Song Title: This is America
Artist(s): Donald Glover
Contributor: Brendan Feldgoise
**Warning – Song and music video should not be used for younger children.
I thought that this song, at least when I heard it for the first time, was extremely powerful. In my opinion this song is Donald Glover telling the nondominant story of the brutal reality of being an African American in America. I believe that Donald Glover had the impression that someone needed in some way to explicitly call out the problems existing in the country and very clearly tell a story about life that would make people a bit uncomfortable.
I would start my lesson in the classroom by explaining to the children that this song may make you uncomfortable. I would however challenge students to think about why the song makes them feel the way it does. I would play the song twice and ask students to answer two questions: why did Donald Glover make the song and video in the way that he did, and how did the video make you feel? I want to bring the students’ perspectives into the curriculum and make them feel included as described in tenant c by Stovall (Stovall, 588). I would hold an entire class conversation about why Donald Glover decided to tell this story, looking to get the idea out that he was telling a story that was not the comfortable, dominant one that is commonly told. He is bringing his story about his race into the conversation and telling people the story that represents him. This song highlights the idea of racism in society, and I wanted to highlight that as something which is necessary to talk about, which is how I would look to infuse elements of CRT into my lesson as described by Gloria Ladson Billings (Ladson-Billings, 11).
For the action part of my lesson, I want students to write their own story in lyrics to a song that represents them. From a skill point of view, we would talk about the use of imagery and metaphors that Glover uses in the song and how to implement those into lyrics. We would look to achieve tenets b and d as described by Stovall, by using these lyrics to encourage students to learn about one another and emphasize community, as well as students would write and listen to students perform their own songs (Stovall, 588). I think this is a cool way to bring storytelling element skills like imagery and metaphors out by using music, emphasizing a classroom community, and allowing students to tell their own stories which really brings their perspectives into the classroom.
Works Cited
Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education?. International journal of qualitative studies in education, 11(1), 7-24.
Stovall, D. (2006). We can relate: Hip-hop culture, critical pedagogy, and the secondary classroom. Urban Education, 41(6), 585-602.