Best Popular Culture Texts to Use?

I team teach and would like to work Popular Culture text into our late primary/early junior panel classes. What would be the best bets for us to use?

About our class:
We read picture books, chapter books, and can use early reading non-fiction books.

So far, we use experience chart paper or chalkboard to record pre-film or TV predictions (about content) and questions. Post-film/TV, we can also respond in similar fashion, with me again or some student volunteer from the class charting notes.

Our kids collect sports cards and play/enact trading card games, play some Game Boy and PlayStation games, and read comic books.

They like to use the school computers in small groups but can work in twos. Some are able to work well on the computer by themselves. We are trying to get as many of our kids as possible to some practical, self-reliant level in computer use for as many assignments as possible.

Real World reply: Sounds like you have a good base already! Although your selection would depend on your instructional purpose and subject, the use of popular culture text accommodates great ranges of learning styles and comprehension levels. Here are some suggestions:

• telefilm and televisual text from videos, television shows, and film

• music text from single MP3 tracks, CDs, and telemusic channels

• comic book text from comic books, comic strips, cartoons, graphic novels

• sports cards from seasonal or regional preference as well as trading cards from character drama metagames most popular with your students

• print magazines and ezines on topics popular with students

• game text from board, video, computerized, and internet versions

• toys and model kits

• media hyperlinking, both as a popular culture mechanism and also as a gateway to further information gathering between electronic resources about all text examples above... and more.

Check out our website for popular culture content for teaching ideas you can modify for your panel. We would love you to write up your own examples and share them with us and with future visitors to this site!