Unit 5　Music

Rapping in Class

20世纪70年代，在纽约的大街上、俱乐部里，出现了一种新的音乐形式--说唱音乐(Rap)。Rap是黑人俚语中的一个词语，相当于"谈话(talking)"，中文意思为说唱，即有节奏的，说话的特殊歌唱形式。

Hip hop or rap music started on the street and in the clubs of the New York City in the 1970s.People rap to express how they feel about their lives and problems.

Would you like to rap in class? Well，actually hip pop music is played in more than 10，000 schools in the USA.Why? There is a new school program called "Flocabulary" in which teachers use texts and hip hop CDs to help teach different school subjects.The words of the songs are just what students are studying.This makes learning easy and fun.Students and teachers are excited about the good results it has had on exam marks.

Blake Harrison，a high school student，was the first person to come up with the idea of "Flocabulary"．The word "Flocabulary" comes from the word "flow" and "vocabulary"．"Flow" is a rap word for "style"，or the way a rapper says the words of a song."Vocabulary" means the words you have to learn in a language.How did he get the idea? Well，he realized he could remember the words of a hip hop song very easily.So，why not make lessons into songs? Today together with Alex Rappaport，a song writer，Blake produces hip hop songs for math，science and literature.They are now used in schools with great success.

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