Teaching English to Adolescents: Lyrics Can Be a Scaffold for Literature

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A former high school English teacher turned literacy researcher at the University of Arkansas says that discussing song lyrics in the classroom can help students connect in multiple, complex levels with traditional literature. Christian Z. Goering now hosts a Web site for teachers to share links between literature and lyrics.

Goering presented his work at the recent annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in a paper titled “Springsteen, Steinbeck and The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash: Connecting Music to Literature.” He emphasizes the ways song lyrics can open up literature and literary concepts to adolescents, but he is not suggesting replacing literature with popular culture in high school classrooms.

“What I am suggesting is that we pair pieces of classic literature with contemporary music, allowing some of the natural, thematic connections to come to the surface and allowing our students to see these connections and the relevance to their own lives,” Goering said.

Music lyrics can be an especially effective hook, given the importance of music to adolescents. Goering cited a survey that asked which form of entertainment teenagers would take to a desert island. Students in seventh, ninth and 11th grades chose music over television, books, computers, video games, radios, newspapers and magazines.

Lyrics can serve as a bridge for students, Goering noted, from material that may be familiar or easily understood to classic literature that may be more difficult or challenging. For example, “California Sky” by the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash takes listeners from “out in Oklahoma where the hard winds blow” on a cross-country journey that can open up a discussion of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

“Tunes, I discovered, directed students toward an avenue where conversation about more serious, literary topics could take place,” Goering said. “Pop music dismantled roadblocks between students and their peers, between students and literary texts, and between students and their teacher.”

Through considering popular music and traditional literature, students “discover layers of meaning in classic works” while grappling with key literary concepts. The use of popular music encourages students to recognize poetic devices, identify the narrative voice, express literary themes, improve skills in literary analysis, develop an emotional reaction to a work and deepen their understanding of other literature.

Goering found that students participated more actively while reading when they attempted to make connections between songs and other texts. These connections developed both a key skill of expert readers — the ability to recognize the relationships between one text and another — and students’ skills in critical analysis.

“It is the process of reading one text while thinking of others that truly makes literature relevant to students’ lives,” Goering said.

He also noted that students understand that different people look for different things in music and like different types of music. The ability to understand taste, evaluation and judgment about music translates well to an acceptance of divergent opinions about literature.

Goering is an assistant professor of secondary English and literacy education in the College of Education and Health Professions. Goering’s Web site, www.LitTunes.com, offers research into the use of music lyrics in teaching literature, examples of pairings of specific tunes and literature, and a place for teachers and students to contribute their own pairings.