Songwriting with Second Graders, Part One

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I just completed a Songwriting Workshop Residency with second graders at Wantagh Elementary School in Wantagh, NY. Everybody has been so excited about it – both the process of creating and the completed songs – that I am inspired to share it here with fellow teachers and musicians. Here is the first installment.

Before giving a songwriting workshop, I meet with the teachers and ask: How many of YOU enjoy writing? If you love it, your students will! Now I’m not talking about composing The Great American Novel; just, say, answering an email. Expressing yourself to a friend. Ask yourself: do you enjoy that?

Then I ask–Are your students:
• Eager to write?
• Bursting with ideas?
• Willing to revise and edit until they are proud of their work?
• Can’t wait to share their writing with the other kids?

Now wouldn’t that be awesome? Second graders have just begun to express themselves in writing. This year, they are beginning to write stories and non fiction pieces. They have been encouraged by the Writer’s Workshop Model to discover seed ideas and begin to develop them with details. Hopefully, children are beginning to think creatively. I like to review some facts about creative thinkers:

• They are flexible; they will try out many possible solutions to a problem;
• They let their ideas flow more freely, without judgement;
• They make use of the right brain (intuitive) as well as the left (logical and practical); and
• They don’t give up easily! Creativity definitely IS 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration! (e.g., Einstein, Marie Curie, Edison)

Click here to see Marla Lewis’ songs!

Here’s how my songwriting sessions work:

SESSION I –Prewriting

Part 1: What is a song? A song is made up of lyrics (the words, a form of poetry) and melody (the musical notes – try humming “Happy Birthday” without the words, and reciting the lyrics without the music, to illustrate).
The lyrics should have a strong meter, or beat. As we recite “Happy Birthday,” we’ll clap to the beat of the words. The chorus is the main idea of the song – what the song is about — that repeats at least twice or more.

Part 2: Example of a strong chorus. I hand out the lyric for a song with a really strong chorus. Just last week, the second graders listened to “Happy” by Pharell Williams, with a copy of the lyrics in front of them. The children love this song, so it helps them to easily understand the concept of chorus as main idea.

Part 3: Generating Ideas for our song. Important: Your class will already have decided what they will be writing about! (This saves lots of time. Using the Spring theme, some possible ideas include : Coming out of hibernation, butterflies, things we love to do in Spring, etc.) Together we brainstorm about ideas, vocabulary, and facts your class finds most interesting, using words or phrases only. We can use a Word Web or whatever graphic organizer you find most helpful, either on chart paper or on a smart board. No idea is “good” or “bad” – we want a flow of ideas here. We will review this list with the class and ask the children, “Can you tell me any more about that?” Get the children’s energy and understanding of the topic. In this climate, the ideas come fast and furiously! I call on children while the teacher acts as scribe. Toward the end of this session, we take time to reread what we have written on our chart. Do we notice any trends? From this, we get a very good idea of what the chorus will be about. It is even possible that we come up with a few possible song titles and/or first lines of our chorus.

Before I return for Session 2, I ask teachers to have students generate more ideas during Writer’s Workshop. They can each write words, phrases, or sentences about what they found most interesting about the song’s topic. (Homework: Identify the choruses of favorite tunes on the radio).

Submitted by Marla Lewis
Marla Lewis has been dubbed, “one of the best creators of children’s music in America today…whose songs are… filled with a warm wit and a happy heart.” (–Steve Cahill, President, Songwriters’ Resource Network). Her CDs have won Parents’ Choice Gold and NAPPA Gold awards. Currently, Marla is writing personalized songs for children with cancer through Songs of Love, a national charity. She is also writing songs with second graders and singing with preschoolers at day care centers.

Click here to see Marla Lewis’ songs!

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day

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      stpatricksday.mp3

Did you know that there are 34 million people of Irish ancestry in the US?  That’s almost 9 times more than the population of Ireland (3.9 million). It’s no wonder that St. Patrick’s Day is such a widely celebrated holiday in the US!  The St Pat’s Day Parade in the New York City is the largest in the world, with 150,000 marchers and 2 million spectators.

Here are some great ways to celebrate this holiday in the classroom, incorporating Social Studies, art, reading and writing:

Listen to Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day in the audio player, below.