Gotta dig them holes – song writing plotlines

On paper, the leadership of teaching and learning is more important than teaching.

Knowing that, I still get lost in teaching. For me, there is no better teaching experience than when a lesson unexpectedly forks, diverted onto a higher path. The impetus, most often, a eureka moment, where, as the teacher, you seize the opportunity OR a pupil led intellectual mutiny.

Under the subheading of “Analysing language and structure” the scheme of learning required that we teach both a novel and poetry. Rather than two separate tracks or schemes, a senior colleague and I had decided to weave an introduction to ballads into the scheme for Holes having previously been introduced to The Highwayman. In planning the sequence of four lessons, I also sought out more modern ballads, borrowing from Netflix’s The Witcher, plumping for Toss A Coin To Your Witcher over The ballad of Geralt.

Lesson 1: Recap The Highwayman. Features of a ballad. History or ballads. Modern ballads. Whitcher and Ezra.

Lesson 2 and 3: The Outlaw Kissin Kate Barlow.

Lesson 4 Recap the features of ballad, Performance. Peer assessment and identification of a ballad.

Everything was going to plan, possibly going better than I had expected, with the pupils were singing along to “Toss a coin to your Witcher.”

Moving on George Ezra and the enthusiasm for ballads jumped up a notch. I had separated out the two chorus/stanza as a key teaching point to highlight:

• 4 lines (often) – a quatrain​
• Refrain – a repeated section​
• Rhyme and metre are regular
• Use regional dialect​

George did a great job of making the key learning points sing. Yes, sorry, I did just use that terrible pun.

Now for the mutiny

Being a man of some years, I had sourced the Youtube version of ‘Shotgun.’ The pupils however, requested the “karaoke” version? My blank look quickly met with:

Sir, just Google Shotgun karaoke.

So I obliged and the class took full advantage of showcasing their talents, sang their parts. When the word “mountain top” quietly literally jumped on the page screen. If you are not familiar with the storyline of Holes, the mountain is where “the water runs uphill” and central to the storyline. What is more, the storyline is all about the lack of rain, until the curse is broken and “something [changes] in the atmosphere.”

So in the next play, without George singing, “Homegrown alligator, see you later,” I chipped in with…

Gotta dig them holes, gotta dig them holes

Something changed in the atmosphere

Architecture unfamiliar

I won’t get used to this

And with that leraning grenade, I abdicate my position as Captain, and pupils boldly took it forward. So much so, that the song writing groups that had organically convened themselves had to be asked to stop, twice, before being told to go for lunch.

Between lessons, I did have to resourced a new “Time to write slide” – as the ballard had become more about a retelling of Holes, than that of The Outlaw Kissin Kate Barlow, and I was okay with that. I can correct that next time. Afterall, the key point is – will these pupils know and be able to remember the features of a ballad? My humble and professional opinion, yes. There has certainly been more rehearsals and more wrestling with metre, fitting the words to the backing track, than when just writing a more traditional ballad. We have even adopted adding the syllable count to lines for that purpose.

Now between lesson one and two, the pupils had already added additional lines with the more successful “groups” starting to take advantage of the shotgun / hot sun refrain. Adapting their refrains slightly each time to better re-tell the story. Hence the revised final task outline.

As soon as we have the finished ballads, I will post the winner here. In case I forget… an example… you will have to play the Shotgun karaoke version in the background.

Homegrown juvenile, criminal profile (10)

Gotta dig them holes, gotta dig them holes (10)

Something changed in the atmosphere

It rains no more, momma shed a tear,

I won’t get used to this

Times slows down in the yellow and brown (9)

Stick around and you’ll see what I mean (9)

There’s a mountaintop, that I dreamin of (10)

Where the water defies gravity. (10)

Diggin’ just ain’t no fun, underneath the hot sun (12)

Feeling like a no-one (no-one)

Diggin’ just ain’t no fun, underneath the hot sun (12)

Feeling like a no-one (no-one)

As for motivation. Lesson 2 and 3 had elevated task value, equal expectancy of success at no extra cost. What is more, the performance lesson, lesson 4, appears to have heightened perceived task value too with pupils also eager to revel they reworking of the lyrics and creativity.

One thing I will not be trialling is replacing the lyrics to “We don’t talk about Bruno”.