Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
No one withdrew after syllabus day. In the semester I piloted a first-year seminar course, the “Rhetoric of Protest Songs,” on the first day of class, I introduced the topic of the class and myself. However, before I gave students the syllabi, I confessed that I knew little about music. I told them I Googled and YouTubed, and read our text to gain knowledge about protest songs. I told them the “Rhetoric of Protest Songs” was a writing class, and rhetoric means persuasion. “In this class, you’ll write academic essays about protest songs. And we’ll listen to some music.”
My students may not have known that when they researched and wrote about protest songs they were entering an ongoing conversations about the role of social justice activism. They do now.
Recommended Citation
Young, S. (2019). "Fuck tha police": The poetry and politics of N.W.A. Watchung Review, 3, 23-31.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Other Music Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons
