A Follow-up to Pop Culture: The Unpopular Culture

Abstract

A decade ago, the merits of mass culture in the English classroom were still being debated in the March 1976 EnglishJournal and in the fall 1974 and 1976 English Education. Today there is little such debate in journals, but it's an important area, particularly appropriate for language activities in the English classroom. For classroom study, a popular culture course or unit logically focuses on the current scene, one that students can readily identify with, perhaps analyzing video clips by musical groups such as Wham or Sting; or evaluating such film classics (?) as Gator Bait or Flash and the Firecat; or demystifying Gallagher, destroyer of watermelons, the IRS, and a sundry of institutions; or constructing grid analyses of the pop shakers and movers on TV's syndicated Entertainment Tonight. Teachers may organize lessons on pop culture along traditional lines-thematic, genre, crossmedia, stylistic, or critical-or they may prefer individual projects. If done properly, that is by engaging students in projects involving the current pop scene, the class most likely will enjoy and profit. But once the glitzy, hi-tech popular culture has been explored, what comes next? Do teachers return to the tedious drill book? The dog-eared anthology? The unreal written and oral activities? Or do they capitalize on what students have now gained and push off down one of the tributaries of mainstream pop culture? One such tributary, a follow-up of the current pop scene, would be exploring unpopular culture, most notably the culture of the students' parents. A word of warning to the teacher who would introduce the unpopular culture of parents. Don't expect the same enthusiasm from the students at the outset that you encountered when first introducing popular culture for class study. Be forewarned that youngsters often perceive of their parents living in a numbing wasteland, a blah gray world void of any culture at all. It takes a bit of coaxing to convince adolescents that there are other worthy cultures operating then just their