If you’ve been on the subway recently, you may have noticed ads plastered across the trains for Epic Rap Battles of History. My students introduced me to them last year, and anytime we studied a featured character they’d immediately request to watch the video. Given the enthusiasm my students showed as an audience, I came up with a list of 5 reasons why they should create their own rap battle videos.
- We all want to be the reason over a million people do something, like watch a video.
- Most people, as themselves, would be criticized for rapping. Everyone enjoys when Abraham Lincoln raps.
- Explaining history to someone else is the most effective way to study history.
- Writing a historically accurate rhyme is a great literacy project.
- You can propose it as an extra credit project to your history teacher (hint hint, wink wink).
- Bonus Reason: Ladies, the number of videos featuring female characters from history is seriously lacking.
If you need some inspiration, check out this link. My personal favorite is the battle between Rasputin and Stalin (nothing beats Gorbachev’s cameo to inform Lenin and Stalin that they need yoga). With that, I leave students with a challenge, an Epic Rap Battle challenge.