Using music references and digital media to draw students into reading YA books
A Book Suggestion, Review, and Series of
Literacy Activities for Young Adult Readers and Learners by Dr. Rose Reissman
Featured YA Book
Solo by Kwame Alexander with Mary Rand Hess
New York: Harper Collins, 2017.
Grades 9-12
.
You watch teens immersed in the world of online
music, headphones on, swaying to the beat.
While you, an adult ELA educator, may share this passion, Still, you’re accountable
for developing your students’ capacity to respond to and comprehend printed
text. You so want them to transfer their
intense music engagement to the text at hand.
Fortunately YA literature, with its roots in teens’ passions, offers
many baited hooks.
There are numerous major YA works which focus on musicians and, in particular,
rock, pop, and hip hop stars. Not only
do these works sometimes engage teen rock star wannabes, but well crafted ones, such as Kwame Alexander’s Solo, can be
presented in tandem with the experience of actually listening to the music referenced;
perhaps the way the kids love it, at full blast.
Another compelling YA novel in verse (which is the
craft format for musical lyrics) by Kwame Alexander is the Newbery 2015 medal
winner, The Crossover. This one, with
its evocative cover design of a young man and his guitar, immediately grabs its
teen target audience.
Want to make the guitar on the cover play for teen
readers? The following are 5 exercises that the ‘in tune’ literacy educator
can, with the support of digital access to music and video, implement to make
the experience of reading YA literature enjoyable, relevant, and highly
engaging.
Reading
with Music Full Blast-Exercise 1
Teens can be asked, prior to reading this book, to
discuss top guitarists on the charts and those they consider best in pop music history
past or on the current scene. They can
even go online to get sample performance videos; Youtube is a tremendous source
for these. Links to these can be saved
and shared by students one on one via
email or as a whole class effort through easy to use, collaboration supporting
tech applications, like Google Docs or a class blog (e.g. Google’s free, Blogger resource).
The lure goes beyond the individual poems/lyrics
which nicely encapsulate a detailed history of many great pop music tracks. Solo
is the story of Blade, a young man, son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed up, narcissistic, rock and roll star,
Blade Morrison.
Although it would initially seem that few target readers could relate to his privileged
Hollywood teen issues. Blade’s issues:
finding out he’s adopted, being betrayed by his first teen love, being
uncertain of his talent or direction, dealing silently with the loss of his
adopted mother, dealing angrily with his relapsing, addicted father, ‘got your
back, but at your back’ relationship with a sibling, and dealing with public humiliation
in front of his peers by his father; all
ae part and parcel of universal teen angst, joy,,, rites of passage. This work is over 400 pages long, however, because
it is related through extremely readable
commentary about key rock and roll artists, as well as through original, cut to
emotions poetry it reads quickly, in under three hours. Who would not chose a work that students
would be captivated enough to read in a fell swoop?
Reading
with Music Full Blast –Exercise 2
Ask that students listen to the specific music cited
at the beginning/ top of the chapter and then, as listeners, react to
the music. Sharing it by downloading it or swapping urls of online videos. They can share commentary found in the book they
particularly agree or disagree with within their circle of collaborating
learners. This exercise should engage many more musically focused students than
are usually engaged in even YA books that are simply about musicians.
The use of
teen focused analysis of musical style and emotional impact and its fit
to 21st century teen reality, makes it a work that is particularly
meaningful for adolescents, reading to comprehend life and to mediate its
challenges.
The very realistic and richly colored issues of
trust, truth, rivalry, transparency, personal image, and parental values,
things that affect every teen relationship, are bluntly presented here. Even the seemingly over the top, addicted
rock star father is shown in depth with his own emotional baggage and his own
musical passion underneath his reality show and publicity stunts.
While initially Blade, as the adopted son of rock
star royalty, with family friends who are pop icons, would not seem relatable
to a broad spectrum of teens, his struggles and self questioning about his
musicianship, his journey to confront his biological roots, as well as his openness and willingness to
step up help others: all are conditions of young adult life. Blade follows his bliss and emotions, which
is laudable in and of itself. He also
takes responsibility, even though outwardly angry and defiant, for his father
and his recovery from addiction. He
maintains text connections with his sister Storm and solidly cares for her well
being. Students can be asked to comment on these
texts between siblings and if appropriate/applicable, compare and contrast them
with the text they exchange with their own siblings. These can be saved as
commentary on how sibling relationships are affected and influenced by text
communications.
Most important, within this work, driven by the
guitar solos and lyrics of the fictional
Blade, the protagonist’s involvement in supporting a Ghana village in dire need
of help.
Blade’s first person narrative of this, not only
achingly shares his bleeding heartbreak, but also educates about actual, third
world technology, social and medical needs (malaria and the need for mosquito
nets). Students should research the use
of mosquito nets and third world illnesses that, in fact, kill in the third world. They can file informational reports and
perhaps be challenged to produce poetry or lyrics about how this information
impacts their real life geographic peers in other countries.
Reading
with the Music Full Blast-Exercise 3
All students
can be challenged anticipate the
sound and style of Blade’s music. They
can check out Kwame’s/ Blade’s actual music online https://youtu.be/qekgoGHkoHg
Beyond their listening, they can comment on how it
compares and contrasts with their anticipation of it. They can even compare it to other tracks they
feel it is inspired by.
Reading
with the Music Full Blast- Exercise 4
Students can also be challenged, if they enjoyed the
book, to reread it in tandem with its playlist site and detail the ultimate
reading with the music full blast experience.
In addition, they can do secondary and primary
source research about the literacy needs of Ghana and the author’s personal
work there, going as directed in the acknowledgements to: http://www.LeapforGhana.org. Finally, they can follow up on the surprising fact that
malaria is a deadly disease in the third world, by taking the author’s suggestion and learning
more at: http://www.Malarianomore.org.
Reading
with the Music Full Blast-Exercise 5
For audio learners and music lovers, the work is
filled with special domain music terms and references which can be compiled into
a glossary. This might be shared on the author’s site as well as uploaded to
the class or school library site that will enhance teen comprehension of the
book. Using the chromebooks, students
can reference audio files as part of their glossary of terms, making the
glossary a lexicographical musical experience.
Who says dictionaries have to be print text only?
The poems in
this work, while certainly reflecting the experiences of its 18yearold guitar
strumming hero, also show the influence of great lyric song and poetry writers
of the late twentieth century and 21st century. Blade was also the salutatorian of his
class. Students can be challenged to
identify lines and motifs that show how Blade is influenced by published poets
and lyricists in his original work.
The
last poem of the novel, titled “I sing”,
which of course brings to mind 19th
century Walt Whitman, includes the lyric -“I play the
song/inside/that’s been waiting.” The
power of the fictional Blade’s being open to his own lyric and adult voice and
decisions, lies in its unlocking a parallel openness in readers to play their
own inside sing takes on life.
Ultimately “soloing” is the rite of passage to adulthood.
When a story focuses on musicians or
listening to pivotal music that drives the plot, encourage readers to "play"
those notes full blast!
Other
YA books that can be “read with the music full blast” include:
- If I Stay –
Gale Forman
- Ballads of
Suburbia - Stephanie Huehnert
- Amplified -
Tara Kelley
- Audrey ,
Wait - Robin Benway
- Virtuosity
- Jessica Martinez
- Where She
Went - Gayle Forman
- This Song Will
Save Your Life - Leila Sales
- Just Listen
– Sarah Dressen
- Eleanor and
Park – Rainbow Rowell
- Wise Young
Foul- Sean Beaudoin
- The
Heartbreakers- Ali Novak
- Nick and
Norah’s Infinite Playlist-Rachel Cohn and David Levitan
- Good Enough
–Paula Yoo
- The Haters-
Jesse Andrews
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute,
now replicated in 200 schools including the Manchester Charter Middle School in
Pittsburgh. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators
Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies
developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. roshchaya@gmail.com
