This article considers drama/theater education as a form of constructivism where popular culture is both accessed and employed to engage young people and animate education. Using the familiar cultural trope of zombies, and in reference to three separate performance projects, attention is drawn to why projects such as these matter and why they…

The author discusses the benefits of nontraditional assessments and shares how she has used them in her 5th-grade classroom in rural South Carolina. The examples include doing a Gallery Walk, writing poetry, integrating the arts into other subjects, having students reenact historical scenes, using social media, and rewriting popular songs with…

While visual art appeals to the sense of sight, both recent art and popular visual culture appeal to the whole sensorium, the sum total of the ways we experience the world. Common assumptions about the senses regarding their number, their relative importance, and their relation to one another are problematized in light of recent psychological and…

This essay takes a metaperspective on what it means to talk about rhetorical education, the subject of this collection. After exploring different senses of what the term may mean, the essay addresses three issues touched upon but not fully developed in the collection: first, the idea that rhetoric has no subject matter of its own but may instead…

The theme of this year was educate to liberate. A reminder to the literacy community that education, and literacy extend beyond the content and courses we teach. As Freire puts it, "Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are…

The Texas Board of Education's sweeping approval of roughly one hundred changes to the social studies and history curriculum, a ban on so-called ''interpretive history'' in Florida, and a vitriolic campaign of book-banning in Arizona, indicate the extent to which American education and curriculum is currently under assault…

With the rise of biopolitical modernity, states justify both the existence of zombies and their monopoly on coercive violence via an imperative to care for the populations within their purview. But biopolitics' intrinsic link to the rise of a neoliberal model of governance, demonstrated by Foucault (2008), places a contradiction at the heart…

Engaging communication of complex scientific concepts with the general public requires more than simplification. Compelling, relevant, and timely points of linkage between scientific concepts and the experiences and interests of the general public are needed. Pop-culture icons such as superheroes can represent excellent opportunities for exploring…

Aristotle's three proofs remain central to students' understanding of argumentation and persuasion. They are fundamental for those just beginning rhetorical study, as well as being of interest to experienced scholars. Investing time in learning the proofs supports students' future practice and study of rhetoric. Unfortunately, the…

While the observations of generalist educators (Irving, 2009; Scheld, 2012) and anecdotal studies have suggested that interests in popular stories can "turn non-reading pupils into readers" (Smith, 2005) and increase critical writing skills (Kell, 2009; Thomas 2006), many art teachers fail to recognize the educational merits of fanart,…

This study explores the development of a methodology to analyze how nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI) are portrayed in mainstream films. We demonstrate this methodology using the films, "Contact" and "Twister," as they are commonly used in earth/space science classrooms. We investigate the following research…

Current scholarship suggests that many youths identify with hip-hop, especially youths of color. Study of this artistic form has been suggested as a means of helping youths acquire and become fluent in literacy practices. This article explores how the use of a hip-hop literacies curriculum addressed the literacy skills of urban ninth-grade English…

Background: Consumption of social media has quickly evolved into a primary source of health information for many consumers. This seems to be particularly true for individuals seeking to modify chronic health conditions like weight loss, obesity, and obesity-related diseases. Purpose: This study explores whether watching Dr. Oz weight loss episodes…

This study explores American and Greek primary pupils' visual images of scientists by means of two nonverbal data collection tasks to identify possible convergences and divergences. Specifically, it aims to investigate whether their images of scientists vary according to the data collection instrument used and to gender. To this end, 91…

In this digital literacy project, struggling high school readers remixed the "Star Wars" canon through audio storytelling. The "Star Wars" phenomenon motivates adolescents who may be disengaged in the classroom. Students served as actors, Foley artists, and directors in the recording of brief episodes based on the original…