An English teacher at a Florida middle school has been suspended after giving students lyrics from an expletive-ridden Lil Wayne song as part of their homework assignment. 

The unnamed teacher works at the Charter School of Boynton Beach and asked students to go through Lil Wayne's song, "Six Foot Seven Foot", and underline any figurative speech.

The song carries a "parental advisory, explicit content" warning and features profanity throughout, as well as numerous foul references to sex, violence and money.

There has been an angry reaction to the homework assignment from parents and family groups.

Vanessa Guzman's son was one of the students given the assignment.  She told local station, WPTV: "This is crazy.  They shouldn't be giving this to kids in schools ... It's telling the kids it's okay to swear."

School headmaster Wayne Owens said in a statement to the station: "The lesson was for students to learn to identify literary devices. The teacher had already introduced Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare.

"Students were having difficulty grasping the concepts of literary devices such as: pun, simile, metaphor, so the teacher used colloquial material. This material did not meet the school's standards and was not approved. The teacher recognises that it was totally inappropriate for a school assignment."

The teacher has been suspended for three days over the incident.

Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, told The Christian Post it was "irresponsible" and "inappropriate" to use profanity in a school assignment.

"I would object if I were a parent," he said.

Janice Crouse, executive director of Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute told the website that the consequence of reaching for comic books and rap music as lesson material was "watered down quality and ramped up sexuality and crudity".