Ever since I met the two founders of Flocabulary (Blake and Alex) in 2007, I’ve been a huge fan of the guys, their company and their mission.
Flocabulary helps teachers use hip hop and rap music to teach their students ELA, social studies. math and science. The Flocabulary site states:
The idea for Flocabulary first came to founder/lyricist Blake Harrison in high school. A good student who still struggled to memorize facts for tests, he wondered why it was so easy to remember lines to his favorite rap songs but so difficult to memorize academic information. Blake realized that if a rapper released an album that defined SAT vocab words, students would have a fun and effective way to study for the SAT…
Curious? Take a look at the video above and make sure to visit Flocabulary’s website after!
Word Up!
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This is AWESOME. This is a powerful way to teach students by using something they love and enjoy. I hope they come up with something like this to teach vocab for younger grades too!
What a fantastic way to teach! I think this is a great way to get the students involved with learning. They will get so much more out of it because it is something that they can relate to.
Cool stuff! I like what these guys are doing, and it’s a good look for Hip-Hop too
Some other great Hip-Hop books –
Check The Technique http://www.waxfacts.com
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop http://www.cantstopwontstop.com
How To Rap http://www.howtorapbook.com
Classic Material http://www.o-dub.com/classic/classic.html
This is a very amazing article.
Thanks for that
What a great way to connect to our adolescent readers using a new form of literacy. I could see my students getting excited about learning words for purposes that directly relate to their interests and everyday life. It would be interesting to see if the students make the transfer of this strategy to content areas if they were only receiving this type of vocab instruction in their reading or language arts courses.
well my teaccher is doing a rap for history c lass!