Describes the wide variety of personal statements and "mini-poems" on personalized license plates. Suggests that having students collect such statements might be a way of teaching them about the creative potential of language. (EL)

Discusses the changing definition of literacy and how this applies to recent calls by government officials for back to basics education. (SRT)

Outlines the work of the Mass Observation research movement. Calls for evaluation of the significance of Mass Observation's collection methods and results. Argues it was one of the most ambitious popular culture studies in this century. (MS)

Defends Blume's works by presenting internal evidence displaying the honesty and lack of exaggeration that make her books popular with adolescents and unpopular with critics. (CRH)

Argues that critics of children's literature who extol the folktale should think twice before so vehemently scorning popular fiction such as the Nancy Drew series and that historians of children's literature should consider further what some writers of children's classics may have owed to the formulas of popular adult fiction. (HOD)

This paper discusses how the introduction of Anglophone popular culture in the English-as-a-foreign-language class can serve to foster critical aesthetic experiences. It is argued that the popular culture of the hegemonic Anglophone countries is already part of students' lives and for that reason should be included in any critical Anglophone…

Popular films are useful aids for teaching history. Not only do they teach students about a particular period of history, they also help students understand the era in which the films were produced. Historical films are categorized and sources for rentals are given. (IS)

The job of college music programs is not only to teach the classics but also to teach and encourage appreciation of the relative merits of all forms and periods of music, and to teach methods of evaluating musical quality. (MSE)

Mass media, including television and advertising, has created a popular culture in which adolescents and children are taught the need to gain material gratification and group membership through a superficial attempt at fitting themselves into a preconceived mold. Those who fall short of the effort develop feelings of inferiority and may become…

Two educators express their opinions on the relative merits of a traditional English curriculum v one that includes popular culture. (RL)

Describes the relationship among the social movements of the 1960s, particularly the feminist movement and the mass media. Analyzes the nature of the rhetoric of social activism in that period which is characterized by the ego-defensive responses to media-created reality and by ego-building responses to media's reality-creating potential. (JMF)

The violence in other areas of American culture and society is reflected in American sport and business through economic and media exploitation of violence and the omnipresent pressure to be best. (JN)

The immediate, direct effects of the mass media upon individuals are obscure but the indirect effects are substantial. (Author)

Argues that the study and preservation of popular culture would lead to better understanding of the American people but that these cultural patterns have been largely ignored by the academic community. Four steps are outlined to facilitate the collection of popular culture materials by academic libraries. (CWM)

Offers a progressive list of reading and popular culture selections that chronicles (interspersed with a personal narrative) the intellectual and social development of one culturally literate adult who is now a member of the academic community. (PA)