Regional Songs- a list for Dre

My literacy consultant (one of a billion TFA staffers) does this awesome thing with rap songs to get his kids to learn active reading strategies (like questioning, making connections, and predicting while reading) Rap is great because 1)it gets their attention and 2)it's heavy in culture-specific knowledge.

So while I probably can't do it this summer, I loved the idea and want to use it with my ESL kids next year. I might as well get a jump start because school starts mid-August and I have to be all planned by before then.

So, I want to collect as many songs as possible that are about or heavily reference a particular area. I thought it would be fun to compare how different artists represent themselves, and then my class could figure out what represents us where we come from.

Help me and post as many as you can think of here, like this. It's OK if they're not rap songs, too.

Thanks!

California Love - Tupac and Dr. Dre - California (L.A.)

Notorious B.I.G. - Going Back to Cali - California (L.A.)

Welcome to Atlanta - Jermaine Dupri, Ludacris - Atlanta
(remix w/P. Diddy, Murphy Lee, Snoop Dogg - NY, St. Louis, Long Beach)

Miami - Will Smith - Miami

St. Louie, S.T.L. - Nelly - St. Louis

Southern Hospitality - Ludacris - the South

This Is The Way We Ball - Lil' Flip - Houston

Brooklyn's Finest - Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G. - Brooklyn

NYMP - Jay-Z - Brooklyn

Welcome to New York - Cam'Ron f/ Jay-Z, Juelz Santana - New York post 9/11

Uptown by lord tariq and peter gunz
Going back to cali ll cool j

Is this effective as a teaching tool? I know when I was a younger student, I always disliked those times when my teacher tried to be "cool" and use some aspect of pop culture to teach.

But, I've never been "normal", so maybe everyone else was enjoying themselves when I was bored out of my mind.

--Joey

I think it depends on the particular class and if the teacher can get away with it based on her relationship with them. Some teachers could say they liked pop music and you would never believe them because they were obviously out of touch with what was happening with us. But when explaining "ecosystem " to my students yesterday I used the example of a Nintendo system and my students loved it. They know I'm young and can relate with them a bit. And anyway I wouldn't do this kind of thing all the time, just at first to teach the content, then you move on to other texts. There's mostly young teachers at my school for next year so the kids expect them to be a little more laid-back.

Dre

My old time favorite...Summer Time, by Wil Smith, I think he was DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince way back then.

Good luck :cool:

CBJ