Blue Nose Edutainment



As you know, nothing can stop a truly motivated student, but nothing is harder than teaching a student that is not motivated. We believe that education is a team effort, and with your help we hope to create a revolutionary new approach that really energizes student motivation by using popular media formats. We need your input, suggestions, comments, and anything else that you would like to share with other educators. We welcome a sharing of lesson plans on how you integrate BlueNose into your classroom. We encourage you to share your experiences on how the BlueNose activities motivate certain students within your class. (Especially in reference to those students who are so inhibited, shy, under-achievers, etc.) Our challenge is to transfer the power of these popular media formats like music, video, iPods, MP3 players, cell phones, and the Internet into educationally valuable activities. As you implement BlueNose into your classroom, please let us know of your classroom experiences and observations. We urge you to participate! We will post and credit you for your contribution. Our email address is info@BlueNoseEd.com.
		Lesson Plan	Lesson Plan
			Worksheets



"When I received notice of the program, I was truly excited as I felt that FINALLY someone was trying to develop curriculum that would hold the students' interest yet correspond with the state standards." Bernal Intermediate School San Jose, CA "In our school, many of the students are into rap, so you may notice a number of rap entries. One student even shared his rap lyrics in front of the class. This was a student that normally struggles in class, but this assignment brought out the best in him." Fostoria Middle School Fostoria, OH "Our students became very interested as some of our former students were in the band 'Mushroomhead.'" Cuyahoga Heights Middle School Cuyahoga Heights, OH "Thank you so much for this opportunity. It is great to find an educational tool that excites the students. It was a very fun and productive week!" State Center Middle School Jones, OK "The students who chose to submit their entries, worked hard on their ideas and feel like they have something of value to contribute. Thank you for offering this opportunity!" Capitan Middle School Capitan, NM "I was amazed by the depth my students showed with this project." Lake Mills Middle School Lake Mills, WI "This lends itself quite effectively to the incorporation of standards and piquing the interest of the students!" Bernal Intermediate School San Jose, CA "I incorporated the lesson plans into my poetry unit for both freshmen and juniors. The students had fun doing this and participated readily." Silver High School Silver City, NM "It has been a pleasure and wonderful experience to participate in this program. I teach 8th grade language arts to over 130 students and wanted to give everyone an opportunity to participate. All my students participated!" Hohokam Middle School Tucson, AZ "At Horace Mann Middle School in Sheboygan, WI, 7th grade integrated language arts students participated in a two-week songwriting unit. The students did several activities leading up to their final song writing. First, the students defined the literary terms they would be using over the next several weeks. Then, students did numerous activities and participated in discussions of the songs. Students were also asked to analyze one of their favorite songs. As a conclusion to the unit, students were required to come up with an original song idea and create the lyrics." Horace Mann Middle School Sheboygan, WI "Our class worked diligently on this project! It was the first time I have tried connecting music to my English classes. My students loved the project!" Hobart Middle School Painesville, OH "Kaelyn really enjoyed writing this song parody during the week of FCAT. She also was able to perform it on the morning announcements. It relieved a lot of anxiety of the students in Mrs. King and Mrs. Weir's classes, giving them all a moment of levity!" Jacksonville Beach Elementary School Jacksonville Beach, FL "I have enclosed song lyrics written by numerous students in my 8th grade English classes. We have enjoyed this program once again! The students loved being able to incorporate music into their daily lessons! Thanks for all of your encouragement and inspiration!" Cadwallader Middle School Las Vegas, NV "All of my students really enjoyed the open-endedness of this program and the creative angle that it allowed them to take. Thanks for giving kids the opportunity to be involved with such a cool and creative essay. It allows them to think about writing in a realm with which they are connected, comfortable, and familiar." Ashland Middle School Ashland, OR "I was impressed by how excited my students were by the assignment. Chase Moore in particular blossomed in class. He showed genuine excitement and enthusiasm for the first time all year. It was nice connecting with him!" Shoshoni Junior High School Shoshoni, WY	Mandarin Middle students have lyrical touch By Dan Scanlan, My Mandarin Sun Their songs dealt with death, illness and middle school peer relations. Now the thoughts of three Mandarin Middle School students that were turned into lyrics have scored big in a national song contest called Rock 'n Write. Three local ninth-graders, plus the language arts teacher who worked with students in the contest, are the top national winners out of the estimated 3,000 middle and high schools that competed in the contest. And 27 classmates won medals and certificates for their submissions. "You walked away with it. The reality is that we are so happy that you are here to see all this and participate in what we think is a fun way of reading and writing," said Rock 'n Write president and founder Lyman Carter. "I urge you not to give up that [songwriting] talent you have, because there is something there." Nate Livsey won a Hewlett-Packard computer for a song about how classmates should deal with each other. "Like how jocks should get along with geeks and stop bullying them," said the 14-year-old. "It is pretty overwhelming and I am pretty happy. I would like to write as a career." Hillary Browning has a new HP camera and printer for her song about a man with cancer talking to someone who loved him. "He was saying about how sad it was going to be about what he lost, and all of the things he needed to do, and she should live life to the fullest," she said. "It feels great to know I actually wrote something and it won." Robby Murray said the death of his father, Bob, was the source for his song. He received a new laptop for his work. "It touched my heart, so I wanted to write something about it and let people know. 'I opened the door and all I see is sadness' is the first line,' " he said. "I have never won anything this big before." The four-year-old Rock 'n Write program is part of Houghton Mifflin's McDougal Littell division, which publishes subject books for middle and high school students. The contest's aim was to use music to improve a student's appreciation of poetry and reinforce their reading and writing skills. Teachers and students downloaded songs from the contest Web site, then either interpreted them, wrote a new lyric or suggested a short song idea for submission with teacher comment. Mandarin Middle School language arts teacher Jane Feber, who won a laptop computer for her work with the students, said her "kids are incredible." "It's not that they are the smartest of the smart, or I am the smartest of the smart. We are hard workers," said Feber. "Rock 'n Write encourages the kids to write about topics of interest to them, and they take it to heart." More online Read about more school and community group activities at MyMandarinSun.com.~~~Contest winners Here are the Mandarin Middle School students who won the 2007 Rock 'n Write contest: - Nate Livsey, Robby Murray and Hillary Browning are national winners. - Medal winners were Rondene Grinam, Wyatt Dewitt, Cody Bunnell, Jessica Grenia, Freddy Marroquin, Kyle Boston, Marisa Mato, Evan Taylor, Anna Lewis, Liz Sabatino, Sarah Gonzales, Carolyn Cassidey, Val Marroquin, Shane Buchan and Spencer Hayward. - Certificate winners were Annette Teague, Morgan Taylor, Kendall Klusmeier, Chelsea Aniel, Devin Kelly, Meagan Reeves, Alison Lambdin, Lauryn Vickers, Jamie Atherton, Alisha Brown, Aaron Tan and Dylan DeBeradine. Rock 'n Write changed its name to BlueNose this school year, although the song lyric/idea/interpretation contest remains the same. Middle and high school students can learn more by logging onto www.bluenoselive.com, beginning Dec. 1. Deadline for this school year's entries is May 15. The grand prize is an awards concert at The House of Blues in Los Angeles.~~~

Mandarin Middle students have lyrical touch