Hip Hop and Pop Culture

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A. Identify an education-related research topic of interest to you.
Possible Title: "The Pedagogy of Popular Culture"
Topic: The integration of popular culture (pop culture) to foster secondary students' successes and achievements in literacy

1. Create a research problem that addresses the research topic.
How does the use of popular culture increase secondary students' literacy development in writing and reading?

B. Develop a purpose statement for your research, based on the research problem and a review of relevant literature that communicates the intent or objectives of the research.
This research examines how the use of popular culture in the English/Language Arts classroom fosters students' achievement and motivation in reading and writing domains.

C. Develop 1-3 research questions that adhere to the following guidelines:
• How did secondary students' levels of motivations increase or decrease after the use of popular culture in the classroom?
•Is hip hop and popular culture an effective teaching strategy for at risk students in literacy?
• Does popular culture engage students and increase their understanding of key English literacy concepts? How does the influence of popular culture impact students' understanding of themselves, others, and literary texts?

D. Develop a narrative literature review based on 15 scholarly sources, 10 of which are empirical research journal articles, and that adheres to the following guidelines:
• includes relevant research articles
• flows logically from the broadly defined problem to more specific research questions

Block, D. G. (2008). Finding Multiple Classroom Uses for Hip-Hop. Teaching Music, 16(2), 66.
The author demonstrates how hip hop and popular culture can promote students' written expression abilities. The author urges teachers to "have the students write their own raps. The lesson can be as simple as giving students a sentence or topic and then letting them fill in the rest. Because most raps don't feature a melody line, students only need to concentrate on rhythm, which can be helpful in broadening their understanding of this crucial aspect of music. First, they pick a meter: 4/4, ¾, or something more complex. Then they set about discovering how various words work within that meter" (66). It is beneficial because it foster retention as "hip-hop can be used productively throughout any curriculum; its one great advantage is that it has a way of sticking in the mind. "Twenty years ago," she recalls with a laugh, "I taught the little ones how to be safe at Halloween through a rap, and I still remember it" (66)!

Beachum, F. D. (2011). Untangling Hip-Hop For the classroom. Education Week, 30(20), 40-30.
The author reiterates that building trust and collaborative classrooms are other reasons why pop culture and hip hop can work in classrooms. The author further justifies, "Hip-hop allowed me to build relationships with my students, to further their learning. Educators have a critical role to play in urban students' academic and social development. And it is important for us, as teachers, to make the abstract or historical real" (41).

Dunn, J., Niens, U., & McMillan, D. (2014). 'Cos he's my favourite character!' A children's rights approach to the use of popular culture in teaching literacy. Literacy, 48(1), ...