The fourth grade students were introduced to songwriting by one of the best songwriters ever–Joni Mitchell! Well….not really. It was their teacher dressed up as Joni Mitchell. I love the way that Joni Mitchell weaves words into magical lyrics, so I introduced the unit on songwriting by sharing some of her songs with the class. That introduction was followed by a BrainPop video on the singer/songwriters of the ’60s and ’70s.  Students looked at the structure of songs and some of the terminology used to describe parts of songs. During the next writing session, students were already getting started on their own songs.