Note: In a few weeks, my students will read this entry as part of a music analysis lesson. That is why some of their achievements appear in it. ;)
There are many perks to being a teacher: working with hilarious students/colleagues, creating meaningful lessons, seeing students improve, etc.
One specific perk I get every November is participating in Rock and Cole. In the Rock and Cole project, students create their own mixed CD, matching five characters from the novel Touching Spirit Bear to five songs. (The project gets its name from Spirit Bear’s central character, Cole Matthews.) In the days leading up to the in-class concert, students scour book passages and song lyrics to find things that connect. On concert day, each student analyzes another student’s CD, trying to match the characters, songs, traits, and quotes. It’s also a pretty entertaining day, considering the desks are filled with 30-plus CD players, boom boxes, and headphones, and several students rock out as they work.
The best part for me is that I get to listen to all the CDs. New discoveries this year were The Apache Relay’s “Power Hungry Animals,” Weezer’s “Islands in the Sun,” Kansas’ “Carry On, Wayward Son,” The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” Ylvis’ “The Fox,” Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball,” and Disney’s “Colors of the Wind.” (Ok, so the last three weren’t ‘new discoveries.’ I had, sadly, heard those three 300 times before.)
Student award winners for this year included:
-- Star Performers MO, JF, AB, JM, JL, SG, LV, DD, AA, RH, JZ, MG, AN, MC, JS, MD1, MD2, AN, HD, JL, LA, KS, NT, BG, BY, JC, CM, JS, and Skrillex-victim / Carter-Brown-impersonator BJ. These students proved they did not need a band or stage to perform. They could rock out in a DESK!
-- Rock Survivors JM, ND, MT, BH, ON, NT, GD, NN, SK, LA, YS, CN, AN, and CM. These students made it all the way through their CDs, despite multiple CD / headphone debacles.
-- Star Vocalists TS, AM, BG, MD, HD, and DK. These students totally understood how to speak with headphones on. They always spoke AT AN APPROPRIATE VOLUME…
-- Star Reviewers SR, MO, JM, EK, EB, DD, LK, SC, MT, BH, KB, JJ, AT, KP, AF, LS, CE, AN, EO, SM, AV, NT, MG, MS, GU, KB, MD, YK, KS, GD, GC, SF, DC, AN, JM, and CN. These students reviewed their CDs with the precision of professional rock critics. Wonder if Rolling Stone magazine is in any of their futures…
-- Rock Comics MD, AN, AM, JJ, CK, JS, MC, HH, DK, and JC. These students should be recognized for filling the concert with funny moments. MD reacted “Omg, this is the scariest song ever” to Simon and Garfunkel, and AN reacted “Omg, this is the best song ever” to One Direction. These descriptions may have been inaccurate, but they were both funny. Even though they heard it separate periods, as they heard “The Gilligan’s Island Theme Song,” AM and JJ both squawked, “This song is too catchy – stop being catchy!” CK and JS were also in separate periods, yet their anthropomorphic computers both decided to blast out Phillip Phillips’ “Gone Gone Gone” despite their attempts to stop them.
No one tried to stop MC from transforming Eminem into Bob Marley; it just happened. The way MC karaoked “Lose Yourself,” it sounded more like “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Eminem The Jamaican – interesting interpretation. ;) A hilariously ironic interpretation was HH’s reaction to George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone.” HH insisted, “I love this song. This is my jam.”
DK could not choose a ‘jam’; he was too busy getting amusingly angry at the number of songs that matched Spirit Bear’s main character. The songs prompted DK and other students to ask the same basic question, “I get that Cole is a round, dynamic, three-dimensional character, but does EVERY song have to fit him?” All periods got to share in the amusing misery in the preceding days, as they heard parts of that song and other ridiculous songs: “I’m a Little Teapot,” “I’m a Gummy Bear,” Frank Sinatra’s “Happy Birthday,” and [thanks to JC], Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” / “Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight.”
-- All students, for making this Rock and Cole the best in seven years. New policy changes made everything smoother: i.e. using more laptops than CD players, including friends’ names on friends’ folders, writing concert achievements directly on the whiteboard, making whiteboard students eligible for White Chocolate Oreos, etc. More students also submitted full folders and got playable CDs than ever before, and all students were able to find classmates’ Favorite Word on their folders, which has not been true in previous years. In the end, SS and JL still said it best: “Couldn’t we listen and learn from music every day?” If only…
Grade: A
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