This week’s reading was very interesting and I was excited to see how teachers can take students’ interest in pop culture and make it into a great learning experience in the classroom.
I had never heard of the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) started by Andrew Slack in the US (Jenkins, 2015). Slack used both young peoples’ interest (fandom) for the Harry Potter series and his own organizational skills to encourage young people into participatory politics. This reading is quite timely as we are having a national election and we need to get our young people to become more active in politics and to show an interest in the electorate. If teachers used pop culture and fandom to help students learn about participatory politics, perhaps it would encourage them to be more active when they reached voting age.
Last week, we did an interesting lesson on Harry Potter and the study of the class system of the series. We decided that students would group according to a class system and then in a jigsaw group, design a Charter of Rights and Freedom. What a great way to use fandom to promote social activism and political action. It would certainly help our students be more aware of our system and how change can happen.
The other fandom to promote is how to survive a Zombie apocalypse! I have never been a Zombie fan, but I can certainly see how students are excited by the trend. It’s like Hallowe’en throughout the year and a survival game at the same time.
There are so many ways this could be used in the classroom. My daughter, who is grade 9, did a lesson in Geography on the best Canadian city to survive a Zombie apocalypse. Of course the students were totally engaged and motivated by the topic and learned mapping skills, communication and collaboration as well as problem solving skills. In this case, groups had to determine which city would best guarantee their survival. They had to consider: population, military resources, physical fitness, and temperature (zombies slow their pace in the snow). My daughter’s group came up with Newfoundland and had to defend their selection based upon the criteria. Well at least now I know where to go should the apocolypse happen - I feel much better now!
I can also see fandom for Zombies to be in Science as well. There could be a study of how zombies are created by a virus, how they could be cured of the virus, or if needed, how they could be destroyed more efficiently.
Overall, I can see how fandom for pop culture can be brought into the classroom and integrated into all subject areas. It would certainly engage the students and in many cases their learning can be applied in their real life.
I had never heard of the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) started by Andrew Slack in the US (Jenkins, 2015). Slack used both young peoples’ interest (fandom) for the Harry Potter series and his own organizational skills to encourage young people into participatory politics. This reading is quite timely as we are having a national election and we need to get our young people to become more active in politics and to show an interest in the electorate. If teachers used pop culture and fandom to help students learn about participatory politics, perhaps it would encourage them to be more active when they reached voting age.
Last week, we did an interesting lesson on Harry Potter and the study of the class system of the series. We decided that students would group according to a class system and then in a jigsaw group, design a Charter of Rights and Freedom. What a great way to use fandom to promote social activism and political action. It would certainly help our students be more aware of our system and how change can happen.
The other fandom to promote is how to survive a Zombie apocalypse! I have never been a Zombie fan, but I can certainly see how students are excited by the trend. It’s like Hallowe’en throughout the year and a survival game at the same time.
There are so many ways this could be used in the classroom. My daughter, who is grade 9, did a lesson in Geography on the best Canadian city to survive a Zombie apocalypse. Of course the students were totally engaged and motivated by the topic and learned mapping skills, communication and collaboration as well as problem solving skills. In this case, groups had to determine which city would best guarantee their survival. They had to consider: population, military resources, physical fitness, and temperature (zombies slow their pace in the snow). My daughter’s group came up with Newfoundland and had to defend their selection based upon the criteria. Well at least now I know where to go should the apocolypse happen - I feel much better now!
I can also see fandom for Zombies to be in Science as well. There could be a study of how zombies are created by a virus, how they could be cured of the virus, or if needed, how they could be destroyed more efficiently.
Overall, I can see how fandom for pop culture can be brought into the classroom and integrated into all subject areas. It would certainly engage the students and in many cases their learning can be applied in their real life.