Howdy do Hip-Hop Classroom! It’s my pleasure this week to share with you a very original, very incredible lesson plan from our good friend Shelby Oates. Shelby is a lit coach and teacher at Summerour Middle School, just outside of Atlanta, GA, and she never ceases to amaze with her academic creations: high-quality, detailed lesson plans to go along with units and themes – in this case from The Word Up Project: Level Blue.

The lesson plan has students learning new vocabulary words so well that they can literally “knock out” incorrect synonyms and definitions. There’s teamwork, there’s physical activity, there’s repetition and there’s competition. In other words: it’s fun AND it works.

For those of you using Word Up, enjoy this treat. For everyone else, maybe it will inspire some creative lesson planning of your own. A huge thanks to Shelby – keep up the amazing work!

Link to download lesson plan

Hello again, forward-looking world! We’re doubly excited to tell you all about an amazing new book, Education Nation by Milton Chen. Dr. Chen has worked extensively in some of the coolest edu-related organizations around. After working on “Sesame Street,” “Electric Company” and “3,2,1 Contact,” he eventually became Executive Director of The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) – overseeing such innovative, useful initiatives as Edutopia.org.

Not only is Education Nation a powerful synthesis of some of the most promising ideas in education reform (read it!), it mentions Flocabulary as an innovative, proven academic resource. We’re honored, and extend a huge thanks to Dr. Chen for his interest and support.

If you haven’t already, please be sure to check out Edutopia.org for best-practices, teacher-reviewed resources, free content, and much more. Happy end of August, HHC!

Ahhhh… so good to see high-quality educational hip-hop out there! Check out this professionally produced track by Mr. Jones – he goes by UBlackJones on his YouTube site – that teaches kids all about verbs. It’s a really cool video too, with kids singing the hook and getting A’s like they know they could.

Beware: this is CATCHY!

“I Know My Verbs” from UBlackJones

Flocabulary friend and colleague Cheryl McCarron of ESL Shop created a video that cuts right to the heart of “Hip-Hop in the Classroom.” In this short clip, you’ll see English Language Learners from all over the world in an elementary ESL classroom in Ontario. The students have been in Canada less than a year – some less than a month.

Watch as they fall in love with Biggie, a song about a very cool (and very fat) cat from Unit 1 of The Word Up Project: Level Red. They memorize the song, learn the vocabulary, practice speaking and using the words in original sentences -and have a great time all the while. The teacher, Oksana Hohol, relates her experience throughout the video.

Thanks Cheryl, Oksana and all the kids at Rose Avenue Elementary School, for working hard and reminding us why we do what we do.

Flocabulary had the privilege of visiting Justice Alma Wilson SeeWorth Academy in Oklahoma City earlier this month, to work with kids and teachers to learn new vocab words, and write some  “academic raps.” The environment, the students and the staff we encountered were inspired, inspiring… unforgettable.

To show the depth of the students’ talent and work, we’re proud to showcase “Song for Haiti” – a haunting tribute created by Mr. Henry Rice (music teacher) and some of the SeeWorth students.

Keep up the amazing work guys. Can’t wait to see you all again.

“Song for Haiti” by SeeWorth Academy Students:

We stumbled on to this and were truly delighted – its like an infomercial for Flocab!

Follow Rachel Amburgey, Secondary Language Arts Program Planner for the School District of Palm Beach County in FL, as she narrated www.flocabulary.com, pointing out free teacher resources and focusing on our SAT Vocabulary program.

Thanks to Rachel, Lee and all the Flocab fans in Palm Beach. Next time, let us know in advance and we’ll gladly come by for an interview – and some beach time

Happy Memorial Day!

We need your help. This Saturday and Sunday, Fox News will air an hour-long documentary on the state of American education called “Fighting for Our Children’s Minds.” For the show, host Tucker Carlson interviewed Arne Duncan, Sarah Palin, and Flocabulary co-founders Alex Rappaport and Blake Harrison, among others. His purported goal was to investigate the problems in our schools and explore ways to improve them. Flocabulary agreed to participate, believing that we’d get a fair portrayal and our program would be allowed to speak for itself.

Tucker Carlson

But Mr. Carlson doesn’t seem happy to simply report. Instead, in a scathing blog post on his website, he accuses educators who use Flocabulary of putting “dunce caps on our kids.” He calls Flocabulary a “mindless… get-educated-quick scheme.” In a TV appearance Friday morning, Mr. Carlson falsely stated “there’s no actual evidence that this works. At all.”

Disagree? Post a comment on his blog!

Mr. Carlson’s statements are troubling, considering that various independent studies have found that Flocabulary programs boost student vocabulary proficiency, work well in afterschool settings, and even raise scores on state tests. We sent this information to Mr. Carlson, but he decided to ignore it.

Instead, Mr. Carlson takes a five-year-old quote out of context as proof that Flocabulary doesn’t want kids to learn difficult words. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We use hip-hop music as an educational tool to teach and engage students. We are never in favor of dumbing down the curriculum. Furthermore, our programs feature music as just one teaching method. In our vocabulary program, which teaches the words students need to know to pass state tests, the vocab-packed song represents just 1/9th of the overall lesson. The remainder consists of more traditional teaching methods, such as reading and writing exercises.

We are deeply disappointed that Mr. Carlson fails to see the importance of connecting with students’ interests when we teach them. During the two hours we spent talking with Tucker Carlson, we repeatedly told him that we are not seeking to replace the curriculum; we are trying to add to it.

Mr. Carlson seems to think that more of the same is the answer to solving the problems in America’s classrooms. If you feel differently, we urge you to let him and his readers know by posting comments on his blog.

Thanks for your continued support. We’re honored to have a community of educators, parents and students who feel strongly about making education effective and fun.

- Flocabulary

The Show airs Saturday, May 15th at 9:00 PM and Sunday, May 16th at 3:00 PM.

Students across the county – of every background and creed – are graduating this month and next. Their achievements are to be celebrated, lauded, raised higher than the roof. They are the future.

We found TheEbonyKeys’ Graduation Rap that beautifully sums up the triumph and joy of achievement, and of successfully passing a marker in one’s education. Huge props to Chadwick a.k.a “Ebony Bones” for creating some real, and real inspiring hip-hop.

We’re truly excited to tell you about the latest and the greatest from frequent Flocabulary collaborator and master emcee Baba Brinkman: a performance that teaches and preaches the wonders of evolution.

Through a combination of rap, comedy, spoken word, lecture and song, Baba presents the grand theory of life on Earth in unequivocally engaging terms – without sacrificing the accuracy or rigor of the complicated ideas involved.

Flocabulary was lucky enough to see the premiere at the Bleeker Street Theater – there are only a few engagements left, so be sure to get your tickets ASAP!

By the way, we’re not the only ones excited. Check out this sterling review from the NY Times, which describes the performance as “one of the most astonishing, and brilliant, lectures on evolution I’ve ever seen”:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/darwin-got-it-going-on/?hp

Flocabulary is honored to have been reviewed in the latest issue of the journal CONTACT – Ontario’s premier publication for ESL educators, administrators and consultants!

The rigorous review was written by Jim Papple, the speaking coordinator at Brock University. He has been a devoted “hip-hop head” for many years. His review of Flocabulary: The Hip-Hop Approach to SAT Level Vocabulary Learning, will “help all teachers befuddled by hip-hop to discover not only what it is but also its potential in the ESL classroom.”

Needles to say, we’re honored and thrilled – and excited to see Canadian ESL students use Flocabulary resources.

A big thanks to Clayton Graves, the editor of CONTACT, and Jim Papple. Hopefully, we’ll be making our way up north soon enough!

You can download the latest issue of CONTACT (and the Flocabulary review on pages 40-43) here:

http://www.teslontario.org/uploads/publications/contact/ContactSpring2010.pdf