Our first week back from Northern Nevada Spring Break!
I was out observing at an elementary school yesterday, and I think I saw the more charming thing I've ever seen in a third grade class. With lyrics in hand and the original playing over the classroom stereo system, the students were singing Katy Perry's "Firework." They sang it so well, it was clear this was not their first exposure to this song. And they sang it with such energy; several of the boys were singing it with their eyes closed and swaying their heads as they crooned.
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| See Firework video here. |
The lesson was on figurative language. The students were raising their right hands when they sang a lyric that was either a simile or a metaphor, and they rasied their left hands when they sang a lyric that had an onomatopoetic word (or two) in it. I hadn't realized this song had all three figurative elements in it.
Anyway, as one of the co-founders of WritingFix's Song Lyrics as Mentor Texts Lesson Collection, I was naturally charmed by this experience. It left me with two questions, though:
- At what age do these elementary students lose the ability to sing their hearts out like that? When does "being cool" become more important?
- And...What will those kids' parents think the next time they have them riding in the backseat of the car, and that song comes on the radio, and they start raising their left and right hands as they sing along?
--Corbett
