That will be the theme for their new verse of “We Shall Overcome.” Each group writes a new five-syllable line about the change they want. Each group chooses one change they all want. Ask students what changes they would like to see in the world. Call students’ attention to the lines below and point out that each line has five syllables.ī. Students listen to the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” while reading the lyrics. So a good thematic fit for this unit is the supplemental song “We Shall Overcome.”Įxample 2: Writing new lyrics to the song “We Shall Overcome”Ī. The theme of Unit 7 of More True Stories Behind the Songs is “Great Escapes.” The featured song is “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” and the companion story is about escaped slaves who used the Big Dipper to guide them to the North in the pre-Civil War era of the United States. Furthermore, the activity was, as promised, a community/team-building one. Again, not to worry–they sang along with gusto. And I worried a little, too, about whether they would sing along. I often supplement the units in True Stories Behind the Songs and More True Stories Behind the Songs with current hits, and I wondered how my students would respond to this song from the 1940s. It was with some trepidation that I tried this activity in my classroom. In a large class, students can sing just some of the new versions. In a small class, students can sing all of the new versions of the song without the activity becoming monotonous. Using the information the students filled in, the whole class sings the new versions of the song’s chorus, changing the first-person pronouns and possessive adjectives to the third person. Direct your students’ attention to Part 2 of the worksheet and ask them to fill in the gaps.Į. Students watch the video a second time, but this time they are encouraged to sing the chorus.ĭ. (They need not understand every word in the song the visual images clarify meaning well enough.)Ĭ. Students watch the YouTube video of the entire song with lyrics. (Or, if you’re not comfortable singing, play a recording of the chorus.)ī. Sing the chorus of the song, Part 1 on the worksheet, and clarify new vocabulary. You can further explain that the songwriter wrote the song because he believed this country is for ALL people who live here. I _.Įxplain that “This Land Is Your Land” is a famous song in the United States, one that children often learn at school. This land is your land, this land is my landįrom the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters Begin by handing out the worksheet below. cities of New Orleans and New York are the focal points of the two stories in that unit, so “This Land Is Your Land” is an appropriate supplemental song. Kimura’s lesson is an ideal follow-up to Unit 8 of True Stories Behind the Songs. Kimura asks permission to sing their lyrics for them.)Ī shorter version of Mr. Students fill in the gaps with personal information and then sing the song with their new lyrics, adjusting the rhythm if necessary. He gives as an example the Woody Guthrie song “This Land Is Your Land.” After students listen to the song’s chorus (and complete other activities described in his article), he gives them the template below.Įxample 1: Writing new lyrics to the song “This Land Is Your Land” In his article “ An Idea for Using Songs in the EFL/ESL Classroom” (on the website ESLemployment), Morris Kimura describes a fill-in-the-gaps activity that guides beginning and high-beginning students as they write new song lyrics. Step 4: The class sings the song with the new lyrics. Step 3: Working individually, in small groups, or as a class, students personalize the lyrics to fit their own experiences, replacing some words in the song with new words, or replacing an entire verse with a new verse. Step 2: Students listen to the song while reading the lyrics. Step 1: Choose a song that is easy to sing and copy the lyrics from the Internet.
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