Discusses a case study of how experienced social studies teachers convey the concepts that comprise the curriculum. Reports that researchers observed 3 teachers for 20 hours each. Describes a preference among the teachers for anthropomorphic, familial, and popular culture references. Explains that visual representations were used only as passing…

Describes a classroom activity where students compare an episode of "The Simpsons" to speeches and essays of Mark Twain. Suggests it invites students to consider the categorization of texts into "high" and "low" culture, and helps students build media literacy skills by applying tools of textual analysis first to a…

Describes how three middle-school teachers incorporated popular culture media into their content area classes (eighth-grade physical science, seventh-grade language arts, and seventh-grade social studies). Discusses how studying popular culture encourages adolescents to think critically. Discusses issues of planning, fitting into existing…

Believes that using popular culture images of law, lawyers, and the legal system is an effective way for teaching about real law. Offers examples of incorporating popular culture images when teaching about law. Includes suggestions for teaching activities, a mock trial based on Dr. Seuss's book "Yertle the Turtle," and additional…

The goal of genre theory is to construct useful similarities between different texts. It is the meaning-making practices of a community, and particularly its system of intertextuality that determine which possible similarities will count as significant. Whether educators approach genre as a rule or a resource is a moral choice. Rules restrict,…

This book is designed to develop the analytical and creative abilities that will enable an individual to discover and to counter the underlying biases in mass media entertainment. Chapters discuss the mass media's conflicts of interest, the establishment of personal values and viewpoints, the classification of political viewpoints, four basic…

This book surveys the important available books on mythologies of all parts of the globe and the cultural contexts from which the mythological traditions emerged. Written as a series of bibliographic essays, the guide opens with a description of major reference sources encompassing many cultures, as well as those tracing particular themes (such as…

In the 1960s many teachers in the British secondary schools began a major effort to redefine their attitude toward the mass media in the light of certain social and cultural pressures. Changes in students made it necessary to provide materials of a less formal academic kind and to introduce literature, music, and art that would relate more…

The booklet offers a variety of suggestions for integrating a study of popular culture into the high school social studies classroom. Popular culture is described as those elements in society which have the primary function of entertaining or selling and which are becoming a familiar, recognizable, and identifiable entity for a large number of…

This paper presents a rationale for using popular music in the classroom and provides suggestions for teaching popular music lyrics in the poetry class. The question of whether pop music is an end in itself or a means to understanding traditional literature is also addressed. It is suggested that the teaching of the poetry of rock can be…

This article describes a workshop designed to give teachers an awareness of current music and the values expressed in its lyrics. (SJL)

This teacher's guide accompanies the four videos ("Born to Trouble: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"; "The Shock of the Nude: Manet's Olympia"; "Hollywood Censored: Movies, Morality and the Production Code"; and "The Devil's Music: 1920s Jazz") of the PBS "Culture Shock" series. The guide suggests that the videos could be used in the…

Argues that modern literacy problems do not arise from a lack of exposure to language, rather to overexposure to a sterile and meaningless stream of I-It language addressed to no real person. Suggests "quiet writing," personal journal expressions, and listening activities to sensitize students to language. (KEH)

Examines the use of recorded music to teach about the civil rights movement of 1955-68. Barnes uses a combination of spirituals, popular and protest songs that were adapted to civil rights needs to introduce, review, or heighten students' interest in the 1950s and 1960s. Includes song list, learning activities, and questions to stimulate critical…

Describes a simulation based on the popular television show "Survivor" in which students work in groups and study physiological needs for human survival. Focuses on communication skills, problem solving, and cooperative learning. (YDS)