Each academic year I begin with taking inventory on what works and doesn't work for my students. They tell me what they struggle with in school, but they also share things they enjoy and how they learn best. Students always share that they enjoy music. Therefore, I connect music into lesson plans for my students any chance I get.
There's no doubt that I've enjoyed wonderful success with my utilizing music, technology and literature within my class. In fact, earlier in the year, my students created phenomenal Sway presentations for Fever 1793 and Welcome to the Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance. In our most recent creation, my students created a Sway presentation connecting Ender's Game text citations, song quotes, and how they correlate.
Why do I have my students take part in these type of activities so often? Simply put, this type of activity has the students think on the highest levels of the spectrum:
analysis
synthesis
evaluation
As always, I'm very proud and impressed at what my students are able to create. In the end, I know they were challenged; but more importantly, they enjoy doing this type of work, which is far better than the typical worksheet. See below for some of their phenomenal work!
To read more on this concept, check out Chapter 9: On the Lowdown, in my book, Teach4Endurance: Surviving the Swim, Bike, and Run in Today's Classroom.