The ¡CityArts! blog presents the EDTAP Success Series.  Follow our five full-time AmeriCorps Expanded Day Teaching Artists as they use art to help teach math, reading, social studies, and more at two Providence middle schools, Roger Williams MS and Nathan Bishop MS.

“I recently had the opportunity to work with Mr. Taylor’s 8th grade social studies class on a second rap parody project similar to the one I did in the fall.* Here students paired up and tackled the topic of Westward Expansion. Each group picked a song to use as a vehicle for summarizing either the Gold Rush, Manifest Destiny, the Mexican-American War, or the Oregon Trail out of “Renegades of Funk”, “King of Rock”, and “Intergalactic Planetary”.

The students had a great time and it was a pleasure carrying out such a fun project.”

2011-2012 Full-time AmeriCorps EDTAP member

* Didn’t hear about Andrew’s last rap parody project? Last fall, Andrew worked with the same group of students to record rap parodies describing the three branches of government.  The class was such a success that they brought him back!

Visit Andrew’s Digication page to listen to raps from last autumn based on the tunes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Theme Song (Will Smith), Ice, Ice, Baby (Vanilla Ice), or U Can’t Touch This (MC Hammer). My favorite line re-write: “Break it down, stop! Veto time!”