Quotes from my Reading!

These quotes are from Linking Literacy and Popular Culture by Ernest Morrell.

Part 1: The Prospect
"Critically teaching popular culture can go a long way in creating an informed and engaged citizenry of young people that are able to more carefully discern and interact with the messages that bombard them on a daily basis." (44)

There are hidden messages everywhere we go. A person cannot walk down the street without being bombarded or even sit in their room listening to music or watching tv without being told how to feel about a topic or what to buy. It happens so often that it is almost impossible to separate a unique want or idea from the interference of popular culture and the media. Some people are even unaware of how the media affects their decisions, especially our youth. It is important to make our youth aware of the impact the media has so that they can become aware of their own decisions.

Part 2: The Practice
"Students must be given permission to engage popular music in ways that respect them as critical cultural consumers as opposed to ignorant partakers of a base and common culture". (71)

Too many times have I seen the hip-hop or popular culture looked down upon by politicians, religious groups and yes, teachers. Think back to when you were young and the music, clothes, or even words you liked did not conform to the expectations of elders. Popular culture is always going to be critically looked at and questioned because it is not yet understood. If we are going to capture learning in our classroom and create an understanding relationship with students then we need to encourage our students to explore the impacts of popular culture without creating a negative outlook.

Part 3: The possibilities
"...teachers shouldn't be dismissive of potentially great texts that they see as problematic because of language, content, or theme. I hear many teachers dismiss genres of popular culture as violent, vulgar, or oppressive while they have no problem teaching classical texts...that feature killing, adultery, fornication, excessive drinking, and racist and sexist language." (119)

Sometimes teachers need to be willing to take a risk and teach something that is unfamiliar like popular culture. Unfortunately, though, many of our educators disregard popular culture in the classroom because they label it as inappropriate. At the same time, the curriculum includes a vast majority of our human weaknesses that are deemed appropriate, so why not the weaknesses of the popular culture? There are many possibilities to get students thinking critically about the world that will grasp their attention better when we include themes related to popular culture. Some of our educators need to realize that it is ok if we incorporate something not yet categorized or analyzed.