Movies are filled with scenes of people of all ages, sexes, races, and social classes reading and writing in widely varied contexts and purposes. Yet these scenes go largely unnoticed, despite the fact that these images recreate and reinforce pervasive concepts and perceptions of literacy. This book addresses how everyday literacy practices are represented in popular culture, specifically in mainstream, widely-distributed contemporary movies. If we watch films carefully for who reads and writes, in what settings, and for what social goals, we can see a reflection of the dominant functions and perceptions that shape our conceptions of literacy in our culture. Such perceptions influence public and political debates about literacy instruction, teachers' expectations of what will happen in their classrooms, and student's ideas about what reading and writing should be.

Movies are filled with scenes of people of all ages, sexes, races, and social classes reading and writing in widely varied contexts and purposes. Yet these scenes go largely unnoticed, despite the fact that these images recreate and reinforce pervasive concepts and perceptions of literacy. This book addresses how everyday literacy practices are represented in popular culture, specifically in mainstream, widely-distributed contemporary movies. If we watch films carefully for who reads and writes, in what settings, and for what social goals, we can see a reflection of the dominant functions and perceptions that shape our conceptions of literacy in our culture. Such perceptions influence public and political debates about literacy instruction, teachers' expectations of what will happen in their classrooms, and student's ideas about what reading and writing should be.

Literacy and popular culture are intrinsically linked as forms of communication, entertainment, and education. Students are motivated to engage with popular culture through a myriad of mediums for a variety of purposes. Utilizing popular culture to bridge literacy concepts across content areas in K-12 settings offers a level playing field across student groups and grade levels. As concepts around traditional literacy education evolve and become more culturally responsive, the connections between popular culture and disciplinary literacy must be explored. Disciplinary Literacy Connections to Popular Culture in K-12 Settings is an essential publication that explores a conceptual framework around pedagogical connections to popular culture. While highlighting a broad range of topics including academic creativity, interdisciplinary storytelling, and skill development, this book is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, administrative officials, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.

This book examines the powerful role of popular culture in the daily online literacy practices of young people. Whether as subject matter, discourse, or through rhetorical patterns, popular culture dominates both the form and the content of online reading and writing. In order to understand not only how but why online technologies have changed literacy and popular culture practices, this book looks at online participatory popular culture from MySpace and Facebook pages to fan forums to fan fiction. Interviews and observations reveal the skills and practices students develop, as they sit multitasking at their computers, across popular culture genres and electronic media. For educators, the book provides significant insights into popular culture literacy practices, thus illuminating how students are making meaning and performing identity every day as they read and write online.

Most children engage with a range of popular cultural forms outside of school. Their experiences with film, television, computer games and other cultural texts are very motivating, but often find no place within the official curriculum, where children are usually restricted to conventional forms of literacy. This book demonstrates how to use children′s interests in popular culture to develop literacy in the primary classroom. The authors provide a theoretical basis for such work through an exploration of related theory and research, drawing from the fields of education, sociology and cultural studies. Teachers are often concerned about issues of sexism, racism, violence and commercialism within the discourse of children′s media texts. The authors address each of these areas and show how such issues can be explored directly with children. They present classroom examples of the use of popular culture to develop literacy in schools and include interviews with children and teachers regarding this work. This book is relevant to all teachers and students who want to develop their understanding of the nature and potential role of popular culture within the curriculum. It will also be useful to language co-ordinators, advisers, teacher educators and anyone interested in media education in the 5-12 age-range.

Examines the importance of devloping within children and adolescents a critical awareness of the social, political and economic messages arising from the different forms of popular culture.

This anthology is designed to assist teachers and students in learning how to better understand and interpret our common culture and everyday life. With a focus on contemporary media, consumer, and digital culture, this book combines classic and original writings by both leading and rising scholars in the field. The chapters present key theories, concepts, and methodologies of critical cultural and media studies, as well as cutting-edge research into new media. Sections on teaching media/cultural studies and concrete case studies provide practical examples that illuminate contemporary culture, ranging from new forms of digital media and consumer culture to artifacts from TV and film, including Barbie and Big Macs, soap operas, Talk TV, Facebook, and YouTube. The lively articles show that media/cultural studies is an exciting and relevant arena, and this text should enable students and citizens to become informed readers and critics of their culture and society.

Education in Popular Culture explores what makes schools, colleges, teachers and students an enduring focus for a wide range of contemporary media. What is it about the school experience that makes us wish to relive it again and again? The book provides an overview of education as it is represented in popular culture, together with a framework through which educators can interpret these representations in relation to their own professional values and development. The analyses are contextualised within contemporary, historical and ideological frameworks, and make connections between popular representations and professional and political discourses about education. Through its examination of film, television, popular lyrics and fiction, this book tackles educational themes that recur in popular culture, and demonstrates how they intersect with debates concerning teacher performance, the curriculum and young people’s behaviour and morality. Chapters explore how experiences of education are both reflected and constructed in ways that sometimes reinforce official and professional educational perspectives, and sometimes resist and oppose them. Education in Popular Culture will stimulate critical reflection on the popular myths and professional discourses that surround teachers and teaching. It will serve to deepen analyses of teaching and learning and their associated institutional and societal contexts in a creative and challenging way.

Based on an ethnographic study in an urban classroom of 7- to 9-year olds, Writing Superheroes examines how young school children use popular culture, especially superhero stories, in the unofficial peer social world and in the official school literacy curriculum. In one sense, the book is about children "writing superheroes"-about children appropriating superhero stories in their fiction writing and dramatic play on the playground and in the classroom. These stories offer children identities as powerful people who do battle against evil and win. The stories, however, also reveal limiting ideological assumptions about relations between people-boys and girls, adults and children, people of varied heritages, physical demeanors, and social classes. The book, then, is also about children as "writing superheroes." With the assistance of their teacher, the observed children became superheroes of another sort, able to take on powerful cultural storylines. In this book, Anne Dyson examines how the children's interest in and conflicts about commercial culture give rise to both literacy and social learning, including learning how to participate in a community of differences.

A provocative collection of articles that begins with the idea that the "popular" in classrooms and in the everyday lives of teachers and students is fundamentally political. This anthology includes articles by elementary and secondary public school teachers, scholars and activists who examine how and what popular toys, books, films, music and other media "teach." The essays offer strong critiques and practical pedagogical strategies for educators at every level to engage with the popular.