Ed Sheeran's "Shape Of You" Lesson Plans

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These lesson materials are designed to help students better understand the role that language plays in fostering credibility for a speaker — and, as a critical reader, for placing trust in a speaker. Students will be prompted to closely read and analyze Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” with speaker reliability and credibility in mind. (Yes, an awesome academic argumentative writing prompt is also included!)

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Lesson Description

Ed Sheeran most recent album release has been dominating popular music charts across the country. As of March 2017, Sheeran has 16 songs in the UK Singles Chart Top 20. Like him or not, those are impressive numbers.

That being said, it’s important that your students are able distinguish between Ed Sheeran, the singer songwriter, and Ed Sheeran, the speaker in any particular set of lyrics. There is an important difference between the two, and their affinity for trusting their good pal Ed might not translate well when applying the same trust to the “speaker” of one of Sheeran’s songs.

These materials focus primarily on speaker credibility and reliability. You can expect:

A guided close reading and analysis exercise that prompts students to deconstruct excerpts from Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” before connecting their insights to speaker “reliability.”
A guided close reading and analysis exercise that examines how the relationship between the speaker and his audience evolves.
An awesome argumentative writing prompt that asks students to agree, disagree, or qualify one of three claims about “Shape Of You’s” speaker. (This prompt is flexible in that it can be implemented in class as a timed-writing exercise, or as a larger, multi-draft writing assignment.)

Join the TeachArgument Community now to gain access to this, and ALL of our pop culture lesson plans! OR — Grab this lesson a la carte for only $4.99!