If the moon could talk, what would it say to us? What might a shadow be thinking? What would a star brag about? What’s the purpose of a constellation?
For four days, I worked with fifth graders at Rock Creek Forest Elementary School in Silver Spring, MD, to write, revise, rehearse, and record original songs about some aspect of their astronomy unit.
Four different groups of students each focused on a different topic. Instead of asking the students to write a list of facts, I asked them to take a point of view in the song and to write from that point of view.
Shadows of the Light—A song from the point of view of a shadow.
Download song sheet for lyrics and chords.
Dear Earth—A song from the point of view of the moon speaking to Earth.
Download song sheet for lyrics and chords.
I Burn—A song from the point of view of a star.
Download song sheet for lyrics and chords.
You’re Not Lost—A song from the point of view of a constellation speaking to people on Earth.
Download song sheet for lyrics and chords.
We used figurative language and literary elements to craft our songs—personification, point of view, metaphor, simile, alliteration, assonance, imagery, rhyme, rhythm, and repetition.
The project also involved collaboration, brainstorming, “piggy-backing” (an idea one person throws out can give another person an idea), and revising.
Testing our ideas by first saying the rhythm of each line and then singing each line was important. In singing our lines, we discovered that we often needed to tweak a word or two.
For example, in the class that focused on writing from the point of view of a star, we discussed what happens when a star dies. One student suggested these lines: “I will die someday/But in a spectacular way.” We all liked the idea, but when we tried to sing the second line, it was hard to sing the word “spectacular”. Another student tweaked it: “I will die someday/But in an awesome way.” Everyone agreed that it still carried the meaning but it was much easier to sing.
Repetition in songwriting can be good, such as the repetition of the chorus, but some repetition is boring. We looked at those places where we could make the song more interesting by making a change.
Here is an example in the song from the point of view of a constellation: “You sing our praise, know our stories and know our names” became “You sing our praise, know our stories, and give us names.” Much more interesting and more accurate!
Another important consideration for these particular songs was scientific accuracy. We debated the accuracy of suggestions and made decisions about whether we felt comfortable with the line or needed to change it. For example, in our song from the point of view of the star, we discussed how it’s nuclear fusion, not fire, that creates the heat and light of a star, but we decided that the poetic use of “burn” worked for us. Toward the end of the same song, the star talked about dying and our first draft had these two lines: My light will fly away/But my brightness will stay. We discussed this and decided that we were okay with the poetic use of “fly away” in the first line, but that “my brightness will stay” could be misleading and contradicted the idea of the star dying. We talked about how the dying star’s energy wouldn’t ever disappear from the universe so we changed it to “My legacy will stay.”
The project, which involved taking unusual points of view, also helped to clarify, correct, or drive home concepts about astronomy that the students were learning in their science class. For example, in our song from the point of view of the moon, one student suggested that the moon would say, “I make the night.” This suggestion caused a lively discussion about the facts! Does the moon actually cause the night? What causes night and day? As a class, we decided the moon couldn’t say that and discussed other alternatives.
Creative collaboration itself is a skill and the project enabled the students to experience the give and take of ideas and opinions. I appreciated how students often took risks by suggesting a line aloud that wasn’t a perfect fit, knowing that if we had something to work with we could collaborate and make it better. They also challenged each other in kind, polite ways.
Besides all that, students learned a few facts about about basic sound engineering–in one class, a question about the quality of the recording led us to talk about the physics of sound waves–as well as techniques for composing music, and how dynamics and energy can influence performance. Finally, many students used their artistic skills to submit topical illustrations, all of which were amazing, and some of which are displayed here.
Thanks to Ms. Fetrow, Ms. Coltrane, Ms. Puchales, Ms. Kudrick, Ms. Zariquiey, and PTA representative Clara Beshoar.
I shared a STEM song of my own with the students.
Sun’s Love Song–A song from the point of view of the sun speaking to Earth.
Download this song sheet to learn more about the science behind the song and see lyrics and chords: Lyrics & info
First we did brainstorming to write down all the things about the topic that we know. Sometimes questions would arise and we had to do research to make sure we were correct. Then we used our brainstorm to write a rough draft. We had to experiment with different rhymes and rhythms to make sure the song made sense and sounded good to our ears. We had to recognize a pattern in our first verse and then apply that pattern to the rest of the verses. We decided that a good song has magnetic properties—it sticks to your brain!
