Express Yourself

Rap/Hip Hop is an art form that has had a huge impact in popular music and culture. NWA's 'Express Yourself' from NWA's album 'Straight Outta Compton" (1988) is a song that encourages listeners, in particular teenagers, to feel comfortable in expressing their opinions and thoughts.

As I go through the creative writing unit with my Y9 class, 9KRo, we have spent time looking various creative short texts and the students have spent this week creating their own poetry.

I used this song, with the intention that the students will understand that rap is a form of poetry. We listened to the song and went through the lyrics, unpacking what the underlying messages are saying to us. The students were given a 3 Level Guide set of questions -

• Level 1 - Words/definitions 
• Level 2 - Finding examples/quotes from the text that highlight a particular theme/idea. Explain what these examples from the text highlight.
• Level 3 - Write a paragraph on a phrase from the song and what it shows

(Click on the link for the lyrics and 3 Level Guide activity)

This was a great exercise as this song also featured in the film that we have studied this term, Freedom Writers. The students were are asked to write a few sentences on a topic/issue that they feel strongly about. This will be part of their final spoken word piece.