Forever Young...

Today in Form 4 West the senior boys put their skills to practice as they compared and contrasted the lyrics to the songs, "Forever Young" by Youth Group and "Forever Young" by Bob Dylan. Word travels quickly in a small school and Form 4 boys were asking for music during English. So, I wanted to also give them the chance to complete a Venn-diagram on their own, without any guidance since they had been introduced to this tool last week.

To begin the lesson, I copied the lyrics of both songs on the board and the students copied them into their exercise books. We went over the lyrics together and then students got to listen to both songs before separating into four groups and discussing similarities and differences. To help direct some discussion, I asked students to look at the message in both songs, the tone/mood of both, who was speaking and who was being addressed, and the impression that they got of the age of the singers.

Lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Forever Young"

Youth Group's version of "Forever Young"

For this activity, students were using their reading comprehension skills to analyze the songs before they could compare and contrast them. They were also getting independent practice a newly taught strategy/tool, the venn-diagram. Most importantly, students were using critical thinking skills as they discussed what they thought the tone/mood, message, etc. of the songs were. This was a challenge for most students because they are used to answering basic recall questions. I asked students to support all of their statements with direct evidence in lyrics from the songs.

One group hard at work analyzing both songs...

Intense discussion going on in the back...

Great ideas being discussed in the corner...

In the end, students agreed that the song by the band, Youth Group gave them the impression that it was sung by young people because it says "Let us stay forever young" meanwhile Bob Dylan is addressing the young saying "May you stay forever young." Students also agreed that the the first song seemed to have a more desperate tone of wanting to stay young and a fear of getting old, compared to Dylan's song which is simply saying I hope you can remain forever young. Students did a great job using Venn-diagrams in this lesson as well as supporting their statements of similarities and differences!