Songs as Poetry: Carlos Santana's "Smooth"
Andrea Belletti's Unit Includes Robert Frost
In this article, Andrea Belletti, of North Carolina, explains
the relationship between song lyrics and poetry, in response to
a TESL-L posting by TESL-L owner Anthea Tillyer about using musical
strip stories with the Santana song, "Smooth." (Also, read three other articles about songs in ESL, See also
Tapping Student Interest,
"Some Fundamentals of Using Songs" and
"There Was An Old Lady"!)
Thank you, Anthea, for this wonderful idea! You've mentioned it on the list
before, and I have used it with two different intermediate-level high school
classes to introduce a short poetry unit. The
post-reconstruction-of-the-song discussion (with occasional partial replays
to illustrate particular points, such as examples of assonance and other
literary devices) involves even students who would ordinarily "tune out" an
activity about poetry. One of the most spirited subjects of discussion
started when I began by saying that we were going to use the lyrics to study
poetry. One student stated that this is not a poem, because it doesn't
rhyme; this prompted many others to express opinions on the subject, and we
were off and running.
After we talk about "Smooth," I introduce Robert Frost's "The Road Not
Taken," which has a very regular (AABBA) rhyme scheme. This is an
interesting poem because the text is very simple, yet it can be understood
"as is" or as an extended metaphor for life. The rhythm is quite regular,
which is good for speaking practice. My Spanish-speaking students, in
particular, often have an important English pronunciation lesson reinforced
with this poem, as many of the end-rhymes have different spellings, so they
really have to LISTEN in order to HEAR the rhymes they cannot see in print.
One student this year even told me that Robert Frost is her favorite
English-speaking poet and brought several more of his poems to class to
share.
In my end-of-course final, I always ask for a brief essay discussing the
year's ESL class: what did you learn, what did you like, what didn't you
like, and what should we have done that we did not? Several students always
mention this poetry unit as a favorite from which they learn a lot, and I've
had no negative comments about it at all.
By Andrea Belletti
2002 ESL MiniConference Online
abelletti@nc.rr.com
North Carolina