When it comes to making significant legal and financial decisions, you’ve learned that there is often a lot of complicated documents and dense language involved.

And while a lot of what you learned about in Unit 5 might seem overwhelming, for this activity, you’re going to use an old trick to help make all of this information a bit more approachable and easier to understand—music! Putting difficult information to music by using it to write song lyrics can help take that difficult information and make it a bit easier to comprehend.

So, for this activity, you will be taking information from the unit and using it to write song lyrics that could be used to teach or introduce others to the subject matter.

Start by choosing one specific area of focus from the unit for your lyrics – etymology, root words, and affixes; contract reading strategies; legal and financial language; etc.

Once you have decided what you will focus on in your lyrics, determine what type of lyrics you will be writing. Do you want to choose a song that you know and alter those lyrics to express your specific information? Do you want to start from scratch and write lyrics to accompany an original tune? Will your lyrics be more like spoken poetry, performed acapella rather than to actual music?

You have complete creative freedom when it comes to the beat, tune, or musical influence that you accompany with your lyrics. You also have complete creative freedom when it comes to writing the lyrics – as long as they clearly express and teach pertinent information from the unit.

The only requirements that you have are as follows:

Lyrics must clearly teach and express a key concept or idea from Unit 5.
Lyrics must include at least four vocabulary words from the unit and their precise meanings and usage.
Lyrics must have a chorus that is repeated at least twice.
Once you have completed your lyrics you have two options for the final reflection:

Record yourself performing your original song and afterwards, record yourself verbally explaining your lyrics and the overall meaning behind your song.
OR
Write a one- to two-page essay that evaluates and explains your lyrics and the meaning behind your song.
Regardless of which option you choose, a video recording or a written essay, you will need to make sure that you not only clearly explain your lyrics and the meaning/purpose behind your song but also point out each of the vocabulary words that you used describe the reference materials that you used to provide the precise meaning and usage of these words.

You will need to submit a typed copy of your lyrics and either your video recording or your short essay reflection. For information on how you will be graded, please refer to the rubric below.