Twista

It's been delightful working with Writing Workshop this week on a particular assignment I devised to get kids to think about how to elevate their diction to a more appropriate academic level. I provided students with the lyrics to a rap song by Twista called "Get It How You Live" and the students have to "translate" each line into approporiate academic diction. Sometimes it can be done just by interpreting the slang into common usage but it's more fun and funnier to take it one step further. So when Twista says "dick," you can make it "penis" but you could also write "phallus." In order to do this, students use the thesauruses in their heads, online dictionaries and thesauruses, including an urban slang dictionary to help translate terms like "dro" (hydroponically cultivated marijuana).

Here's a sample of some of the original lines, followed by student interpretations (spelling corrected):

When it come to hustlin', got to get it how you live
When it comes to earning an income, one must adjust one's employment to one's lifestyle

Hangin' at the club while hoes slide down the pole
I spend my leisure time at a gentlemen's club watching exotic dancers

Shake it for me, bitch, lemme see you get loose
Quiver, female homo sapiens, until you are no longer physcially uptight

With two bitches on my arms sporting thousand dollar clothes, looking kind of stunning so the cameras on flick
With a pair of young ladies on either side sartorially ensconced in expensive attire, cacthing the attention of paparazzi

Teeth on bling, fingers on frost
Teeth ornamented by glimmering jewelry, diamonds on my phalanges

Lemme see if Im'a get you up in the 'lac/Bend over so I can see if Im'a hit it from the back
I shall determine if I will invite you inside my Cadillac and fulfill my fetish of slapping women in the gluteus maximus to achieve sexual pleasure