Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy - Practice Session Proposal - Lovvorn and Trout
Hunger Games in the Classroom: Engaging Student Learning through Pop Culture Narratives
Jason F. Lovvorn and Sue Trout, Department of English, Belmont University
Abstract: This session will explore how pop culture narratives engage students at the same
time critical examinations of these narratives authorize student expertise and deepen student
learning. Two session leaders will unpack ways in which pop culture adds valuable
dimensions to their classroom pedagogy.
Literature Review
Metrics like the National Survey of Student Engagement remind us that engagement is clearly linked to
improved student learning and to personal development (Kuh, 2003; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2005).
Moreover, good teaching practice often involves strategies that privilege student engagement. Consider,
for example, the following observation by Ken Bain (2004) in What the Best College Teachers Do:
“Many of them [best college teachers] spoke about beginning with what seemed most familiar and
fascinating to students and then weaving in the new and different into the fabric of the course” (p. 40)
Bain’s emphasis on student fascination suggests one inroad to student learning explored in this proposed
practice session—namely, sites of popular culture where student interest is already high. While Grace and
Tobin (1998) rightly argue that popular culture in the classroom is sometimes “purified, homogenized,
and reconstituted as curriculum or motivational engagement” (p. 46), in this session, attendees will
encounter pop culture as a useful stepping stone to deeper learning, for as Alvermann, Moon, and Hagood
(1999) note, “pleasures derived from popular culture are also noteworthy because they are complicated,
and at times, uncomfortable, and it is through the exploration of these various pleasures that students may
take a more in-depth look at popular culture and ponder other possibilities and positions of political,
social, and cultural relevance that they have not examined before” (p. 35).
Goals & Objectives
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
 Understand how popular culture engages identity shifts and usefully de-centers the classroom.
 Recognize how pop-culture analysis helps develop transferable methods of making meaning.
 Develop strategies for using popular culture to promote student engagement and learning.
Description
The session will have three parts:
1) See description of Participant Interactivity. (20 minutes)
2) Each session leader will share ideas about course design and outcomes connected to student
engagement and learning in their classes. Jason Lovvorn will explore how a writing class devoted to
zombie narratives engaged students at the same time it impelled them to consider complex topics
such as remediation, dystopia, modernism, ecology, consumerism, feminism, and racism. Sue Trout
will explore how studying popular culture and critical theory in two writing courses prompted
students to engage in complex topics such as: how visual rhetoric in advertising and product
packaging develop and manipulate personal values; how television and film perpetuate gender
expectations and stereotypes; and how popular but “low culture” young-adult books reveal
archetypal stories that ask what it means to be human. (20 minutes)
3) Session leaders will conclude by synthesizing ideas from the first two parts of the session and by
addressing more generally how and why popular culture makes sense for engaging students and
getting them to think more deeply in the classroom, including conversations about popular culture
and its effects on human identity and values (10 minutes)
Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy - Practice Session Proposal - Lovvorn and Trout
Participant Interactivity
Session leaders will engage the audience in an interactive lesson designed to illustrate connections
between popular culture, student engagement, and critical thinking. Participants will be asked to respond
to a writing prompt: How does language operate oppressively in despotic forms of government? After
writing for five minutes, participants will watch a short film clip from The Hunger Games and revisit the
prompt, again addressing the categories of language, power, and despotism. Participants will briefly
discuss ways that their engagement level changed between the first and second writing activities.
Moreover, participants will be asked to think about ways in which the pop-culture artifact (the film clip)
not only engaged them, but also deepened their critical thinking about core concepts.
Discussion
Key ideas under discussion will include the following:
 Popular culture commonly engages identity shifts which can usefully de-center the classroom.
Classes involving popular culture often promote collaborate learning rather than a top-down,
authoritative pedagogy. The teacher may assume different roles in helping students to develop critical
methods around popular culture, but one crucial role is that of learner (Alvermann, Moon, and
Hagood, 1999, p. 40). When the teacher openly learns from students, student expertise becomes a
vital impetus for engagement and learning.
 Pop-culture texts help students develop methods of making meaning that can transfer to other
domains. As part of critical pedagogy, we often ask students to analyze, interpret, and argue. A
“semiotic approach” (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood, 1999, p. 10) or “semiotic method” (Maasik &
Solomon, 2012, p. 9) involving popular culture can help students understand hermeneutic methods
more readily because the students bring with them capable grasps on the primary texts. They can
devote more classroom time to methods that lead to better research and arguments.
 Popular culture engages curiosity and deepens learning because of its authentic contexts. Pop-culture
texts ask students to consider what they value and where those values arise. The aforementioned
“semiotic method” helps students recognize the signals/signs with which they are bombarded daily
and encourages students to craft their responses more thoughtfully.
References
Alvermann, D. E., Moon, J. S., Hagood, M.C. (1999). Popular culture in the classroom: Teaching and
researching critical media literacy. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Grace, D. J. and Tobin, J. (1998). Butt jokes and mean-teacher parodies: Video production in the
elementary classroom. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Teaching popular culture: Beyond radical
pedagogy. London: University College London Press.
Kuh, G. D. (2003) The national survey of student engagement: Conceptual framework and overview of
psychometric properties. Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning.
Retrieved from http://nsse.iub.edu/pdf/conceptual_framework_2003.pdf
Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., and Whitt, E. J. (2005). Student success in college: Creating
conditions that matter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Maasik, S. and Solomon, J. (2012). Signs of life in the USA: Readings on popular culture for writers. 7th
ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.