Pre-reading Lose Yourself

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 3

Lose Yourself

"This is genius work."

A poetry lesson by:

 Annika, Cristiane, Stephan & Ronald

Goals

• Target, vwo year 3 
• Recognising poetry in rap music. 
• Using lyrics to reflect on your own experiences.

Rap and poetry are the same.
What do you think? (Be prepared to explain your answer. )

Yes

No

Well......

Jay-Z's opinion 

Jay-Z is a very famous rap musician. 

This is his view on rap.

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"Listen to some of the things he wrote.

If you take those lyrics and you pull them away from the music and you put them up on the wall somewhere. And someone would have a look at them. They would say: this is Genius. This is genius work."

Eminem

8 Mile

This is a film based on events in Eminem's life. 

The film was accompanied by a rap song by Eminem. 

You can hear a bit in the trailer.

What do you see?

What is it about?

Discuss

What's the film about? 

The song you heard during the trailer is called: Lose yourself.

Have you ever heard it?

What do you think the song is about?

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Rhyme and meaning

Turn to page 7 and 8

Exercises 1 and 2     

Pair work: Find the rhyming syllables in the first verse

Remember: speak the words aloud to help you find them.

Rhyme and meaning 

Turn to page 8.

Exercise 3

Before we look at the final lines of the first verse, let’s look at the meaning of the lines we’ve just read.

Answer the questions in your student package.

Chorus

Turn to page 12

Exercise 1 - 4

In these exercises we try and extract understanding and meaning from the chorus. We reflect on our own experiences and try to connect to the lyrics. 

Post-reading

Turn to page 13

Time to get creative! 

Choose one of the following exercises

Exercise 1 - Make a concrete found poem

use words or phrases from the song to create a concrete found poem that has meaning to you. 

Post-reading

Turn to page 13

Or: 

Exercise 2 - Make your own poem or rap

Make your own poem/rap inspired by the meaning of the song and use the rhyme sounds used in verse 1.

Write a minimum of 1 verse.