Pearl Jam in the classroom

Citizen Zack · December 2010

I teach 9th grade English. I'm excited about today because we're covering poetry - specifically, figurative language in poetry (simile & metaphor).

The students have to answer open ended response questions about poems that use figurative language to express a thought or feeling. The simile poem is some generic love poem from the text book that the other English teachers chose, but the metaphor poem I chose for them is Wishlist. Almost every line is a metaphor so it works perfectly. I emailed the poem to the English department and got responses like "I love this poem" and "this is a great poem! Who is the author?"

They'll have to analyze Wishlist and provide an answer to a question (The author uses metaphors to show _______ ?) then support their answer with text evidence and an analysis.

elwayvedder · December 2010

very cool. I just posted this in another thread about lyrics but it's relevant here so my apologies for the cut and paste but:

I remember writing in an email to a friend years ago with the few first lines to Present Tense. He had no idea they were lyrics to a PJ song and responded with "that's an amazing poem. who's the author?".

I wrote back with a response only of "Mr Ed Vedder" and he responded with "hmmm, never heard of that poet, I will have to look up what else he has written"

pjfan31 · December 2010

That's cool, I am studying teaching and work with young kids. This one little fella is about 9 and he is as tough as nails. Never cries, always gets hurt and jumps straight back up. One day he hit his head and I jokingly said to him

'you need a helmet'

His response was this, word for word

'I don't need a helmet, I've got a hard head'

so I taught him some of whipping, so when ever I say to him 'what does eddie vedder say?' He responds with the first verse.

hedave · December 2010

Nice! I've done this for years with my poetry unit. My students love Spin the Black Circle. When they realize its a tribute to vinyl, it blows their mind. Do Even Flow for theme (homelessness). The kids love that one. I have a list of about 20 terms students need to know. I added The End for "elegy" last year.

SL116452 · December 2010

I'm a middle school English teacher in the state of New York. Sometimes the kids think they're taking Pearl Jam 101.

I start my Poetry Unit each year with Wishlist... like you, because of the metaphors. It really is great stuff.

I start of poetry each year by asking the class if they like poetry peotry or not... usually at least half the class says they hate poetry - most of the boys especially. So then I give them the lyrics on paper, and I DON'T reveal that it's a song... just tell them it's one of my favorite poems. We read it, discuss it, etc; and the kids really get into it.

Then I tell them that i was fortunate to hear a live peotry reading of the poem, and that maybe they'll appreciate the poem even more if they hear it read by the actual poet rather than their boring English teacher. So then I show them a live performance of it, they realize it's a song, and it's a pretty cool moment. Then I ask them again, if they like poetry? And now that they realize songs are a form of poetry, usually all of the hands in class go up.

I usually hit a few other songs throughout the unit... Long Road works well... Daughter...

I also do an extra credit assignment, where they can pick their favorite song... print the lyrics on one side of the paper, and then come up with 5 poetry questions about the song on the reverse side. They basically make their own worksheet. Then, in class, we play the song, follow the lyrics, and answer the questions. They love it. And it gives me a chance to stay current with what they're listening to - although some years, that can be painful, for me.

Bottom line, mixing music in my poetry unit has been gold.

gregoryield · December 2010

My best friend is a high school history teacher and a few years ago, during a lesson on World War II, he acknowledged how the Japanese bombed "Pearl Jam".

Hawk123 · December 2010

My grade 5 teacher, this would have been in 1993, had the class listen to Crazy Mary and discuss the themes of the song. We spent a good week on that at least.

loadedgun · December 2010

All of these posts make me want to become a teacher. I am jealous. How am I supposed to incorporate PJ into Architectural consulting?

he.who.forgets · December 2010

good stuff everybody. My wife teaches 2nd grade so they're a little young to begin analyzing song lyrics...gotta get that reading thing down first

but she does play the PJ string quartet album all the time. I think the kids are sick of it already

jgrossman · December 2010

Never thought I'd see a thread on here that compiled teaching activities

I teaching public speaking and use Jeremy for the commemorative unit when we look at language. I'm pretty sure college kids aren't as fun as grade school, though.

High Fidelity 2000 · December 2010

Dang, I teach 5th grade and they're too young to really play any PJ. I have played the string quartet album and last year one kid actually said, "that sounds like Even Flow."

He knew it from guitar hero of course, but I was still surprised he knew it from the instrumental.

LukinFan · December 2010

Great idea! I teach 6th and 7th grade language arts (English) and will use this when we do our poetry unit

FrankieG · December 2010

I wish I had you as an english teacher!

samjam · December 2010

FrankieG wrote:

I wish I had you as an english teacher!

Same here! Wish I had an English teacher that taught PJ!
So awesome you're including PJ in your curriculum. I really do think students could get a whole lot out of PJ and especially in a poetry unit find it interesting to explore Ed's lyrics.

Though I haven't ever had a teacher use or mention PJ, I have found ways to mention them somehow in work for most of my classes past and present! So far this year they have made an appearance in a paper for my music class (duh!), a sociology paper, a lit response, and a speech for my communications class

(As for math they have made almost every single page of notes in doodle form)

sweetlew33 · December 2010

Love these ideas.

I teach high school psychology and just used Guaranteed as part of our discussion on adolescence (searching for identity). They had to, then, bring in their own song that represented a stage of adolescence in someway. Got mostly Lil Wayne, but I think as least a few kids appreciated my choice.

Citizen Zack · December 2010

Well all in all it was a success. I never revealed it was a song, but a lot of them seemed to dig it. I teach in a very low socioeconomic, gang-ridden district and most of my kids are into rap and tejano type music. Pretty sure Pearl Jam wouldn't ring any bells for them. But we had some great discussion on Wishlist. I would ask each class who they thought the author was speaking to and what he/she really wanted (if they had to sum it up in one line) and I had several kids respond with something similar to "he just wants to feel important" or "he wants to feel like he matters." I loved those responses so we discussed specific lines that support the theme of longing to feel important to someone or the world around you. Then they had to write about how the metaphors support that theme. It was good stuff.

On a side note, I did use Black earlier in the year for another writing project. To my surprise, most seemed very indifferent to it.

Pearl Jam in the classroom

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