Diego Martinez

Ms. Alana Bartolini

Writing 2: Project 1

April 14th of ’22

Original Song: “Day of the Lords,” By Joy Division

Track #2 on Unknown Pleasures

Parody Version: “Day of the Kids,” By Diego Martinez

Based on translated work

Monologue: Another day in highschool, I hate it here! We can barely pay attention in this hot,
smelly classroom. What will be different today?

In the classroom, the start of it all

The posters for school are up on the wall
We finished a quiz, the stress on the brain
I’m failing my grades, I’m failing my grades

Pay attention!
Pay attention!
Pay attention!
Pay attention!

Been in a room from childhood, through youth

Where I sat in my desk, and looked at my shoes
Learning is hard, but the class must begin
My glasses are thin, so distorted and whim

When will I learn?

When will I learn?
When will I learn?
When will I learn?
Monologue: Suddenly a girl walks through the door. She can’t be much older, but definitely a
college student. Why did she bring a backpack? Is she going to present her school to the class?
We just finished a quiz, give us a break!

This is Ms. Weng, in the desk by the door

So she won’t be disturbed, all our laptops are closed
Our teacher was kind, it’s a first for the week
But we dare not to speak, we dare not to speak

Will this class end?

Will this class end?
Will this class end?
Will this class end?

Taking her notes, she watches us all

Just to show off, there’s goals on the wall
Our teacher was kind, it’s a new tame
We will not maintain, we will not maintain

Stay in our class!

Stay in our class!
Stay in our class!
Stay in our class!

Why is she here, she whispers and writes

I don’t remember class being this nice
Out of thin air, my hand starts to raise
I’m participating! I’m participating!

Participation!
Participation!
Participation!
Participation!

Monologue: Somehow class was engaging today. Ms. Weng has been watching our instructor the
entire class, even making some comments on her style. Is our teacher being graded? It seems that
she is trying to keep our attention, and it’s working well. We don’t understand what this is about
though.

Examination, on all our brains

Young Ms. Weng, begins to explain
This is a paper for her MA
This is the reason for her visit today

We’re in a study!
We’re in a study!
We’re in a study!
We’re in a study!

Give it some relevance

To arouse all our interest
Then referential questions
Makes us feel a connection

That’s how to teach!

That’s how to teach!
That’s how to teach!
That’s how to teach!

Motivational strategies
In the classroom
Who woulda thought
They’d be working for you

Inspire the youth!

Inspire the youth!
Inspire the youth!
Inspire the youth!

Look we’re engaged

In the lesson
Watch how we rage
To answer more questions

Monologue: Today’s lesson made us feel like changing the world! Everybody had something to
say. It’s rare to go to classes like this, Ms. Weng brought a different type of energy.

Diego Martinez
Ms. Alana Bartolini

Writing 2: Project 1

April 14th of ’22

Classroom Punk

“Post-punk” refers to music built after the influence of earlier punk defining bands from

the 70s, such as the Ramones and the Stooges. These bands helped characterize the distorted

sounds, and vocal style of the first punk music, specifically from its underground conception as a

subgenre of rock. As punk music later grew in popularity, artists began to experiment with

sounds to modernize and darken their music. Hence, although post-punk would keep similar

anarchist values, it would bend the conventions of rock music more than earlier punk bands.

Artists of the post-punk genre used techniques such as synthesized chords and distorted vocals to

add new tones to their music.

Across decades punk-rock music has morphed into many different forms, each distinct in

their approaches to “punk” sounds and lyrics. Rather than oversaturating the punk genre, this

rapid expansion has only defined the period of “post-punk” bands more concretely.

Contemporary genres of punk now include garage-punk, metal-punk, and death-punk. Yet,

conversations of authentic “post-punk” will always be centered around the pioneers of a specific

period after punk’s inception. Lisa Bickmore’s writing of “Genre in the Wild,” discusses this

evolution of the post-punk sound which I am referring to. She defines genre as a “typified

utterance that appears in recurrent situations…[which] evolves through human use and activity to

be a durable and usable form.” By this definition, the punk music genre fulfills the recurrent need

for the youthful expression of authoritative rejection. Newer interpretations of punk-rock also

demonstrate the genre’s capacity to evolve its sounds further across modern generations. For
these reasons, I wanted to utilize the post-punk genre to help students understand the scientific

dialogue of Weng’s classroom observations.

My project seeks to transcribe an academic article about classroom attention into a post

punk rock parody. “How Does Teacher Talk Affect Student’s Classroom Motivation in Terms

of the Level of ‘Attention,’ ‘Participation,’ and ‘Volunteering” was written by Hui-Tzu Weng for

her MA research at Sophia University of Tokyo, Japan. In this publication, she studies which

student-teacher interactions are effective for creating a participating classroom. The language in

this report follows a scientific method to create data based on the pupil’s response .Therefore, I

wanted to transcribe these observations into a modern post-punk song about education. Although

Weng is conducting an experiment with students, the genre of her report could hardly be

understood by high schoolers. Much of her MA thesis revolves around metacognition research

and defining variables used to gauge emotional responses. Transcribing these methods into the

post-punk genre will allow high schoolers to better understand research obtained in their

classroom. Post-punk was chosen because its genre conventions were also not so constrained to

the original punk format. Hence, through post-punk, Wengs' article could be explained in

monologues and with longer lyrics. . “Day of the Lords,” by the band Joy Division was the song

I chose to parody.

Weng sits-in the teaching environments of two separate classrooms: both senior high

schools in Taipei City, Taiwan, and the other in Tokyo Japan. From her observations, Hui-Tzu

judges the emotional and verbal responses of students based on the teaching methods of their

instructor. Then she categorizes these “positive or negative'' responses into variables for chart

statistics for classroom motivation. Yet, a more persuasive report could have interviews from the

students under examination. These anecdotes would have added supplementary information
about the classroom environment that the students believe they are the most efficient in. This

student voice that Weng’s article lacked was something I wanted to address in my punk

rendition. This is accomplished through monologues to facilitate their expression.

Concepts from the research of linguistic scholars Marie J. Guilloteaux and Zoltan

Dornyei (2008), are used to define the variables that represent student “attention, participation,

and volunteering,” in Weng’s article. My parody, “Day of the Kids,” presents Weng’s method of

eliciting student participation through a lyrical format. The lines, “Give it some relevance, to

arouse some interest, then referential questions, makes us feel a connection,” are explicitly taken

from the teaching methods in “How Does Teacher Talk Affect Student’s Classroom Motivation

in Terms of the Level of ‘Attention,’ ‘Participation,’ and ‘Volunteering.” These steps were used

to create an emotional response in the classroom, to encourage more student participation.

My parody aims to represent the students from Weng’s examination. It’s likely their

teachers acted differently because there was a professional in the classroom. Addressing this

notion questions the style and classroom environment that Weng enforces. Also, her academic

article “How Does Teacher Talk Affect Student’s Classroom Motivation in Terms of the Level

of ‘Attention,’ ‘Participation,’ and ‘Volunteering” did not include any student commentary about

the experiment. I wanted to represent the students in a format they could understand.
 Works Cited

Bickmore, Lisa. "Genre in the WILD Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems."

Pressbooks, edited by Lisa Bickmore, Pressbooks Online Publishing.

Pressbooks,gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/4585840/mod_resource/content/1/

GENRE%20in%20the%20WILD%20Understanding%20Genre%20Within%20Rhetorical

%20%28Eco%29systems%20%E2%80%93%20Open%20English.

Weng, T.-H. “How Does Teacher Talk Affect Students’ Classroom Motivation in Terms of

Level of ‘Attention,’ ‘Participation,’ and ‘Volunteering’?” Sophia University Publishing 2010.

Tokyo, Japan: Sophia University. Available at:

https://digitalarchives.sophia.ac.jp/repository/view/repository/00000033001 [Accessed April 8,

2022].