Song Lyrics

Song lyrics quite often represent reflections from the writers past. In their lyrics, song writers remember decisions they made, people that were important to them, problems in their lives and how they reacted at the time.

Step 20 : Formative Assessment

In your Readers Notebook reflect on a song you remember and explain what the song is about, what is its title, who sings or plays it, what you think about when you hear that song and why it is important to you. You will be reading the lyrics to several songs and will be making comments about them in your Readers Notebook.

"Cats in the Cradle"

Harry Chapin

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/harry-chapin/cats-in-the-cradle.html

Step 21: Formative Assessment

Read the song lyrics for "Cats in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin and in your Readers Notebook answer the following questions about this song? Have you ever heard this song before? What is it about? What did the writer of this song think was important when he was a young man? What similarities do you notice between how this man was treated by his father and how he is now treating his father? What does he think is important now that his child is all grown up? Do you think he has any regrets? Why? Why not?

"Nineteen Somethin'"

Mark Willis

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/mark-wills/19-somethin.html

In this song, Mark Willis reflects on the passage of time.

Step 22 : Formative Assessment

In your Readers Notebook reflect on what was important during the 1970s and 1980s according to Mark Willis. How did people dress, how did they look? What did they like to do? What was important to them? If you were to write lyrics for the song "Twenty Somethin" in your Readers Notebook write some lines for a song for people in 2030 who would be looking back to this decade of 2010. What is important now? Who is important? What do people look like? What do they like to do? How do they dress? What movies and music are popular now?

"Fifteen"

William Stafford http://www.angelfire.com/mi/patter/fifteen.html

Step 23: Formative Assessment

In your Readers Notebook answer the following questions.

In this reflective piece William Stafford had a choice to make when he was fifteen. What choice did he make? What does he think of his choice at the end? Would this be the choice you would make if you had the same decision to make? Why? Why not?

Step 24: Summative Assessment: Song Lyrics

Now that you have read and reacted to three sets of song lyrics, in your Readers Notebook write a reflective song lyric of your own expressing what is important to you, what you want others to know about you, what you believe makes you unique or what lasting impression from your experience you want to leave.

Rubric for Song Lyrics SongRubric.pdf

Last modified: Tuesday, 21 June 2011, 12:25 PM