Three hours without classes spent listening to popular music seems like the ultimate treat for any high school student.

Well, maybe only some high school students.

The writing workshop-based assembly from the Rebuild the Writing Foundation for freshmen and sophomores last Tuesday resulted in some very mixed feelings.

The focus of the assembly was to reintroduce the fundamentals of writing with a rhythm and rhyme based theme. Erik Cork was the host and presenter at the assembly and reached the crowd by incorporating primarily rap into basic lessons. However, his teaching style didn’t influence every student the same way.

“His target was only a certain group of students,” sophomore Elizabeth Steiner said. “Some parts of the assembly were random, some were offensive and it perpetuated a lot of stereotypes, not only those of Blacks but also of Whites.”

Many students found the presentation to be offensive. Language Arts teacher Adam Gish acknowledged that many of his 10th grade students were insulted by the level of knowledge presented.

“I thought the assembly was a waste of time because copying down synonyms for common words for an hour is not going to help my vocabulary or writing skills whatsoever,” sophomore Amalia Aldredge said. “It was sort of demeaning to have my writing skill brought down to that level.”

During the assembly, Cork spent over half an hour on synonyms for words like happy and sad. He also changed the words to current songs so that they were musical reminders for things like revising and editing your paper. “Back that pen up” was one such song. Cork’s presentation even called for having the teachers — Gish being one of them — rap and dance.

“It gave me the biggest headache ever,” an anonymous sophomore said. “By the end I was falling asleep and I hadn’t learned anything.”

Not all of the feedback was negative, however. Some students said they benefitted from the assembly.

“Mr. Cork portrayed a whole new approach to teaching urban youth the art of the English language,” said sophomore Meraf Geberehiwot. “It was a refreshing and colorful presentation that exceedingly surpassed my expectations.”

And if they didn’t get anything academic out of it, at least they enjoyed themselves and their break from the usual routine of classes. “This is awesome! We listen to some dude rap about grammar and try to dance,” sophomore Alex Flacco said. “I didn’t learn much, but it beats going to class.”

Attendance at the assembly, in two sessions — one for freshmen and one for sophomores — was required. If the workshop is continued in the future, Gish proposes that it only be mandatory for students who have proven that they need it. They would do this by giving students a “fill in the blank” conjugation test. Passing the test would make the assembly optional, failing would mean required attendance.

Based on the feedback teachers have received, students feel that this is a good plan. Many who were required to attend felt that their time could have been better spent actually learning something at their level.

“The assembly was a waste of my time,” sophomore Ruthie Ditzler said. “People in high school should know what a sentence is and how to say ‘big’ in many different ways.”

They should, but in some cases they don’t, according to assistant principal Frances Sobers.

“It was mainly aimed at students not achieving academically like some of their other classmates are,” said Sobers. “We were targeting an audience who doesn’t get A’s and B’s and who are interested in rap music.”

She referred to it as a form of “edutainment” — a blend of education and entertainment — that was aimed at a certain group of students. Sobers said she is aware that it does seem to break down into a racial thing, but thought it was something different that they had to do to reach the lower-skilled students. These separations definitely were apparent to students as well.

“The assembly seemed to be targeted towards certain groups of people, and for those may have been very helpful, but others were left feeling bored and out of place,” sophomore Shayna Anderson-Hill said. “Though the assembly may have been helpful, I don’t believe it to be worth the cost that was paid.”

That cost was around $8,000, according to Sobers. She declined to say if the money was the school’s, from the PTSA, or an outside grant. With that cost the school received the presentation, the materials— workbooks for teachers and students — and a follow up for teachers.

“Besides just teaching the students, he showed new strategies and approaches to teaching to the teachers as well,” said Sobers. “The workshop for the Language Arts teachers was a follow up.”

Cork said he was in the classroom for seven years and now has been traveling for eight. He considers his workshop to be a “learning party” and said that the music really is the determining factor in the success of the program.

Overall the students had the impression that he was an enthusiastic and motivated guy who wanted to teach kids more about writing and make it relevant to their lives.

“It was obvious that he really wanted to reach the students and be able to get them interested in writing,” sophomore Abby McCoy said. “I just don’t know if he chose the best way to reach all of us.”