And We’re Off…

After speaking to another sixth grade teacher who shared with me that she teaches her poetry unit through music, and sharing with me one such lesson, I was ready to begin. My students and I headed off to the computer lab down the hall so I could show them a PowerPoint and play some music for them. It was in this lesson, which revolved around the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” that students learned about the Civil Rights Movement and segregation. Before beginning, I asked students what they knew about the Civil Rights Movement and segregation and I only received a few responses-they thought it was a war, that it was about black and white people, and that was basically it.

After having a brief discussion about the students’ responses, I began the lesson. We talked about how Paul McCartney came up with the idea to write this song (he was sitting on a park bench and saw a black woman get arrested for sitting on a “Whites Only” bench and in England women are sometimes called birds, hence “Blackbird” was born). We therefore learned that poems often have multiple meanings-the literal and metaphoric meanings. Students listened to the song and watched the video on YouTube while we dissected the lyrics. It was through the PowerPoint presentation and our discussion that students were exposed to the Civil Rights Movement and segregation.