Learning with Hip Hop and Rap

Rap music is somewhat of a polarizing topic in schools.  You either love it or despise it!  Today, I'm sharing two resources teachers can use to teach current events and other topics with free resources from Flowcabulary and The Week in Rap.

Flowcabulary sponsors The Week in Rap, a site that produces weekly summaries of world news in a rap song/video.  In addition, you can search news topics and watch rap videos via Vimeo so they should not be blocked in your school.  Here is one 2-minute example from 2010.

Week In Rap 2.19.10 from Flocabulary on Vimeo.

Teachers are always looking for ways to integrate current events into the curriculum and The Week in Rap is another resource for you to consider.  The site keeps it simple and only does one thing, but does it well.  The staff at Flocabulary are the producers of the videos.

Check out the free resources on Flowcabulary.  This is a commercial website but they do have the free resources for teachers that are quite good.  If you are looking for another way to engage your students using music and video, these sites are worth a look if you teach middle school or high school.  Enjoy!

TeachHUB Video Writing Prompts

Teachhub.com is a free teacher resource website that offers a number of important features.   You will find tabs for lessons & teaching tools, education news, blogs, and more.  By signing up for a free membership, you can receive a monthly newsletter and become part of their learning network by sharing your lessons, stories and photographs. 

One of the resources I want to share is the video writing prompt.  The current resource features a clip of the recent U.S. Women's World Cup Soccer final and writing prompts for K-2 through high school levels.  You can also search through previous writing prompts.   The combination of a video clip and focused questions may be a resource that sparks creativity and engages your students.  It doesn't get much simpler than this to find interesting writing prompts for your students that are designed for specific age levels.

 Featured video writing prompt - U.S. Women's World Cup Soccer
http://www.teachhub.com/video-writing-prompts/cat/24/item/829

 There are so many other tools, information and resources you can check out in TeachHUB.  Start with the video writing prompts and search the site.  If you are looking for ways to learn and share, this site keeps it simple while providing a robust set of resources. 

If you use a video writing prompt or one of the other lessons, leave a comment and share your thoughts. 

I hope you enjoy this web resource!