Alexandra Shaw is an English teacher who incorporated influencer DJ Khaled into her lessons to help students relate to the topic.

In eleventh grade English during the week of Oct. 20, students read the essay “The Fallacy of Success,” which explains how success can be attained by hard work, not by others doling out corny statements.

Shaw decided to incorporate the famed DJ Khaled into her lesson as a way for her students to relate to the text more.

Shaw showed clips of Khaled’s Snapchat stories of the star preaching miscellaneous items as the source of his success.

Shaw picked Khaled because of his relevance. Shaw said, “I used DJ Khaled in my lesson because he’s someone a lot of kids know about, just because even if you turn on the radio for five seconds, you’ll at least hear his name being yelled.”

Many teens nowadays, like junior Moriah Jones, can relate to pop culture examples. She said, “I like how she used someone relevant to society today. It’s nice having an example of a person we know relate to the point she’s trying to get across. We’re always learning about people we never know about in class,” Jones said.

Junior Samaya Kayla said this was a better connection to the lesson. “I like that she included DJ Khaled because it created a modern connection to relate to our generation better,” Kayla said.

Shaw said that DJ Khaled was a good fit as an example for the lesson she was teaching her students. “He’s also somebody who talks about success a lot, so I figured it was a natural connection with the ‘Fallacy of Success,’ because they both talk about being successful,” Shaw said.

Kayla had a similar idea relating to the likeness of Khaled and “The Fallacy of Success.” Kayla said, “It helped me to understand the lesson more because I don’t really read self help books, but DJ Khaled says the same type of vague statements as do the books.”

Jones credits her success on her essay to the new incorporation of Khaled into the lesson. “It definitely gave me a better understanding on the point she was trying to make with success and how it related to Chesterton’s “Fallacy of Success.” This being the case, I think I did really well on my essay that had to deal with the lesson she taught,” Jones said.

Shaw said she hopes this will help students with their essays and quizzes as it is a relatable example to today’s society. “I don’t know if this always helps students understand better, but I think at the very least, it makes the quiz and lesson less intimidating. Even if you weren’t familiar with the video, you can have at least seen it and connected, rather than relying on memory,” Shaw said.