Sing a Song of "_____"

Purpose: This mini lesson asks students to conduct a rhetorical analysis of two songs, then to compare their purposes. A number of variations allow you to use it almost anywhere in your curriculum.

Materials: Way of playing music in the classroom, song lyrics

Procedure:

1. Choose two school appropriate songs with very different purposes. Some of my favorites include "Imagine" by John Lennon (Persuasive), "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot (Informative) and "Don't Download This Song" by Weird Al Yankovic (Entertaining, or is it Persuasive?). If you have a class that loves discussion and debate, you can have some fun with songs that are less straightforward or that seem to have no purpose, like Eiffle 65's "Blue."
2. Review the concept of rhetorical analysis with the students. If you've been on this topic for a while, it might suffice to simply explain that you will be listening to the songs in order to evaluate them rhetorically. If you haven't been discussing RA for long, explain that, as students listen to the songs, they should be determining the audience, purpose, genre, and decisions the lyricist and song writer have made in an attempt to accomplish that purpose with that audience inside that genre. Students may take note of both musical and lyrical aspects of the song. (Tip: Some classes might be able to take notes like this in their notebooks. For others, making up a chart where they record information for each song can be helpful.)
3. Play each song (and distribute the lyrics) and ask students to take notes.
4. At the conclusion of each song, students should be given 5 minutes in groups to answer the following questions:
1. What was the purpose, audience, and genre of each song?
2. Do you think the song writers accomplished this purpose with this audience? Why or why not?
3. What are three ways in which these songs are different with regard to audience, purpose, and/or genre.
5. Discuss the results together as a class. Steer the discussion in such a way as to reinforce the aspect of rhetorical analysis, genre, etc. that you are studying. 

Differentiation:

1. Use the activity to introduce the difference between two types of writing, like the difference between the informative and the position piece in the English comp curriculum. 
2. Have students re-write the song for a particular audience, in a different genre, or with a different purpose. Discuss the difficulties they have. 
3. Focus first on lyrics then on music. Relate this to style/tone vs. content in writing.