Using Music as a Second Language

Abstract

Students entering an English class are terrified of that trip, that laugh, that sense of who knows looking over their shoulders, someone from a world largely alien to them that has obscure values and rules that don't make sense. Seeing these lines on the chalkboard on the first day of class gives them some sense of relief because their fears are being acknowledged. And if they recognize the quotation-which they're likely to do, since it's from Cemetry Gates, a mid-1980s hit song by the popular British rock group The Smiths-they'll feel a little less alienated as they realize that a teacher is willing to talk their language. Connecting the new to the known is the basis for all learning, all education, yet most English teachers overlook what may be the easiest and most productive way to connect students to the terminology and processes of reading and writing--using music. Popular music-blues,jazz, and rock-exemplifies virtually any idea, process, situation, or emotion that a teacher might want to discuss. Using music to introduce, for instance, such concepts as irony, artistic influence, or the appropriation of cultural materials is not a matter of pandering to student tastes or watering down a serious subject. It is a logical way to interest students and help them make connections and understand new material as quickly, efficiently, and pleasantly as possible. Starting a class with a quote from the Grateful Dead or Billie Holliday may horrify teachers who prefer stanzas of William Blake or snippets of E. B. White. Yet the purpose-to help connect the students' world to literary and intellectual contextsis the same. Whether the quotation with which I began this article should be considered poetry is ir elevant if my purpose is to engage students in a dialogue about their fears of English teachers and criticism, though of course I could use the same passage to lead into a discussion of what poetry is and what separates the great from the mediocre. I am not advocating the use of music as a desperate measure to awaken the uninterested or please the disenchanted. The students I teach are intelligent and tractable and occasionally curious. I don't need to use music in my classes to tame wild beasts or awaken the dead.