DUBLIN, Ga. — Kids in Dublin are taking the music they hear on the radio and turning it into their own in the name of education.
Students in Heather Sumner's fourth grade English class at Hillcrest Elementary are getting the chance to write their own music with the goal of understanding different styles of writing.
"It has to make sense, it can't be lame," said student Zion Porter. "We get to make our own songs, we get to make our own rhymes."
Porter's fourth-grade teacher Heather Sumner says when her students could not grasp the information, she created some rhymes to keep them in line.
"If I can remember something, just by hearing a song that I have not heard in forever, my students can remember stuff heard in school for a song," Sumner said.
The students have a week to write their rhymes using words like character, dialogue, plus any element of narrative writing.
"So I kind of directed them in the way they need to be going and they just rolled with it," Sumner said.
Sumner says her students' grades are already improving.
"Instead of [feeling like] doing work, we can have fun with it," said student Kye Young said.
Each student writes their own rhyme and the class is broken up into six groups. The only rules? Keep your rap clean and have fun.
"They were like, those are the details of my car, I told them that's not what I meant," Sumner said.
She says she plans on continuing this unusual approach as long as the grades show that it's working.