NOEL KING, HOST:
Keeping kids' attention is a huge challenge for any teacher. At St. Charles Borromeo School in Harlem, N.Y., one teacher figured out a way.
DAVE ROBLES: (Rapping) Interjection's a word or a phrase that expresses emotion or exclamation.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Yeah.
ROBLES: Write it out.
DAVE ROBLES AND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Write it, write it out, hey.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
That's Dave Robles. He teaches English in elementary school and created a curriculum called Grammar Raps.
ROBLES: In Grammar Raps, we essentially rap out all of the parts of speech.
MARTIN: The fifth graders love it.
ROBLES: There's a lot of anticipation. They're waiting for the beat to drop (laughter).
KING: This, says Robles, is what he wanted when he was a kid.
ROBLES: I always wanted to be the kind of teacher I needed when I was a kid. I would've - I love music. Music is life. You can use music for everything. And we do use music in other areas throughout the day in school. And I wanted to do something different with grammar.
KING: And he absolutely is.
ROBLES: (Rapping) Up, off, on, until...
(CROSSTALK) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
