Pop Culture in the Classroom

We all hear the term pop culture, and as teachers many of us try to incorporate it. But what exactly is pop culture? How do we meaningfully incorporate it into our instruction? These are the questions that Hagood, Alvermann, and Heron-Hruby address in Bring It to Class: Unpacking Pop Culture in Literacy Learning (2010, Teachers College Press).

This short book is a wonderful addition to any literacy teacher’s library; it combines theory with practical classroom applications (and also self-checks for educators). One idea I really like is having students complete their own “textual day in the life” charts (pp. 3-7), noting their various identities, (student, teenager, friend, etc.), what values are associated with those identities (education, communication, friendship, etc.), what social networks those identities are a part of (teachers/students, family/friends, friends, etc.), and what literacy learning relates to them (English/math, pop culture, maintaining close bonds).

The authors also define the ways we can view pop culture (mass culture, folk culture, and everyday culture) as well as ways to connect pop culture texts to the curriculum (they also provide many great resources and teaching ideas). I think this is especially relevant to young adult literature.

We won’t see the characters in Great Expectations IMing each other, nor will we read emails from Romeo to Juliet (although having students create these types of messages as part of an assignment might be interesting).

What we do see are novels that incorporate aspects of pop culture like L8r, g8r (Myracle) and Little Brother (Doctorow).