasingly, YouTube is also a great opportunity to connect to online versions of music.

To the Google Doc that has been used to brainstorm, create, and revise the soundtrack, create some sort of visual aide that will accompany this work. It could be an album cover, concert poster, flyer, or some other visual component that represents this work.

Lastly, situate the work a bit to help the audience make sense of what they’ll consume. I have students add the following structure to their work.

• In the first section, introduce yourself to the “listener.” This should just be a brief, autobiographical paragraph about who you are. This can be text, audio, or video.
• In the second section, explain your soundtrack to your listeners. What is this soundtrack explaining about you? What do you want the listeners to get out of hearing/reading your soundtrack? This can be text, audio, or video.
• Next, introduce each event/song/album combination as described earlier.
• Finally, in your conclusion, thank the listeners for “sharing” these meaningful life experiences with you. This is where you should sum up what this project has meant to you.

CONNECT

After you finish your poem…share this out with others.

You should share this out on Twitter as Write.As using the hashtag #WalkMyWorld. You should also include the hashtag #LE9 to indicate your response to this learning event.

Think of how you might use some of the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme from your favorites as an opportunity to write something new. As an example, consider grandfather of spoken word lyrics, Saul Williams, combining hip-hop and meditation back in 1998.

Through meditation, I program my heart to be breakbeats and hum baselines on exhalation. Om

Present your piece in our semi-private group in Flipgrid. Send me an email and I’ll bring you in.

Enjoy and connect with each other online.

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Graffiti flickr photo by Bombendrohung shared under a Creative Commons (BY-ND) license

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