SYSTEMS RAP by Algo Rhythm
OK, I admit that I'm not the creator of this rap. Like "Slope Intercept Rap" (mentioned in yesterday's post), it appears on the old Google Classroom shared by Math I teachers. The difference is that "the Slope Intercept Rap" writer posts YouTube videos of his songs. The creator of today's rap appears to be a fellow (or former) teacher at my school.
I don't post complete content created by my colleagues. Thus, like with "Planting Trees" earlier, I post only an edited version of the song. For starters, I omit the first verse (which is on solving systems by graphing) and start with the second verse. Moreover, the creator of this rap posted only a worksheet filled with blanks (like guided notes), with no answer key. Thus I had to guess and fill in some of the blanks myself.
The underlined lyrics are my best guesses at the blanks. Some of them I'm more sure of -- for example, I'm confident that the blank in the first line is y equals mx + b (slope-intercept form), but I had no clue what goes after "which becomes" in the fourth line.
Also, "Algo Rhythm" is clearly a stage name. The creator of the song included his own name in the second verse -- well, at least his last initial (after "Mr.") is there. And so I changed this to my own last name above. (No current math teacher at my school has that last initial, which is why I think it's a former teacher.)
Meanwhile, like many hip-hop songs, this song might have a melodic chorus while the rest of the some is purely rhythmic -- but there's no video or other way for me to know this. And so I decide to create my own melodic chorus using our current EDL scale, namely 16EDL.
Let me make this official. This is the third song that I'm composing in 16EDL, our main scale for March and April. And it's the first 16EDL song in the ABAB format, with verses and a chorus (though only the chorus is melodic).
Before I discuss the chorus, let me discuss the fourth period class itself. Today we return to Lesson 6.3.2 of the CPM text, which is on elimination where one equation must be scaled, or multiplied by a constant in order to eliminate a variable. (The rap above calls this "combination.")
There is a Desmos activity that could go with this lesson, but I think it fits the next lesson better. So instead, I give a few guided elimination questions as part of the DeltaMath assignment. This allows us enough time to glue the rap into notebooks and fill in the blanks.
Meanwhile, in first and sixth periods it's still Pi Day (or at least Belated Pi Day, since those classes didn't meet yesterday). In first period I hand out 7-Eleven pies to the top three scorers on the DeltaMath test in Math III, while in sixth period (right at 1:59, of course) I give away the leftover pies from yesterday's fifth period.
Sixth period Math I finishes their posters today, but some students are once again distracted by the World Cup -- the World Baseball Cup, that is. Many of my Hispanic students are once again supporting Team Mexico, who defeats Canada to advance to the knockout stage. Team USA must beat Colombia to advance as well. (The Americans lead 3-2 at the game's midpoint as of the timestamp of this post.)
I believe that all games in the knockout round will be played in primetime, or at least after school lets out on the West Coast. So today should be the only day with a baseball distraction. (Of course, March Madness starts tomorrow, so that might also cause problems.)
Today is Fourday on the Eleven Calendar:
Resolution #4: We start our Warm-Ups and the main lesson promptly.
I do attempt to get the kids working more quickly in fourth period, though it's still tricky. Today's Warm-Up is a Level 1 elimination problem, and even though many of them did well on last week's quiz, they still like to waste time during Warm-Ups. (In the other classes, fast Warm-Ups are impossible since I spend much of the first few minutes of class handing out pie.)
Meanwhile, I do wish to get back to pink slip discussion in today's post. Today during third period, I originally plan on meeting up with my prep period buddy (the other Math I teacher with the same conference period) to set up the next tutoring session -- and we'd already been discussing my evaluation and employment situation. But unfortunately, she has to cover another class during third period, and so I don't say much about the pink slip. (Of course, the correct contact person would be a union rep, but they are busy today -- it is still March 15th, after all.)
Just like last year, I won't mention any interviews I have with other schools on the blog, unless they occur on a regularly scheduled posting day and I take the entire day off to interview (thus forcing me to explain why I'm not teaching that day).
Here's a link to today's Mocha code (for the melodic chorus):
https://www.haplessgenius.com/mocha/
Don't forget to click on Sound before you RUN the program.
I ran my TI randomizer twice, since on the second attempt I found notes that sound good. There are two bars -- one that repeats for the first four lines, and the other that repeats for the last four.
Degree 13 is omitted, and so this is pure 16EDL without worrying about the neutral third problem. The first repeating bar is A-A-C, with Am as the obvious guitar chord. In the second bar, we can interpret Degree 11 as B so that an E power chord can be played -- the melody becomes B-E-F#-C.
This post is labeled as Days 129-130. My next post will be on Friday, Day 131 -- the seventeenth of the month and hence my monthly post.
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