Reflection 1

I chose Illuminating Chaucer through Poetry, Manuscript Illuminations, and a Critical Rap Album by Tom Lynch for my first response. I loved reading this article because it inspired me to make use of different forms of media in my classroom. I am already aiming to use innovative methods to teach my students material in fun ways, and reading this article has given me insight into how I could accomplish my goal. In Illuminating Chaucer Mr. Lynch was able to get his New York city high school students interested in “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer, because he gave his students a relatable topic that they easily connected with. The students in Mr. Lynch’s classroom made connections between “The Canterbury Tales” and rap music through popular rap artists like Kanye west, Eminem and Limp Bizkit.

Using artists that were popular in the rap community was an excellent way of getting the students to debate in class and it got them pulling from Chaucer’s work in a more deeply meaningful way. The integrative qualities of the lesson that Mr. Lynch used in his English class were far reaching. He managed to implement not only a lesson for English, but also lessons for art, music, technology, and social studies. The students were asked to take the elements of rap music, “The Canterbury Tales”, Chaucers point of view, and politics and government to create their own rap. Then, students traded their rap with a peer and collaborated to “remix” their poems into a cohesive rap. I really liked how the students had to keep in mind the technical aspects of writing poetry while they were writing their raps. Most people assume that rapping and free-styling are the same thing, but rapping is actually a form of poetry that expresses emotions while grappling with ideas about what is right and wrong, while free-styling focuses on making rhymes and doesn’t look too closely at the meaning behind them. Mr. Lynch said that he hoped that every time one of his students hears a rap song that they will connect it to the lessons in their class. I made a text-to-self connection here because I took a Jazz class at NC State that used a particular song during warm-ups and I know the song from the very first note and from memory I start picturing the movements in my head. I absolutely believe that Mr. Lynch’s students will carry that moment in their lives around with them for the rest of their existence.

Using rap in the classroom would be unconventional due to the offensive lyrics they contain so I am not sure how Mr. Lynch was able to do so. Limp Bizkit and Eminem use foul language and offensive lyrics in all of their songs, Eminem is especially guilty of this. I am, however, excited to see the finished product that occurred because of this teachers perseverance.

One of the songs can be heard here:

http://tomliamlynch.org is Tom Lynch's website on literacy, literacies, and literature.