Taylor Swift鈥檚 lyrics are studied by college students across the country, including at Harvard University, for their literary value. Should they be woven into the high school and middle school English/language arts curriculum, too?
Elizabeth Scala, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who taught one of the first university courses on the literary significance of Swift鈥檚 songwriting in fall 2022, thinks so. She is leading next month on how they can incorporate the pop star鈥檚 songs into their instruction in a standards-aligned way.
After all, many of Swift鈥檚 songs include motifs, metaphors, allusions, and other literary and poetic devices. The artist also makes reference to several familiar middle and high school texts throughout her discography, including The Great Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet.
鈥淲hat I do with [the students in my course] is get them to read a bunch of older love poetry that I think they would have no patience for if they didn鈥檛 realize that Taylor Swift is doing something very similar,鈥� Scala said. 鈥淪he is one of the latest makers in this very, very long history of love poets that goes back to a time that鈥檚 incredibly, intolerably masculinist and sexist. 69传媒 have no patience for it鈥攂ut she comes right out of it. She uses the very same techniques that they do.鈥�
Scala spoke to Education Week about how teachers can lead analyses of Taylor Swift鈥檚 songwriting and which songs are good choices for middle and high school classrooms. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How does the analysis from your Taylor Swift course translate to the middle and high school levels?
I鈥檓 teaching [my] course to freshmen. Right now, it鈥檚 still a small seminar. It is kind of their intro to literary studies course.
I am dealing with students who are coming to college right out of high school. I鈥檓 helping them with that transition. And I have seen a big shift with students, especially after the pandemic鈥攕tudents who have ... not really had that old-school, in-person, full high school [or] middle school experience. I鈥檝e seen the damage that has really done to their skill sets, and to their ability to write, their ability to engage, their ability to just be in a room and talk with people, talk to grownups.
I think that what I鈥檓 working on with these freshmen are some of the same problems that high school teachers are dealing with鈥攚e have people who want to be English majors who don鈥檛 like to read or write. They like books, they like stories, they like film, they like representation, but they do not have the patience to do long-form reading or long-form writing. They have the patience for, like, two paragraphs. ...
I do think that it鈥檚 social media鈥攖hey have a TikTok attention span, and they don鈥檛 really want to think about things very deeply, or for a very long time, or from a number of different angles. I think they鈥檙e interested in Taylor Swift, and their ability to pay attention to what she鈥檚 doing in much more depth is something I tried to capitalize on.
I鈥檓 going to try to give [teachers enrolled in this webinar] a cornucopia of approaches to Taylor Swift, that can help them do everything from reading comprehension all the way up to advanced writing and research.
[69传媒 are] interested in Taylor Swift, and their ability to pay attention to what she's doing in much more depth is something I tried to capitalize on.
I鈥檝e read what the teachers鈥� hopes are for the course. They鈥檙e having a hard time getting students to read anything, getting them to pay attention, and [students] are especially poetry-resistant. Tapping into an interest that students have outside of school will get them, maybe, to pay more attention to what they鈥檙e working on, be more interested in what鈥檚 going on in the classroom, be a little bit more engaged. And then treating [Swift鈥檚 songs] as poetry is a great double whammy, right? It takes something that everybody has found really difficult, and it鈥檚 making that even more engaging and palatable.
What Taylor Swift songs do you think are most ripe for analysis?
Well, I鈥檓 going to be dealing with students from middle school through high school, and this is Texas. I鈥檓 really trying to be sensitive to the constraints that teachers will feel placed upon them. So on the one hand, the students will be most interested in Taylor鈥檚 most recent work, and yet that recent work, she鈥檚 written as an early 30s adult. It has more cussing in it, it鈥檚 got more adult themes, more adult concerns.
I鈥檓 trying to figure out a way to ... give them some recent work on 鈥淢idnights鈥� and 鈥淭ortured Poets鈥� that isn鈥檛 explicitly sexual. We are going to focus on 鈥�,鈥� [a track on Swift鈥檚 latest album with commentary about how women in the music and film industries are pitted against each other].
The reason I鈥檝e chosen 鈥淐lara Bow鈥� is because they have no idea who Clara Bow or who Stevie Nicks is, and I want to give them different ways into this material. Everybody jumps to ... trying to figure out, what does the song mean? They don鈥檛 go through and think about: OK, who鈥檚 speaking? Who鈥檚 listening? How does this song position me as the reader? What am I supposed to know? What am I not supposed to know? How do I fill in the gaps? Is it telling a story? Is it elaborating on a situation? There鈥檚 a lot of questions in there. I鈥檓 going to try to tease all that out.
[While listening to 鈥淭he Tortured Poets Department鈥� album], I was noticing her vocabulary. Taylor Swift does not always talk in her songs in the most colloquial manner. You can start asking [students]: Why is she using this language?
You can have them ... talk about expressions that they hadn鈥檛 heard before. What do they mean? Where did they come from? Look up their etymologies. Look up who these figures are. [In 鈥淐lara Bow鈥漖, why is she aligning herself with these other two female performers?
I am going to really try to unpack that song in a bunch of different ways before I get into the poetic analysis part where we deal with the song structure: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. We鈥檙e going to talk about, if you treat them as stanzas, what kind of repetition do you see between different parts of the song? Once you establish repetition, you can now notice variation. The bridge is always this really different part of the song鈥攖he music often changes, the rhyme scheme changes. What do you see between one line and another? Is the rhyme scheme consistent?
Taylor Swift uses rhyme, but she often uses slant rhyme so the words don鈥檛 rhyme absolutely with the same ending鈥攖hey have sort of the same sound at the end. And she often uses assonance, which is the repetition of vowel sounds, much more than alliteration, the repetition of consonant sounds within lines.
We are going to get at how teachers can actually make students care about learning about literary terms, because it gives them a better way to talk about what they find innovative, meaningful, important, artful in her music, which they generally like. [Now], they have no other way of dealing with it other than saying, 鈥淲ell, to me, it鈥檚 good.鈥� Can we come up with an objective reason why it鈥檚 good? What makes it good?
It鈥檚 not just that it speaks to you鈥攊t does do that. But if we鈥檙e going to talk about literary value, it鈥檚 more than that. It鈥檚 something general, objective, describable, able to be evaluated, and so forth. I鈥檓 going to try to move them in that direction.
Swift often makes use of foreshadowing and allusions to tease her upcoming projects. Do you include that aspect of her work?
I do not really do that so much. One of the things that I may talk about is, what does it mean for something to be literary? Separating informational and literary is probably something these teachers should think about doing very specifically. The literary seems like language that is very self-conscious of itself. It鈥檚 about, what is the texture? What does something sound like, not just what does it mean?
Because if she was trying to say things clearly and what they mean, she could do everything in a sentence, right? The fact that it鈥檚 a song, and that she鈥檚 ... dancing around what she鈥檚 trying to say, and finding all these different words for it, and using heavily metaphorical language鈥攕he鈥檚 trying to obfuscate what she鈥檚 trying to tell you, which might be a little like an Easter egg, in a weird way. Sometimes she鈥檚 throwing out red herrings, and sometimes she鈥檚 playing this game with her fans and seeing if they鈥檙e really paying attention.
I love it, because it鈥檚 like she鈥檚 training the literary critics out there to do the work.
One of the things I love about 鈥淭ortured Poets鈥� is how there鈥檚 so much repetition between songs. She uses certain nouns and phrases in very different songs. It鈥檚 weaving a set of references to itself. She鈥檚 creating this tapestry in which she is playing with the different things that some image or some collocation of words can mean placed in different contexts.
Which Taylor Swift songs do you recommend for an ELA teacher who hasn鈥檛 listened to her much?
It鈥檚 probably the 鈥渇olklore鈥� triangle songs I would send them to. [The songs 鈥渂etty,鈥� 鈥渃ardigan,鈥� and 鈥渁ugust鈥� center around a teenage love triangle.]
That would be something that they could sink their teeth into in a really interesting way鈥攆rom the more simple idea that, here鈥檚 a narrative with three characters, and they鈥檙e all talking about their point of view, all the way to a later high school classroom where you can actually start to ask [more theoretical] questions. Are these people rooted in the same timeframe? They鈥檙e all telling the story from their point of view, but are they all telling the story at the same moment, or are we deep in the future, or back in the past? You can make that much more sophisticated.
