Shakur joins Shakespeare as LA classrooms rap to English

The words of Tupac Shakur and Big Rube have joined those of F Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck in English classes in one the toughest areas of Los Angeles. Students on the verge of dropping out have been encouraged to stay by classes that allow them to analyse and criticise the lyrics of their favourite songs.

The classes at Crenshaw high school in south LA, where students deconstruct the rap songs, are the latest example of rap's growing acceptance in mainstream education, with US universities also adding courses to their curricula.

Patrick Camangian, the English teacher at Crenshaw who has pioneered the use of rap to stimulate his students' interest in the use of language, says he is delighted with the response from the class so far.

"I was very much like them once," said Mr Camangian. "I survived as a young person of the streets and I didn't finish high school. I think we fail the kids with the old ways of teaching. The curriculum we have in place is set up for a world that no longer exists."

He told each of his students, who range in age from 16 to 18, to choose the song that had most influenced their lives. He then typed out the lyrics, got the student to prepare a talk and had the class analyse what the words meant.

Among the lyrics studied were those of the late Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z and Goodie Mob.

"I wanted them to understand the vividness and sound of language so that they'll come to realise - wow, the sound of words is a beautiful thing," said Mr Camangian.

Once they had realised the strength of the words, he hoped they would be led into reading books they would not otherwise have attempted. It was, he said, another way of getting into The Great Gatsby.

The boys in the class all brought in lyrics related either to gangs, sex or marijuana, he said. The girls' choices were mainly to do with love "or the pain of love".

Many of the songs had words which might not appear in standard texts. "It bothered me that so many referred [to women] as 'bitches' and 'hoes', it's dehumanising," said Mr Camangian. "I felt it necessary to address that."

He said that many of his students had been previously unenthusiastic about coming to school and some who had considered dropping had decided to stay because, for the first time, they related to what they were studying.