Cirelli Michael - Hip-hop poetry and the classics for the classroom: connecting our classic curriculum to hip-hop poetry through standards-based language arts instruction

Grateful acknowledgment is made, and thankful credit is given to, the sources cited herein for reprinted copyrighted material. Their generosity and kindness of spirit is both notable and admirable. Improving literacy on a national level is ALL of our concerns and the contributions made by the Hip-Hop Community, Music Publishers, Poets, Book Publishing Companies and Artists themselves in the name of education are to be saluted. Note that the editors have made every effort to locate the owners of all copyrighted works and to obtain permission to reprint them. Any errors or omissions are entirely unintentional. Furthermore, the academic study of said material is the foremost goal of this book and we seek not to have diminished from the commercial viability of any artists work in our pursuit of promoting literacy. Conversely, our aim is to add value to the artists work cited herein by illuminating the relevancy, poignancy and overall excellency of their poetic craft. We thank everyone profusely and hope with fondness that a new generation of young minds will grow up to appreciate their respective talents.

Juicy Words and Music by Sean Combs, Christopher Wallace, Jean Claude Olivier and James Mtume. 1994 EMI APRIL MUSIC INC., JUSTIN COMBS PUBLISHING COMPANY INC., BIG POPPA MUSIC, JUMPING BEANS SONGS LLC and MTUME MUSIC. All Rights for JUSTIN COMBS PUBLISHING COMPANY INC. and BIG POPPA MUSIC Controlled and Administered by EMI APRIL MUSIC INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. -contains elements of Juicy Fruit Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas, from The Poems of Dylan Thomas, copyright 1952 by Dylan Thomas. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. From Dream Deferred from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, copyright 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Otha Fish Words and Music by Trevant Hardson, Romye Robinson, John Barnes lll and Hebert Mann. 1992 EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC., BEETJUNKYE MUSIC and HERBIE MANN MUSIC CORP. All Rights for BEETJUNKYE MUSIC Controlled and Administered by EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. -contains elements of Today (Mann) Lodged from The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1928, 1956 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC. From Mirror from Crossing The Water by Sylvia Plath. Copyright 1963 by Ted Hughes. Originally appeared in the New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Bishop. Copyright 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Three Strikes You In (O. Jackson, K. Gulley, J. Long, G. Hutchison, J. Johnson) Gangsta Boogie Music/W. B. Music Corp. (ASCAP), Songs of Madness obo itself and Pimp Clinic Muzick and Koke Is It Muzick (BMI), Phront Street Muzick (BMI), Straight Cash Music/EMI-Blackwood Music, Inc. (BMI). Dollarz N Sense Muzick (BMI). Used by permission. Follow Me written by Sage Francis. Used by permission. From A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays by Kamaal Ibn John Fareed, et al. Zomba Enterprise, Inc. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. Dat Scat by Tarik L Collins, et al. Careeres, BMG Music Publishing All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From Fight the Power by James Henry Boxley lll, et al. Songs of Universal, INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From For Women by Tony Louis Cottrell and Talib Kweli Greene. Windswept Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From Lose Yourself by Jeffrey Irwin Bass, Marshall B Mathers and Luis Edgardo Resto. Eight Mile Style Music, All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From Me Against the World by Tupac Shakur, et. al. Univerrsal Music Publishing, All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From Now Many by Zion l. Robert Collins, Zion I, All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From Paid in Full by Eric Barrier and William Griffin. Universal Songs of Polygram, Inc, All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. From Respiration by Tony L. Cottrell and Dante T. Smith. Windswept Holdings, LLC All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. The Fish from The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop, Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks. From Blacks, Third World Press, Chicago. 1991 Gwendolyn Brooks. Used by permission of Brooks Permissions.

Michael Cirelli is a poet and educator from Providence, Rhode Island. He has been an Individual Finalist at The National Poetry Slam and was the only person to make all three Bay Area slam teams in the same year, winning the finals in both San Francisco and Berkeley. He was a two-time member of both the Oakland Slam Team and the Long Beach Slam Team, as well as the Individual Grand Slam Champion of NYC Union Square. He has performed his work all over the United States and Canada and has taught writing workshops up and down the West Coast and in NYC. While in Los Angeles, he was the director of PEN Center Wests Poet In The Classroom program. He is currently the Associate Programs Coordinator for Urban Word NYC through the Teachers and Writers Collaborative and has an MFA from The New School University. He has been published in numerous journals and anthologies and has self-published seven chapbooks. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Alan Lawrence Sitomer was born in New York and educated at the University of Southern California (GO TROJANS!). Aside from being a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and greeting card author (yes, your granny may have been wished Happy Birthday via one of his wondrous creations), Alan is also an inner-city high school teacher in Los Angeles. His self-proclaimed mission is to inspire, educate, brighten and delight the lives of others through the written and spoken word. And if he gets to go for a swim at a nice beach now and then, life is pretty good. Oh yeah, he won a small little award called TEACHER OF THE YEAR for his efforts to promote literacy, holds a Masters Degree in Cross-Cultural Language Arts Education, and recently signed a three-book publishing deal with Disney for a trilogy of novels, the first of which is THE HOOPSTER. Check em out!

About Our Off the Hook Cover Artist

Taaron Silverstein is delighted to have gotten the opportunity to design the cover for this book! She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio where, at age four, her love of Hip-Hop was born when her dad brought home the 12" of Rappers Delight. Many yearsand rap tapes later she received a BFA with a degree in Graphic Design from Miami University. She now works at Midway Games in Chicago as a video game artist. She is also an accomplished painter. As you can see, Taaron has mad skillz.

Looking for a great novel to engage reluctant readers? Check out

by
Alan Lawrence Sitomer

Also available with

The Teachers Study Guide To The Hoopster

A Complete Literary Unit
Designed for TEACHERS by TEACHERS

Meet more than 34 State Language Arts Standards