Oh my goodness, I can’t believe how much fun I had in April talking about hip hop for National Poetry Month.
I spent the month using this book to talk to some of my 4th and 5th graders about rhythm, beats, and structure. We looked at poems side-by-side with some lyrics, and we talked about how both poems and hip hop lyrics have a structure. We talked about how the number of syllables in each line needs to make sense with the whole verse or the way it flows will be broken…that sort of thing. We talked about how hard it can be to write a good poem or a good song, and I read them Nikki Giovanni’s introduction in the book. The intro talks about the roots of hip hop, compares it to opera, warns kids not to be fooled by all the embarassing rap songs out there. True hip hop is like poetry. And on and on and on.