"Glee"ful Language

So last week…catastrophe struck!  After spending 11 hours making a great idea come to fruition, I was devastated after losing it and my trust in technology was broken.  While I was so stressed by the whole situation, in the long run…as always…it was TIME WELL SPENT!  Here’s how it all happened…

As I was thinking about how I would teach my students about figurative language, I was listening to my John Denver Pandora station.  One of my favorite songs of his, “Annie’s Song” came on, and I realized that music and songs are full of figurative language.  I mean, just in the first verse alone of John Denver’s ode to his wife, there are 5 similes!

 “You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again”

Now, I am under no illusion that, while I may LOVE John Denver, my students are not going to be able to relate to his songs at this point in their lives.  If I was going to use music to teach my students about figurative language, I’d have to find something with which they could connect.  That’s when I started perusing my iTunes library.  And then, just like a light bulb turning on, it came to me! …GLEE!

I love the music on GLEE, and so do the kids, so why not?  After listening to all of the GLEE soundtracks on my computer, I was able to find enough examples of figurative language to create a listening center through which my students rotated through this past week in Guided Reading.  While the YouTube videos in this blog were not included in the student slideshow, the audio files were, and they loved listening to the tracks and listening for figurative language.  I realized I have some future singing sensations in my class, and since they will be going to middle school next year where students start to realize who they are (just like on GLEE), I think that this was an activity to which many of the students made a connection.

First slide to the Glee PowerPoint that I made.

AND THIS WAS THE STUDENT VOTED FAVORITE!!!