I always do a lesson at the beginning of the year where I play the first two minutes of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” just asking students to tell me what they heard. Usually they reply with “drums,” or “guitar,” or in one odd-case “a lot of right cymbal.”
Then, I play the classic SNL skit wherein Will Ferrell jumps around with a cowbell and Christopher Walken (as THE Bruce Dickinson) demands more and more cowbell. The kids laugh (this is a great Friday lesson) and I say that we’re going to listen to the exact same song clip as before.
As “Don’t Fear the Reaper” starts again, the kids’ eyes go wide as suddenly, they hear it. Some swear I switched out the .mp3, others bob their head, desperate to keep track of the dull, repetitive thud buried in the mix. They can’t believe they didn’t hear it before.
I often pair this activity with The House, something I learned from Cris Tovani, a family acquaintance, and someone who donated her entire set of books to me the year I graduated high school to wish me luck on my career. I’m very grateful.
At the end of the lesson, I ask why we listened to the song twice. What changed? They think for a moment and eventually discuss as a class that they had different purposes for listening, they had new knowledge so they picked out different details. They same way Disney movies have jokes for adults, you notice different things upon multiple readings.
I then transfer that to my ELA classroom. We will re-read things multiple times with multiple purposes. Throughout the year, I mention that “we gotta find that cowbell,” meaning we have to delve deeper into the text we’re working with. I love this lesson and it’s such a clear metaphor for the kids to grasp.
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