Examines several novels, short stories, and movies in a mini-course on the image of rural America in popular culture to determine if the idyllic picture of country life sometimes favored in the media leads to a mythologizing of country life. (NKA)

The increasing failure of cross-generational cultural transmission in America can be examined through research into the meaning of adolescent language usage. Adolescents view inconsistencies in adult society as contradictory to imposed norms. Since society is experiencing a loss of culture, secondary schools need to become the locus for its…

Describes a French-teaching unit using chansons, mentioning problems of musical and language suitability, and the peculiar poetic status of chanson texts. Exercise forms are suggested and hints for teachlng are given. (IFS/WGA)

Explores the issue of privacy focusing on informational privacy and how it could be jeopardized by new technologies. Provides contexts of privacy and discusses privacy and celebrity in U.S. culture, privacy abuses, and privacy as a common value. Includes teaching activities by Michelle Parrini and Jennifer Kittlaus. (CMK)

Explores reasons why adolescents lose interest in art by focusing on the internal and external disruptions in their artistic development. Discusses the influence of manga, or comics, on the artistic development of children in Japan and relates the characteristics of manga. Addresses the use of manga within the Japanese art curriculum. (CMK)

Describes the criteria a high school music teacher used to select music for a new non-traditional class titled "Pop Band." Lists criteria that each song must have: playability, special feature, popular appeal, variety, artist's qualification, and appropriateness. Students took an active role in the decision-making process. (GG)

Lists the recommendations and rationales by 14 teachers for film/book combinations successfully included in the classroom. (KEH)

Discusses the media's distorted and stereotyped presentations of Native peoples, popular culture's appropriation of Native culture, and the support of white perspectives in documentary films. Describes a media literacy technique, deconstruction, to help students identify the "jolts" that hold viewer attention and analyze hidden messages…

Argues that adolescents have tacit understandings about television as a system of communication with specific values and purposes. Suggests that students' everyday, informal knowledge of popular media can be an informal resource for developing more of their critical and creative sensibilities and expressiveness. Offers strategies to help students…

Reports on research on computer-mediated communication among adolescent females in the United States Midwest, examining the purposes served by a particular kind of Internet communication (Instant Messaging) in the life of one girl and her best friend. Points to the need for new pedagogies that both incorporate and offer critical frames for new…

Shows how popular music can be used in the social studies classroom to teach about social order and social history in a manner which is interesting to students. Outlines a series of four social studies classes using music and demonstrates how this approach encourages students to use inquiry skills. (AEM)

Examines elements in the early stages of the process of writing criticism. Suggests that the key to criticism is connections made in context, and that criticism of film or theater is first a reading act, and then a writing act. (MS)

Describes a method which uses popular French songs to stimulate discussion in a high school level conversational course. (AM)

Helping preservice and beginning teachers develop social insight or "withitness" remains a critical challenge for teacher educators. Secondary students are particularly critical of teachers lacking these qualities. Student teachers' insight-developing strategies include exposing themselves to adolescent culture, affirming students'"weather,"…

Explains that teachers should educate their students about images of witchcraft using sources other than those from popular culture. Reviews literature published on the topic of witchcraft including books on the Salem (Massachusetts) witchcraft trials. Includes a bibliography of resources. (CMK)