Flocabulary

This is a great site for resources for education. I am new to education so this was a great find! Great post.

I recommend this website to all my friends who teach. It really saved me last year when I was told I had to teach Macbeth to a group of at-​risk kids from Oakland who can barely read at all, let alone decipher the word of The Bard.
Because of
, my kids were absolutely riveted by Shakespeare. They all understood the story and were able to summarize it, analyze it, define and use Shakespearean vocabulary. They were able to understand the characters and to put on plays of their own modernized versions of Macbeth. This doesn’t mean they all did their work and got good grades, but at least they were all engaged. I know they all understood the story, because they got all As and Bs on the assessments I did. I really felt like they were learning something about literature.
I ordered the Shakespeare as Hip Hop CD with the accompanying lesson plan book. There is a music video of their Macbeth rap that I showed the class. They didn’t talk or mess around while I was showing the video, which is amazing for this group of kids. Check it out:
As part of the unit I had them make their own soundtracks to Macbeth. They had to pick five scenes, pick a song for each scene, and say why they picked that song for that scene.
I have also used this CD to teach Sonnets to 8^th graders in Hayward. They loved it! I could hear them rapping Sonnet #18 in the halls, and with a few exceptions, they all wrote their own awesome sonnets without grumbling.
Direct quotes from the end-​of-​unit evaluations I gave them:
«The Bluest Eye was hecka boring but Macbeth was cool. I liked doing plays and the music video.»
«I didn’t relize (sic) that Shakespeare is so bloody. I liked all the battels (sic).»
«You made Shakespeare fun because you let us use music.»
«Imma (sic) make my own movie of Macbeth from the play I wrote!»
«Can we do more Shakespeare next semester? I liked writing a play and I liked the sountracks (sic) I made.»
I thought Flocabulary was sort of corny and silly at first, and I was a little scared about how the kids would react, but I’m SO glad I used it. I usually dread teaching Shakespeare, but now Flocabulary makes it one of my easiest and most fun things to teach all year.