Singing Lessons

          For the singing lessons starting January 5th, I decided after many days of considering my plethora of options, that I would sing Viva La Vida by Coldplay, relating it to the biblical stories my English class read. I chose this song because although it is one of my favorites, each verse references the bible. Not only that, it is fairly easy to point out bits and pieces of the references even without extensive biblical knowledge. The catchy tune makes it easy to remember and it gets annoyingly stuck in one's mind, allowing the biblical references I am required to teach to be absorbed and remembered by my "students". The song allows the listener to reflect on the previous lines with subtle pauses and this light-hearted song actually contains very hard and dense religious material ranging from the Old and New Testament with various meanings, leaving room for interpretation. I chose to teach about the bible because many songs on the radio reference religion and I would like myself and others to be taught how to look for these hints in songs and relate them to what we learned in 10th grade English. These refernces are everywhere in a teenager's favorite tune stuck in their head, but once I point them out in an extremely prevalent hit single, hopefully people will try to find other songs with religious meanings and will find how easy it is to break the song down and understand each lyric. 

            I plan to teach about these biblical references by making it mostly up to my "students" to pin-point each reference themselves and show them different view points with room for interpretation. This song can branch out with many different meanings so I plan on including as many unique standpoints as I can. Since my goal is to prepare my "students" with the ability to find religious meanings in other songs they listen to, I will have pictures hung up for the kids to look at while I sing, along with the music video, so they can try to link the picture with a line in the song (also for interaction purposes so they do not get bored). I will have a PowerPoint for after, explaining the references, which will include a multitude of pictures, videos, and interactive thinking questions. I am also going to either have students come up or raise their hands for feedback purposes, or create a quick game to get their minds thinking and challenging them to create their own interpretations.