In Her Own Words: Teaching the Music and Lyrics of Taylor Swift

I’ve met very few young people who don’t find something to like about Taylor Swift. As a singer, songwriter, and cultural icon, she has amassed a tremendous following. This presentation explores an approach to teaching the music and lyrics of Taylor Swift in a way that shows why her work is so appealing to a wide audience. It is, in fact, the poetry unit we wish we could teach our students. Now teaching poetry is challenging, in large part because students see the form as difficult to access and something they know little about. However, every young person I’ve met seems to think they know what Taylor Swift’s music is about. That music they love is comprised of lyrics, and those lyrics are poetry, and so what they love deep down and have such strong opinions about is poetry. They just don’t know it. For the past two years, I have undertaken to teach the music and lyrics of Taylor Swift to my class, interested in how I might show them the complex and often beautiful way that Swift uses language to inform, to reflect, to challenge, and to inspire. What I hope to show teachers is how they can provide middle and high school students with a way of seeing why, as a singer and songwriter, Taylor Swift really is as amazing as they believe her to be. Along the way, students will develop a deep and abiding passion for poetry, a literary form they never knew they could love and appreciate, but in fact already do.