Billy Joel - "We Didn't Start The Fire"
PROJECT
INTRODUCTION
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a rap-like recitation of events and icons that
telescopes the singer’s 40 years as it tries to make some linear sense of the
postwar years. It also highlights Billy Joel’s fascination with history: “I’m
a history nut,” he says. “I devour history books. At one time I wanted to be
a history teacher.”
The song’s inspiration was an encounter in which Joel found himself taking
something of a teacher’s – certainly an elder’s role.
“I was talking to this young guy in his early ’20’s,” he says. “And he was talking
about what a hard time this was to grow up in, with crack and AIDS. And I thought,
we said that when we were that age. Jeez, there was Vietnam, the Kennedy
assassinations, drugs, Nixon…the song is saying, ‘Look, we didn’t start the fire, we
tried to fight it, but it was burning and it’s gonna burn on after we’re gone and it’s
gonna burn after you’re gone too. That’s the way the world is, imperfect;
you have to learn to deal with it. But don’t give up!
change what you can change; don’t fall into cynicism and despair.”
TASK
As “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a history lesson, you will continue / finish the song from
where it left off to present day. Therefore, you will proceed to write the next verses
of the song with information (social, political, economic, entertainment, etc) from
the year 1990 to present.
After completing all research, you will be responsible for sharing this information with
your peers through a multimedia presentation (Website, Powerpoint, Video, DVD
program, etc).
Further details are defined in the PROCESS section of this presentation.
PROCESS
There will be ??? groups of students in each class period for this project. Each group
will be assigned one verse to finish “We Didn’t Start the Fire” from 1990-present time.
Essentially, it will be the group’s job to teach the class a mini-lesson on each item it was
assigned to research or chose to research.
Once a group has been given their verse (years), their real tasks begin.
Look at the people/events/terms in your verse (years).
Decide which members are going to assume primary research responsibilities for each item.
Basic research.
* Why was each person/event/term important at that time?
* Obtain a photo of the actual item (or a representation of the item)
* Make a connection to a modern-day equivalent.
* Use the following website to help you get started:
http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm
Writing the verse of the song.
* When finished with the basic research (finding significant people / events / terms),
your group needs to switch its focus to writing the verse of the song. The new verse
should follow the basics of the premise of the song and its structure. The purpose
of this is to allow others to see that the fire in the world did not stop burning after
the song was released.
Put together a multimedia presentation.
Prepare your presentation.
* The presentation should be a seen as an opportunity to teach the class on your
topics. Each group will be allotted one full class period to share its information.
Presentation.
* Only one group will present on a day. Specific dates will be assigned by the
classroom instructor. It is each group’s responsibility to see to it that all group
members are present the day they present.
Turn in a copy of the multimedia presentation on disk/cd/or dvd format.
Timeline
10 research and development days
1 day per group - presentations
