In ninth-grade social studies, students are wrapping up their Western Expansion unit. Each year, teachers end the unit with the Cowboy song assignment. In the songs, students have to include parts of an article given to them and can write it to any song. They are graded on the content of their song for a 20-point formative grade.
Social studies teacher Brandon Ransom elaborates on what the project strives to be.
“It’s good seeing kids actually do something they are not comfortable with and I had everyone turn in a song,” said Ransom.
Freshmen students Olivia Ditgen and Kinsley Larimer wrote their song to “Baby” by Justin Bieber. In the song they replaced the refrain, “Baby, baby, baby, oh, I thought you’d always be mine, mine” with “Chasing, chasing, chasing cows, I thought we never catch them all.”
Ditgen enjoyed the assignment and speaks on the creative element of the project.
“It was fun because we got to create a song and use our imagination,” said Ditgen.
Other freshman student, Audrey MacMillan and Quinn Humphrey took a different approach and made a diss track about the Cowboys. In their song, they sang about how the cowboys were overworked and had a line saying, “Look like you stuck with minimum wage. Kinda seems like you do not get paid.”
MacMillan now speaks on how the assignment was different from other assignments like taking notes.
“It was fun compared to taking notes like we normally do,” said MacMillan.
Each year, students generally find this assignment enjoyable as it provides them with opportunities to express themselves and step out of their comfort zones.
