GUIDE TO SONGS

for the Hip Hop Poetry of Flocabulary: The Hip-Hop Approach to SAT-Level Vocabulary Building

Click here to download this guide as a printable PDF.

This Teacher’s Guide to the Songs will guide you through each song on Flocabulary: SAT Vocabulary. It outlines the narrator, plot-lines, themes, examples of figurative language and cultural references that you’ll find on each track. But we certainly don’t mean this list to stifle any creativity or originality on your or your student’s behalf. Please use this guide in any way that you see fit.

1. Transformation

Narrator – Someone who loves hip-hop, and is vaguely critical of ‘bookworms.’
Theme – Transformation, metamorphosis, evolution.
Figurative Language –
“People crowd around like Jesus eating his last meal…” (Simile)
“Vast, Voluminous, extensive, exorbitant collection...” (Alliteration)
“You’ll be the paragon of animals…” (Hyperbole)
References –
Outkast is a popular rap group from Atlanta.
Run D.M.C. is a famous eighties hip-hop crew from Queens.
Nostradamus was a fortune teller and prophet who lived in the 16th century.
Carrie Bradshaw is Sarah Jessica Parker’s character on Sex and the City. In one episode she realizes she has spent $40,000 on shoes.
Tony Danza is an Italian-American actor who starred in the sitcom, Who’s the Boss?
Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper (1498) depicts the apostles crowded around a seated Jesus.

2. Shakespeare is Hip-Hop

Narrator – A lover of the English Language.
Theme – The malleability and adaptability of Language.
Figurative Language –
“I forage through this language like I rummage for food...” (Simile)
“It’s fertile and fecund, flipping freestyle flows for all my folks…” (Alliteration)
“We’re more abundant than sunrays on the radiant days…” (Hyperbole)
References –
Toussaint L’Ouverture helped lead the great Haitian slave revolt in 1791.
“A cold flow by any other name...” derives from the Shakespearean line, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” - Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.
“What wind from yonder window blows...” derives from the Shakespearean line, “But soft! What light from yonder window breaks?” - Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.

3. Adventures of Carlito

Narrator – A take-no-nonsense friend of Carlito, who knows his friend well.
Plot – Carlito, a shy, obsequious young man, is walking his puppy through Central Park when a old man accosts him and takes his dog. Carlito tells his friend (the narrator), who eventually helps him retrieve his dog.
Themes – Excessive submissiveness as weakness, strength as the ability to stand up for yourself.
Figurative Language –
“Fortify like a fort…” (Simile)
“Revenge, restitution, some payback, retaliation and retribution…” (Alliteration)
“I might leave you bereft of your esophagus…” (Hyperbole)
References –
Judge Judy (Judith Sheindlin) is a judge who arbitrates disputes between parties on network TV.

4. Phobia

Narrator – An easily frightened young guy who lives in a tough neighborhood.
Plot – The narrator is scared to walk by a haunted house.
Themes – Fear, haunted spaces.
Figurative Language –
“I’m transparent like diaphanous screens…” (Simile)
“The austere appearance, bare and bleak... I’m too scared to speak…” (Alliteration)
References –
Jimmy Page was the lead guitarist for Led Zeppelin.

5. Friends

Narrators – A guy recalling his childhood days. Someone praising his girlfriend. A guy complaining about his imaginary friend.
Themes – Friendship as supportive, the diversity of various friendships.
Figurative Language –
“Like a tiger full of tranquilizers he’s mostly benign…” (Simile)
“Affable and amiable, she’s always acting conciliatory and agreeable…” (Alliteration)
References –
Wesley Snipes helped fight terrorists on a plane in the film, Passenger 57.
The Energizer Bunny appears in commercials, drumming constantly, with the motto: “still going... nothing outlasts the energizer.”
Guess Who? is a two-player guessing game made by Milton Bradley.

6. FLO+CAB

Narrator – A happy rapper.
Theme – The confluence of two things, two things becoming one.
Figurative Language –
“Like a boomerang we’re back...” (Simile)
“There are copious connotations for every single word...” (Alliteration)
References –
Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable are the happily married couple on The Cosby Show.
Iron Chef is a popular Japanese television show (with a new American spin-off) that features chefs competing to cook tasty food in an hour.
Beverly Cleary is a prolific author of books for children and young adults.
Boyz II Men was a singing group from Philadelphia featuring a 1990's version of Temptations-like harmony.
Art Garfunkel was a harmony-singing member of the folk-rock group Simon and Garfunkel. He didn’t play an instrument.
The Concorde (SST) was a commercial passenger plane that flew at supersonic speeds.

7. Myriad Operations

Narrator – A pathetic (slightly sleazy) guy, with too much confidence, but not that much self esteem.
Plot – The narrator tries in vain to talk to a girl he meets in a Taqueria.
Themes – Changing personality traits for others, attraction.
Figurative Language –
“Shot me a quick, cursory glance... caused a contusion, I started bruising…” (Metaphor)
“My tongue was complicit in my mind’s crimes like an accessory to murder…” (Simile)
“I was blushing exorbitantly and excessively...” (Alliteration)
References –
Elmo is a friendly, red-furred monster from Sesame Street.

8. I Do

Narrator – A playful, weird lover of food.
Themes – The playfulness, randomness of life, the enjoyment of food.
Figurative Language –
“I support it like the cheese supports the bologna…” (Simile)
“Moving so slow, that’s why I switched into my Speedo...” (Alliteration)
References –
Jared Fogle, the spokesman for Subway, lost over 200 lbs eating nothing but Subway sandwiches.
Speed Dating is a form of organized group dating in which singles meet and talk for only a few minutes and then rotate to meet new people.
Dizzee Rascal is a progressive rap artist from London.
Rush Limbaugh is a conservative radio talk-show host.

9. Flux

Narrator – Someone contemplating the vicissitudes of life.
Theme – The only thing constant is change.
Figurative Language –
“I swear I change colors like a chameleon…” (Simile)
“We’ve got to rectify, recalibrate, and repair, revise...” (Alliteration)
References –
Play-Doh is bread-like dough, colored and designed for children’s play.

10. Doctor, Doctor

Narrator – A hedonistic student who is in love with sunlight.
Plot – A student wakes up on a beautiful day, feels sick because he knows he’ll have to sit in a classroom. He goes to his doctor to try to convince him he is sick, but his doctor thinks his patient is trying to fool him.
Themes – Appreciation of nature, the divide between civilization and nature.
Figurative Language –
“You pull down those shades... you prick my finger…” (Metaphor)
“I get freakier than circus freaks...” (Simile)
“I’m not a fabulist. These here are no fables, I flow...” (Alliteration)
References –
A rave is an all-night dance event featuring large crowds dancing to electronic music, often in an old warehouse.

11. Piece of the Pie

Narrator – Someone meditating on life.
Themes – The connectedness of all things, that both sides of every story and feeling are equally true.
Figurative Language –
“We listen to the ring of our calling, our vocation, but I’m too far in the mountains and I get no reception…” (Metaphor)
“I revel in the early morning sun on my forehead, like a salutation or greeting from life…” (Simile)
“The rest and repose that you get...” (Alliteration)
References –
“O brave o’er hanging firmament,” is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.
"Every atom in you was once in the sun," refers to the fact that most of the atoms in our bodies and in everything around us were once in the hearts of stars.
“To be or not to be,” is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2.
Talib Kweli is a rap artist who’s 2002 single Get By posits that most people’s actions come from doing the best they can to get by in this world.