Points out the need for research concerning the effects of media and popular culture on behavior, the current approaches to media education, and the identification of media literacy skills. Lists concerns of teachers about copyrights, suitable resources, staff training, evaluation practices, and curriculum design when teaching media literacy. (KO)

Discusses the uses of multimedia, telecommunications, and word processing and desktop publishing in middle school reading education and examines three issues that affect teachers' opportunities to compete with popular culture's media: implementation, integration, and impact on achievement. (Author/LRW)

Discusses fictional media portrayals of crimefighting, such as Superman and Dick Tracy programs, that often constitute civil rights violations. Describes a learning activity that calls upon students to observe and log such portrayals and evaluate them critically. Suggests sources of program materials and lists other activities on the topic. (SG)

Media literacy encourages critical thinking about the news media, advertising, and popular culture. Media education of American Indian students challenges mass media's stereotyped aboriginal representations and the mainstream values of egotism and consumerism. Integrated across the curriculum at all grades, media education is empowering and…

Examines the images of war represented by popular recordings. Divides the century into four periods based on wars: 1914-38, 1939-63, 1964-89, and 1990-91. Reports that the popular image of the United States at war as represented in music has been positive for all periods except Vietnam, although each period had its share of protest. Lists…

Smelzer's book deals with the institutional provision of education, rather than education as in and of society, arguing that the relative strength of competing interest groups concerned with popular education determined how rapidly a state-controlled system came to win out over a denominational one in England. (SLD)

Four instructional ideas for use in the French second-language classroom are described, including an exercise in the temporal aspect of French past tenses; part of a series on simulating a French village community; a verb tense drill set in the context of a murder mystery; and an exercise in current French street slang. (MSE)

Reviews two films dealing with the Black south. Julie Dash's 1992 film "Daughters of the Dust" offers a historical moment in African-American culture concentrating on African-American women. Charles Burnett's 1991 film "To Sleep with Anger," which is set in the Los Angeles (California) of early southern migrants, also…

Argues that one advantage of using film as a medium in the classroom is that it draws on an activity students find interesting. Focuses on the use of certain episodes of the series "Star Trek: The Next Generation." (DDR)

It is argued that the O. J. Simpson murder trial reflects impoverished discourse in America about social identity and power, particularly relating to race, gender, and class. The debate over the relevance and centrality of identity divides American society deeply because it is at the heart of the discrepancy between what America wants to be and…

Presents a summary and sample teaching document from Todd Bennett's "Culture, Power, and 'Mission to Moscow': Film and Soviet-American Relations during World War II" from the Journal of American History. Focuses on the ties between World War II diplomacy and popular culture by focusing on the movie "Mission to Moscow." (CMK)

Presents responses from a group of 10-13 year olds who attend school in St. Petersburg, Russia, answering the question "what do you know about America and Americans?" Considers what can be done to change the negative aspects of the U.S. image and to address character education. (CMK)

Historicized images of First Nations women ("princesses" and "squaws") and related narratives are deeply entrenched in North American popular culture. These appropriated, commodified representations circulate in the politics of difference and influence the identities of Native women. But their mothers' and grandmothers'…

Provides an annotated bibliography of Web sites on the American West, the Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, Gold Rush, Donner Party, mountain men and the fur trade, Native Americans, cowboys, and western folklore. Lists related books, activity books, and CD-ROMs on cowboys, migration, and settling. (PEN)

The authors are two former teachers who created "Full On Magazine," which uses young people's unquenchable thirst for popular culture to inform, motivate and educate students on the edge of disaffection. Throughout the magazine are articles on football, music and computer games interspersed with articles covering college courses,…