A lesson plan
The New York Times offers a lesson plan entitled:
« Creating Album Covers That Reflect Students’ Political and Social Concerns »
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20030404friday.html
An article
the lesson is based on the article:
« Furor Over Rapper’s Cover-Art Statement », By NEIL STRAUSS,April 4, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20030404friday.html
including words like:
cameos, depicts, shun, contender, marginalized, diatribe, blunted, rails, payola, provocateur, exploitation, objectifying….
A picture
With intermediate students ( à partir de la 4ème ou même en IDD?) you can use only the cover of the album « Sonic Jihad » by the US black rapper Paris, « depicting a jet about to slam into the White House » :
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/04/03/arts/03POPL.184.jpg
and invite your students to find reasons to ( or not to) release/sell/buy this album, from the point of view of : the record label executive, a record store owner, a consumer. This can lead to an interesting debate in the class, and make the students use in an authentic context the words, phrases and grammatical forms to defend their case, convince, disagree and react on the spot to the others’ statements.
Crosscurricular activities
– Art : The students will work with the art teacher to design a CD cover trying to raise public awareness for a problem they feel concerned with.
– Native/foreign language : the students will brainstorm to find the key ideas concerning the problem they have chosen and its consequences and solutions.With the help of this mind map, they will find a title for their album and the other songs, and even write the lyrics for a song.
– Music : with the music teachers, the students will create a song or several, based on the lyrics they invented.
This will show students how music can be used to convey a message and also give the opportunity to the students who feel like expressing their feelings about the war to voice them in a constructive context.
This activity can of course be adapted to higher classes.
Cultural theme : « Revolt »
From a cultural point of view, note the panther in the name « Paris » in the picture on the cover : this shows that Paris wants to stress his link with the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam ( Malcolm X’s movement), as you can read it in his short biography on his official website:
http://www.guerillafunk.com/paris/
Malcolm X
history of the NOI (Nation Of Islam) on the official site of this religious movement (no mention of Malcolm X)
http://www.noi.org/history_of_noi.htm?history=&Nation+of+Islam=&noi=
history of the NOI on a Christian site (also biased)
http://www.breakaway.org/noi/history.htm
Biography of Malcolm X
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/malcolm/bio.html
the legacy of Malcolm (how he questioned the validity of the leader of the NOI, and criticized their message of hatred, with a link to the black Panthers at the end
http://www.ghg.net/hollaway/civil/civil46.htm
Black Panthers:
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/index-be.html
Lien avec les programmes officiels français
Ceci correspond au thème culturel « les relations de pouvoir » ( p3 sur 8) du nouveau programme de 1ère qui est en consultation sur:
http://www.eduscol.education.fr/D0014/lycee_anglais.pdf
et plus précisément dans les exemples du contenu culturel p7 sur 8, dans la rubrique « révolte »:
« mouvements de libération : « Black Panthers, Nation of Islam »
et aussi « arts » : funk et rap.
Song and Lyrics
From the bio page of Paris, you can also download his free internet-only anti-establishment anthem – the single entitled, “What Would You Do?” in protest of the US Government’s current policies and lies.
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/audio/paris/Sonic_Jihad/WhatWouldYouDoLong.mp3
Maybe you can use this song as a background music for the activity : As for the lyrics, I found two versions
– one in which I couldn’t make out the message through the flow of rude words….
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/cgi-bin/frames.cgi? http://www.lyricsdownload.com/data/p/paris/paris_record_label_murder.php4
and another one which seems more understandable
http://www.letssingit.com/paris-what-would-you-do-jbhxknn.html
Paris’ Biography
from Rolling Stones Magazine ( short, with the word : « moniker » for nickname)
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bio.asp?oid=5467
from his official website
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris/bio/paris.html
About the videoclip showing the assassination of the President
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/archive/08_02_01/news.html
(scroll down to : » Getting it Off : Torrey says Cascadia Alive! goes beyond free speech. » by Orna Izakson)
The article depicts how this 4 minute clip was shown on TV on the 4th of July 2001….and that the President in the clip was G.W.Bush Father!
You can hear the song:
http://www.guerillafunk.com/audio/paris/Sleeping_With_Enemy/BushKillaOrig.mp3
Songs and videos online
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris/devil_made_me_do_it/
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris/sleeping_with_the_enemy/
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris/unleashed/