Students in Cindi Hodgdon’s AP German class had the opportunity to participate in a songwriting workshop with Antje Duvekot recently.
Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Duvekot is a writer, vocalist, and guitarist. She holds three top songwriting awards, including the Kerrville New Folk Competition’s Best New Folk Award, Boston Music Award for Outstanding Folk Act, and Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.
The students worked in groups to create lyrics which required them to properly use similes and metaphors, German figurative language and personification. The final song title was “Irmadillos Traum” (“Irmadillo’s Dream”).
To see the video of Duvekot performing the song in class — and students’ reactions to it —, click here.
The students in AP German were fascinated how, with guidance, they could be so creative in a foreign language. Junior Audrey Lang noted: “It was so fun and our song was wonderful. I hope to hear it on Spotify! It was cool that lyrics I wrote ended up in a class song!”
Senior Sarah Holdredge admired Duvekot’s songwriting skills: “She is so talented! It was really cool to see how she could turn our words into a song.” Junior Donny Sweeney agreed: “Writing songs with other people is an interesting exercise! There were no negatives – only positives!”
Senior Elli Ward summed up the class activity this way: “Simply put, her music and writing a song with our class makes me happier.”
The classroom visit by Antje Duvekot was sponsored by the Goethe Institut of Boston which serves as the German Culture Center for New England. Its mission is to engage schools in the fields of cultural education related to German-speaking countries.
