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--Boxes in BLUE are focused on Pop Culture in Classrooms and Lessons!
--Boxes in YELLOW are focused on Learning More About Pop Culture
--Boxes in GREEN are focused on Resources YOU Can Use In the Classroom

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The curation objectives are:
--To create a resource for teachers to understand popular culture and how to fit it into their lesson plans.
--To help students like Bored Betsy feel seen in their classes and have learning opportunities that are "sticky"!
--To make wading through the massive sea of information on popular culture the tiniest bit easier to navigate!

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Caption: Theresa has tried to get her students invested in learning. She realizes that they each have a lot of popular culture interests and wants to incorporate that into her class but there's so much information out there, she is not sure where to start.

Guiding Quote: “There’s just so much information! I don’t even know where to begin.”

Attitude: Positive, wants to learn, overwhelmed.

Needs: Guidance on popular culture references and how to stay updated.

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Caption: Betsy feels bored in her classes. She'd rather be watching and making TikToks or binging the latest tv show with her friends. She understands references to popular movies and trends.

Guiding Quote: “I’m bored in my classes and wish I could match my interests with the
course content.”

Attitude: Bored, apathetic, knowledgeable about pop culture.

Needs: Quality information packaged in a way that she will be invested in

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Here is my reflection!

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Video: Long Island Teacher Incorporates Islanders Fandom Into Classroom Learning

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Video: Long Island Teacher Incorporates Islanders Fandom Into Classroom Learning

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This short video on a math teacher who incorporates sports fandoms into his instruction, while not your comic book/superhero fandom, is really a wonderful example of how you can connect to your students. One of my favorite things mentioned it how it connects him to the kids and they're not afraid to ask questions--they see him as a real person with interests like his and that is important!

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Long Island Teacher Incorporates Islanders Fandom Into Classroom Learning

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Giphy is a great resource for gifs! You can use these online, perhaps in a hyperdoc to connect to students!

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GIPHY is your top source for the best & newest GIFs & Animated Stickers online. Find everything from funny GIFs, reaction GIFs, unique GIFs and more.

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This blog post focuses on the importance of fandom in education--how fandom interactions and norms can teach skills that are valued in the education world!

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Use Instagram and TikTok to stay up to date on popular books! Hashtags like #bookstagram, #bookstagrammer, #bookdragon, and #booktok will get you to some popular posts!

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Use streaming service Youtube channels, like Disney +, Hulu, and Netflix to keep up to date on what's new!

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Blog Post: How to Teach Pop Culture in Your Classroom

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Blog Post: How to Teach Pop Culture in Your Classroom

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This blog post mentions helping students form digital literacy through evaluating tv shows, but my favorite part about it was the idea of having students use podcasting to discuss a learning topic. This can be applied across the curriculum and can make for sticky learning if students are given a bit of freedom in their discussion topics.

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How to Teach Pop Culture in Your Classroom

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Because the stories that make Facebook headlines also serve as meaningful teaching tools.

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Figure out what your students are interested in! Then research those topics. Use Spotify to listen to podcasts and check out music or premade playlists. Check out a video game from a local library! Watch a Youtuber play it! There are endless ways to use the internet to your advantage!

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Blog Post: From Headache to Helpful--Teachers on Using TikTok in the Classroom

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Blog Post: From Headache to Helpful--Teachers on Using TikTok in the Classroom

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This blog post from Edutopia focuses on teachers who have used the TikTok format to share their lessons! Making short videos and condensing ideas into something brief yet "sticky" learning-wise connects with the world students are living in everyday!

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To improve her middle school students' grammar skills, English teacher Claudine James started posting short YouTube video lessons linked to class writing assignments last fall. But most of her videos weren't getting any views-and her students kept making the same mistakes time and time again.

"What I was trying to get you not to do is exactly what you did," James told them, frustrated.

As a solution, some students suggested that she upload her videos to TikTok, a video-based social media platform frequented by tweens, teens, and adults under the age of 30. Though James, 54, was reluctant, her students encouraged her to film her first video right then and there. On Nov. 30, 2020, she posted her first TikTok grammar lesson, and in less than a week, her account @iamthatenglishteacher was approaching 10,000 followers. Six weeks in, her account reached 100,000 followers; currently, she has more than 900,000 from all over the world.

James is one of the 65.9 million U.S. users of TikTok, nearly a third of whom are between the ages of 10 and 19. According to Business of Apps, American children are early adopters-between the ages of 4 and 14, they use the app about 82 minutes a day-making it an increasingly valuable technology platform for teachers to consider. Teachers making the leap won't be alone. In less than 18 months, the number of adults using TikTok grew almost six times: from 2.6 million users to 14.3 million users.

But not everyone is a TikTok fan. In recent years, the app has been under fire in the news and has been accused of having vague Terms of Service and a flimsy age gate for users that allows young children to create accounts. Though media organizations recommend the app for ages 15 and over, TikTok recently developed new default privacy settings and restrictions for the accounts of users ages 13-15 that will allow parents or guardians to create paired accounts to monitor their child's use.

Despite the concerns, the platform has many positives for education, says Shauna Pomerantz, an associate professor of child and youth studies at Brock University in Southern Ontario, Canada.

"The mistake adults make is they say TikTok is terrible-they only see that negative side-but it's not a binary thing," said Pomerantz, who is co-researching TikTok alongside her 12-year-old daughter to learn about youth culture. "TikTok can speak to them in a way that other kinds of lessons haven't spoken to them. I don't think all education needs to be in a TikTok... but I think there's a pretty profound place for that kind of media."

So what does it look like to meet students where they are when that place is TikTok? According to members of the #TeachersOfTikTok and #learnonTikTok communities-common hashtags that educators use, with 7.6 billion views and 77.2 billion views, respectively-teachers are using the platform to craft bite-sized micro lessons or assignments, learn from colleagues, start TikTok clubs, and connect with students.

#1: BITE-SIZED LESSONS

Though high school science teacher Winnie Sloan already used YouTube and Instagram to post science lessons, using TikTok offered a new way to approach and share her content, she said.

On TikTok, Sloan, or @mrssloanbiology, as her 118,600 followers know her, posts micro lessons-under a minute in length-on topics such as gene expression, mitosis, and photosynthesis, to help students quickly grasp key concepts. "It's about getting information out there in a voice that is understandable-you really don't need all the bells and whistles," said Sloan.

She also provides a Google document of all her videos, curated by subject, to help students access what they need-even if they don't have a TikTok account. "I have always thought of myself as 'the sage on the stage,'" said Sloan. "Now I need to guide my students, but I'm not the keeper of the information anymore. I'm coming alongside them and helping them to understand it better."

Similarly, Jeremy Rinkel, a curriculum and instructional coach and former teacher, says he's shared quick summaries of chapters of novels that his students were reading in class, like Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby. Along with the reading, students could glean some additional meaning from the 30-to-60-second chapter reviews, he said.

According to educators like Sloan and James, the platform is especially helpful for students who are reluctant to ask for help in class and need different entry points to the curriculum. TikTok videos-like any video content-give students the ability to access content asynchronously. Students can self-serve the gaps in their understanding and revisit these bite-sized lessons again and again until they understand them.

"I had one student who said to me, 'When you explain something in class and I don't understand it, I love the fact that I can go home and watch your TikTok on it as many times as I want to and nobody will know,'" said James.

#2: INCREASING PARTICIPATION

When Covid hit and schools shut down across the country, Matt Head-an elementary school physical education teacher in Salem, Oregon-noticed that his virtual live class participant numbers were waning when the school made enrichment classes optional.

Head thought that using TikTok, a platform the students liked, could boost class attendance, so he started posting short, simple videos on brain breaks, jump rope exercises, and other activities he wanted to teach in class. His account, @oneoldkid, is now approaching 221,000 followers. As he watched his platform grow, Head decided to launch a physical education livestream-another feature of the platform-and started running two sessions a day, twice a week, to help students work toward their fitness goals.

Rebekah Poe, a sixth-grade special education teacher in Alabama, says she's also seen the power of the app in boosting class engagement. Recently, she posed a question: "Caleb wanted to make a TikTok that is 60 seconds long with five clips of equal length. How long will each clip be?" She hoped that incorporating TikTok-something her students were familiar with and enjoyed-would alleviate the stress they often felt around word problems.

All of her students solved the word problem correctly. One of the kids told her it was easier to do the work because the problem was based around something they liked. As a class, they also made a TikTok about solving the TikTok math problem, though it was never posted to the platform. "It was good for me because I was able to hear and watch their thought processes as they solved the equation rather than just checking their final answers," said Poe.

But not all engagement and participation is a good thing, warned Head. He actively monitors the comment sections on each of his videos and deletes inappropriate comments. "I'm having to actually work-going through my comments, deleting people, deleting things, blocking people," he said. "I don't want my kids to be running through my comments like, 'Oh, all of this is OK'... you don't have to be inappropriate on TikTok to go viral."

#3: CONNECTING WITH STUDENTS

When working as a high school English and social studies teacher at a rural school in Illinois, Jeremy Rinkel said, he was "struggling to make connections with [his] students." But he noticed that when students spoke in class, they talked mainly about one thing: TikTok.

Though initially resistant, he decided to post a TikTok video about himself to see how students reacted. Surprisingly, the video gained 2,900 views, more than eight times the number of students he was teaching at the time. His second video, which poked a little fun at students' views about snow days, gained 209,000 views, 12,200 likes, and 147 comments.

"I hit a wall in my teaching where I felt like the relationship piece was lacking a little bit, and TikTok brought that back for me," said Rinkel. "There's something there. The kids seem more engaged, and they want to know more about me."

Health and Kinetic Wellness teacher Andy Milne found similar success upon first use. One day in class, a student was dancing at her desk, and he asked what she was doing. "The Renegade," she replied, and challenged him to learn it-which he did. "This was an opportunity to develop a relationship with students, show myself in a different setting... I thought it was a great way to model vulnerability and to break barriers between 15-year-olds and a 50-year-old," he said.

According to Shauna Pomerantz, TikTok can help educators connect to students because it "is a lingua franca for young people," and by speaking their language and even just talking with them about the platform, educators show that they are open to learning about students' worlds.

"Imagine what happens to young people's minds when they hear, 'Hey, I'm here to teach you some stuff, but you're also here to teach me some stuff, and I'm ready to learn from you,'" she said.

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From Headache to Helpful-Teachers on Using TikTok in the Classroom

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To improve her middle school students' grammar skills, English teacher Claudine James started posting short YouTube video lessons linked to class writing assignments last fall. But most of her videos weren't getting any views-and her students kept making the same mistakes time and time again.

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Listen to your students--use your local comic store! If you have a relative who loves going to the movies, talk to them. Sometimes you don't have to deep dive on the internet. Sometimes all you have to do is listen to the people around you!

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Article: 9 Tips for Engaging Your English Class With Pop Culture

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Article: 9 Tips for Engaging Your English Class With Pop Culture

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While this article focuses on English courses, I believe that these elements can be taken into other subject areas! Connections can be made all the time from current pop culture to curriculum. In High School, our Calculus Teacher made a reference to Bill Martin Jr.'s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? while talking about the chain rule. It quickly caught fire across our whole grade with students quoting it for months. They definitely didn't forget the chain rule after that!

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This guest post has been contributed by Jay Meadows.

I've been teaching English for many years, across multiple grade levels, from middle school to high school to college. I've read (and have written) heaps of education books and research articles. And yet the premise for this post is so simple, I'm willing to bet that any one of our students can pin it down without a moment's hesitation.

What is the most essential ingredient to a rockstar lesson?

It's student engagement.

We sometimes dress it up with the bells and bows of PBL, or strip it down to its bare components: authenticity, motivation, relatability. We beg, borrow, and steal from the folks who seem to be getting it right-video game designers, social media pundits, even mega-corporations like Google.

And for what?

To better engage our students. To help them fall in love with the content we teach. To make learning even the most complex skills feel effortless. To hear them say, "Wow. This class always feels so short."

In recent years, I've had the greatest success in achieving these things-and in evoking that sensation of having time-traveled-when I've gone out of my way to make deliberate connections between my students' most popular interests and the "stuff" of my class. As it turns out, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Kanye West are incredible English teachers. Who woulda' thunk?

What follows is a list of practical strategies that promise to heighten engagement without sacrificing rigor when integrating popular culture into your English classroom.

1. Treat pieces of popular culture, like song lyrics and music videos, as valid academic texts. You will soon find that they are wolves dressed in sheep's clothing (...in a world where wolves are complex and helpful, and sheep are only superficially pleasant). Pop songs, for instance, are literally built to be accessible for all readers, but their stylistic and rhetorical choices can be quite complex. As such, they provide an incredibly engaging pathway for fostering the foundational skills that are essential for tackling more complex texts. You can check out some sample analyses here!

2. Ask your students to build bridges between popular culture and the "stuff" of your class. This harkens back to the classic "make Holden Caulfield's mixtape" assignment, but packs a much heavier punch when students are required to synthesize their sources, and to support their claims with textual evidence. In asking your students to place Jay Gatsby into conversation with Kanye West, or Daisy Buchanan with Taylor Swift, you'll tap into some of the most complex skills in our domain-and your kids will absolutely adore you for it.

3. Don't stop at synthesis! Seek fluid opportunities to fold pop culture into research! Some of the least successful research papers I've ever assigned demanded that students focus strictly on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, while some of the most successful strove to make connections between The Jersey Shore's "Snooki," Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath," and Raunch Feminism. In this case, the impact that a little pop culture had on engagement, rigor, and quality of writing were simply stunning.

4. Not all pop culture was created equally. It would be remiss of me not to mention that any content that's being given valuable time in the spotlight of your classroom should, to some extent, be curated and deemed acceptable. While students' favorite songs are jet fuel for engagement, some are far too explicit to incorporate into instruction (unless explicitness is the instructional focus, but perhaps we can reserve that particular lesson for college?). Further, some pop songs, ads, and speeches are simply better than others for academic consideration. The analytical depth can be truly profound when we apply the tools of English to rich pop culture texts-but we'd be kidding ourselves if we expected this to be true for each and every cheesy hit!

5. Pop stars don't always make great role models, but they can be solid mentors. Those of you who are familiar with the practice of using mentor texts know where I'm going with this one. Consider how popular songs and blockbuster movie speeches can be repurposed to teach tone, voice, and style. Ask students to rewrite a scene from Harry Potter in the voice of Holden Caulfield, a speech from Independence Day as Beowulf, or any Beatles song as Jay Gatsby (i.e. Yesterday, old sport!).

6. Use those pop culture mentor texts to teach parody. In the style of Weird Al, ask your students to authentically repurpose a pop song's style, voice, rhyme scheme, and meter with the intention of crafting a distinctly different (and perhaps ridiculous) message. Teaching satire can be notoriously challenging, but taking steps to help students become satirists themselves is a surefire path to mastery.

7. Advertising teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars to craft highly effective multimodal arguments-also known as commercials. A lot can be said for teaching students to be critical consumers of media, especially in a world where multi-billion dollar corporations are doing everything they can to compete for their attention. Open your students' eyes to the highly effective argumentative tactics being used to manipulate them in popular advertisements while giving them an awesome opportunity to practice rhetorical analysis.

8. Savor the multimodal. It isn't often that we can truly enjoy a visual text that excites students about doing hard work. (Yes, you may find those Civil War era photographs to be highly captivating primary sources, but strangely, our students feel a stronger pull toward Adele's music videos.) Hook them with a music video or commercial before you put them through the paces with close visual reading, analysis, and synthesis.

9. Have fun! Don't lose sight of the reason why pop culture is such a great tool to heighten engagement and rigor! It's a relatively novel academic exercise, your students will have a pre-existing interest in the content, and because of these factors, pop culture lessons don't feel quite as much like work. Your students will literally feel compelled to laugh, dance, and sing along to the cadence of your classroom instruction-and, in all likelihood, you'll feel compelled to laugh, dance, and sing along right beside them. ♦
If you're interested in checking out some of the actual materials Jay has used successfully in class (teaching close reading and synthesis using Beyonce's "Lemonade"), grab them here!

Keep in touch.
Join the Cult of Pedagogy mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading!

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9 Tips for Engaging Your English Class with Pop Culture

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This guest post has been contributed by Jay Meadows. I've been teaching English for many years, across multiple grade levels, from middle school to high school to college. I've read (and have written) heaps of education books and research articles.

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Despite its name, Comic Book Resource provides up-to-date news on gaming, movies, comics, video games, and more! It is a wonderful site to use if you're trying to get your pop culture sea legs!

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CBR - The World's Top Destination For Comic, Movie & TV news.

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Covering comics, movies, tv like no other in the world. CBR.com is all you need!

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Blog Post: Why Pop Culture Has a Place in the Classroom

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Blog Post: Why Pop Culture Has a Place in the Classroom

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This short blog post explains how popular culture increases student engagement and then the author walks the reader through planning a lesson using pop culture!

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Incorporating pop culture and media into the classroom is a divisive issue amongst teachers, and not without reason. While pop culture has its benefits, it could be distracting if it is integrated inappropriately, and intimidating for a teacher to try and relate to students of a different generation without feeling out of touch.

However, the benefits of teaching using popular media are substantial, helping engage students, bring lessons off the page and address controversial topics. Furthermore, it could be a fun lesson for the end of the semester or a light distraction during the tense academic periods.

Why?

"We cannot sit back and let our students passively digest material. No, instead, teachers should actively engage their students in discussions about the controversial material bombarding them." Mark Hauser wrote in Edweek rallying teachers to stare down music with inappropriate themes rather than shy away from it.

Hauser notes, correctly, that 'clean' versions of popular songs mask the profanity but don't modify the inappropriate themes that come with the choice language.

The net result is that students believe the moral shortfall is in the specific profane terms - not in the overarching theme of the content, which is more damaging to a student's life view.

In regard to controversial themes, pop culture provides a great jumping off point for discussions on ethics, morals, and current world events.

Music, movies and entertainment inspire richer discussion, compared to news articles, which require a reader to see a rolling coverage in order to understand and engage on the topic.

The other resounding point the Education Consultant makes is that pop culture lessons help educators meet students in the middle and relate to them in ways they understand, something Clay Morgan endorses.

"Lucky I know about zombies" he petitions, before detailing how he used 2009 film Zombieland to explain the Morgenthau Plan, a strategy that made a bored class come alive.

'The Morgenthau Plan' sounds like something dry in a heavy textbook, perfect for closing and taking a nap on. Introducing the topic through Zombieland's rules of zombie apocalypse survival - in this case, Rule #4 "The Double Tap", like Morgan does, can draw more interest from the outset.

How?

Would Benjamin Franklin be a Facebook user? How would Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaigns look on social media? What would the Great Fire of London, or the toppling of the Roman Empire look like through the eyes of Twitter?

Teach students a lesson about digital media whilst deeply exploring historical figures and events by having students create social media accounts for important figures and events.

The task calls upon elements of digital literacy and storytelling that they feel comfortable with, whilst challenging them to think critically about history and social media itself.

It can be daunting to incorporate music lyrics and movie references for an educator who is of a different generation to his or her students. Educator Tim Weedon, however, provides a three-step framework for educators using pop culture in their classrooms.

Stage 1: Prep

Weedon begins by casually asking students about their tastes in music (his pet area of interest). He then goes on to analyze the responses from his students for relevance to topic areas covered in the curriculum course. Weedon pays close attention to lyrical content and themes, ensuring they are befitting of the class age.

Stage 2: Development

Using pop culture in group activities is a great way to break the ice in a new class. Weedon suggests assigning students reading and having them collectively come up with song lyrics/poems in groups. You can read a full breakdown of his lesson plan here.

Stage 3: Practice

Primarily useful in teaching literature analysis, Weedon asks students to analyze their favourite song lyrics and how they would be relevant to the course.

The educator subscribes to the same view as Hauser on inappropriate subject matter saying "It is better to discuss the text rather than avoid the subject matter without offering any educational choices or advice." He does, however, state that he looks closely at the chosen songs and doesn't guarantee their use.

Once they have decided on their list of topics and songs, they break down the song structure, pertaining to vocabulary, spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and linguistics.

A popular and effective format for lessons are songs, whereby teachers, use the melodies of well-known songs or matching a popular style to teach a lesson. It takes confidence, but when done well it is fun for teachers and makes content incredibly catchy and memorable for students. I've been singing math lessons in my head all day on more than one occasion!

There are many resources out there to guide you through using pop culture in your teaching. It's an element of pedagogy that can give an edge to your teaching and provide a deeper reference to content. Join one of the many communities online, connect with teachers on social media, or simply dive into music, movies and tv. It isn't as intimidating as it seems.

Some great resources for you to explore incorporating pop culture in the classroom:

Browse Tim Weedon's full series here: https://developmenteducation.ie/feature/exploring-popular-culture-in-education/

Visit the Popular Culture Pedagogy Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/popculturepedagaogy

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Why Pop Culture has a Place in the Classroom - Learning Bird

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Incorporating pop culture and media into the classroom is a divisive issue amongst teachers, and not without reason. While pop culture has its benefits, it could be distracting if it is integrated inappropriately, and intimidating for a teacher to try and relate to students of a different generation without feeling out of touch.

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Consider using TikTok to keep up to date on popular culture--quickly searching #starwars, #marvel, or even #hozier, will give you some up to date info on what's going on. Be careful though to double check the information you find!

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This resource is great for making your own Memes for classroom use!

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The Fastest Meme Generator on the Planet. Easily add text to images or memes.

Draw Add Image Spacing

Upload new template

Generate meme text with AI.

What is the Meme Generator?

It's a free online image maker that lets you add custom resizable text, images, and much more to templates. People often use the generator to customize established memes, such as those found in Imgflip's collection of Meme Templates. However, you can also upload your own templates or start from scratch with empty templates.

How to make a meme

1. Choose a template. You can use one of the popular templates, search through more than 1 million user-uploaded templates using the search input, or hit "Upload new template" to upload your own template from your device or from a url. For designing from scratch, try searching "empty" or "blank" templates.

2. Add customizations. Add text, images, stickers, drawings, and spacing using the buttons beside your meme canvas.

3. Create and share. Hit "Generate Meme" and then choose how to share and save your meme. You can share to social apps or through your phone, or share a link, or download to your device. You can also share with one of Imgflip's many meme communities.

How can I customize my meme?

You can move and resize the text boxes by dragging them around. If you're on a mobile device, you may have to first check "enable drag/drop" in the More Options section. You can add as many additional text boxes as you want with the Add Text button.

You can customize the font color and outline color next to where you type your text.

You can further customize the font for each text box using the gear icon next to the text input. Imgflip supports all fonts installed on your device including the default Windows, Mac, and web fonts, including bold and italic. Over 1,300 free fonts are also supported for all devices. Any other font you want can be used if you first install it on your device and then type in the font name on Imgflip.

You can insert popular or custom stickers and other images including scumbag hats, deal-with-it sunglasses, speech bubbles, and more. Opacity and resizing are supported, and you can copy/paste images using CMD/CTRL + C/V for quick creation.

You can rotate, flip, and crop any templates you upload.

You can draw, outline, or scribble on your meme using the panel just above the meme preview image.

You can create "meme chains" of multiple images stacked vertically by adding new images with the "below current image" setting.

You can add special image effects like posterize, jpeg artifacts, blur, sharpen, and color filters like grayscale, sepia, invert, and brightness.

You can remove our subtle imgflip.com watermark (as well as remove ads and supercharge your image creation abilities) using Imgflip Pro orImgflip Pro Basic.

Can I use the generator for more than just memes?

Yes! The Meme Generator is a flexible tool for many purposes. By uploading custom images and using all the customizations, you can design many creative works including posters, banners, advertisements, and other custom graphics.

Can I make animated or video memes?

Yes! Animated meme templates will show up when you search in the Meme Generator above (try "party parrot"). If you don't find the meme you want, browse all the GIF Templates or upload and save your own animated template using the GIF Maker.

Do you have a wacky AI that can write memes for me?

Funny you ask. Why yes, we do. Here you go: imgflip.com/ai-meme (warning, may contain vulgarity)

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Insanely fast, mobile-friendly meme generator. Caption memes or upload your own images to make custom memes

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Video: Video Game Reviews from Girlfriend Reviews

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Video: Video Game Reviews from Girlfriend Reviews

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If you're looking for funny, easy to absorb video game reviews and references, check out Girlfriend Reviews! The videos are short and informative, covering a wide variety of video games.

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We are Shelby and Matt, just a couple of gamers making comedy videos about our favorite thing!

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NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast is a great way to keep current on all the new things going on in pop culture today while doing other work--driving, cleaning, etc! You can even read a transcript of the podcast. My one warning would be that some of the stuff they talk about won't be on your student's radar. As a quick rule of thumb--anything Marvel, DC, or remotely connected to Harry Styles would be a shoe-in.

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Get obsessed with us. Five days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados.

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This blog post from Jennifer Casa-Todd focuses on different ways you can bring pop culture into your classroom through gifs, memes, and more!

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This week, thanks to my Digital Literacy class, I have been thinking lots about the use of Popular Culture in the classroom. What is Pop Culture? Quite simply, Pop Culture refers to mainstream cult…

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Pop Culture in the Classroom

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Lesson Ideas: Pop Culture in the Classroom

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Lesson Ideas: Pop Culture in the Classroom

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This resource from Scholastic provides 7 different ideas on how to incorporate pop culture into your lessons! My personal favorite is the very first example, Become a Gamer, in which it is recommended that teachers frame concepts in terms of video games--heroes and villains-- and use character creation in lessons! I think character creation would be wonderful to use in a variety of courses--even Math! What characteristics would infinity have?

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Pop Culture in the Classroom | Scholastic

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Engage middle schoolers by bringing pop culture into your lesson plans.

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Video: Why Comics Belong in the Classroom

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Video: Why Comics Belong in the Classroom

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This great TED Talk from Gene Luen Yang focuses on his realization on how comics can be used in the classroom. I hope you feel inspired to try to bring pop culture into your classroom after watching this 10 minute video!

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Why comics belong in the classroom | Gene Yang | TEDxManhattanBeach