My first residency is done
A while back I was invited to be an Artist-In-Residence for LA’s BEST, an after-school program providing Title-1 students in Los Angeles with quality academic enrichment at no cost to their families. I was thrilled of course, but also a little flummoxed: how would my 60-minute writing workshop translate to a format where I would be going back to the same school repeatedly? I re-engineered the structure of the workshop and I will be posting a full write-up of how it worked soon, but here’s a quick summary.
Week 1: I do a live show and pitch a six-week program where we will meet once a week to write music. Who wants in? Gather, discuss expectations, choose a theme for our writing.
Week 2: Together, we learn a process of taking our ideas and organizing them, identifying key details, finding rhyming words, studying the scansion, setting lyrics to a tune we already know. Hopefully, we emerge with a rough draft of a song.
Weeks 3 and 4: Do it again and again, each time with a little less scaffolding from the teacher. So now the workshop group has three songs on one theme.
Week 5: Polish and practice.
Week 6: Parents and other students are invited to a simple show where students perform their work.
Last week we finished our first 6-week cycle at Pinewood elementary school in Tujunga, CA. It was rough. It was challenging and frustrating. And it was pretty cool. The songs are a bit rough around the edges but considering how quickly they were done, I think they are magnificent. I am very proud of my team of 3rd-5th grade kids (many of whom speak English as a second language) and the tremendous work they put into their music at the urging of a guy they never met until last month.
Here’s what they wrote.
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Three Songs About Vertebrates
by the workshop group at Pinewood Elementary in Tujunga, CA
Reptiles
to the tune of My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean
You know alligators are reptiles
So are crocodiles, lizards, and snakes
Tortoises, turtles, and terrapins
Gharials and caimans are great
Reptiles, reptiles, reptiles are scaly and really great
Reptiles, reptiles, my favorite class of vertebrate
Each reptile you meet is cold blooded
Their temperature goes up and down
When the weather is cold they are torpid
They warm up when the sun comes around
Reptiles, reptiles, reptiles are scaly and really great
Reptiles, reptiles, my favorite class of vertebrate
Reptiles lay eggs for their babies
With a hard or a leathery shell
Some reptiles lay eggs and forget them
But some care for their babies quite well
Reptiles, reptiles, reptiles are scaly and really great
Reptiles, reptiles, my favorite class of vertebrate
Some reptiles are mostly aquatic
But most of them live on the land
Reptiles are really adapted to be
In the sea or the swamp or the sand
Reptiles, reptiles, reptiles are scaly and really great
Reptiles, reptiles, my favorite class of vertebrate
I’ve learned many facts about reptiles
I’ve learned far too many to list
It’s such fun for me, I shall grow up to be
A herpetologist
Reptiles, reptiles, reptiles are scaly and really great
Reptiles, reptiles, my favorite class of vertebrate
Mammals
to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Mammals all have fur or hair, ain’t no scales or feathers there
Straight or curly, short or long, there is hair on every one!
Every llama, sheep and shrew grows its hair as mammals do.
Every mama mammal feeds her babies milk to meet their needs
Mammal milk is really good, it’s mother nature’s perfect food
Mama made her milk for you ‘cause that’s what mama mammals do.
Mammals are warm blooded so we’re active when the temp is low
Homeostasis is really neat but it’s why we need a lot to eat
Every mammal in the zoo is warm blooded just like you.
Mammals carry their babies inside the mama’s tummy, they get to ride!
A cord brings food and oxygen to you, takes away your waste and CO2
When you’re ready, Mom says “Oh,” pushes hard and out you go
Birds
to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider
Every bird has wings and most of them can fly
Flapping and soaring, you’ll see them in the sky
Penguins are aquatic, they flap beneath the sea
And chicken wings are good when they’re barbecued for me
Every bird has feathers to keep her safe and warm
They give her insulation from the winter and the storm
Feathers may be camouflaged or may be very bright
The short ones are for warmth and the long ones are for flight
Every mama bird finds a place for eggs to lay
She keeps them in a nest where she guards them night and day
She sits on the eggs until they’re ready to hatch
Then she leaves her babies in the nest and finds some food to catch
The beak on a bird depends on what they eat
Some are good for catching bugs or tearing chunks of meat
Long for sipping nectar from the blossom of a flower
Or short for biting down with nut-cracking power!