Auld Lang Syne History & Lyric Analysis | Presentation, Activities, & Worksheet

Wrap up the old year or start the new one learning the history of Auld Lang Syne and analyzing its lyrics. This presentation allows students to reflect on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day while learning about one of its classic celebratory components.

This resource centers around a Google Slides presentation and comes with two handouts for students. It is designed to be completed in 45 minutes, but has optional extension activities that could stretch the lesson to at least two (maybe three, if you do the podcast) class periods.

In the presentation, teach students about:

• What a tradition is
• What American New Year's Eve/Day traditions look like
• How New Year's Eve/Day is portrayed in pop culture through YouTube videos.
• What the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne are
• Through a YouTube video: the history of Auld Lang Syne and what some of the Scots words mean.
• What the lyrics in each stanza mean
• How color-marking specific motifs can help us understand the lyrics at a deeper level
• What a theme is and what the themes of Auld Lang Syne are
• Why Auld Lang Syne remains a popular song for New Year's celebrations.
• All answers--discussion-based, analysis based, etc.--are provided in the speaker notes for instructors.

The presentation also includes optional extension activities:

• Learning about New Year's celebrations in other cultures
• A writing assignment
• An exploratory assignment using different adaptations of Auld Lang Syne
• Listening to a podcast episode about Auld Lang Syne and the New Year

Additional resources:

• Lyrics to Auld Lang Syne, formatted three different ways so that you can choose what's best for your class
• Worksheet activity for Auld Lang Syne, for students to explore the themes and metaphors in the song
• PDF Speaker's notes--all instructional suggestions are included in this resource
• Answer keys for words students might need defined in the song
• Answer keys for color-marking the song
• Auld Lang Syne Videos: a document that lists different musical performances/adaptations of Auld Lang Syne, provides a YouTube link, and summarizes the video

The only work you need to do to prepare this lesson is embed the videos (all links and instructions provided) into the Google Slides presentation and print student handouts! Instructional tips within the speaker notes make this a great lesson to hand off to a substitute teacher!