The Critical Essay: Popular Culture

Here's the basics: Popular Culture is, as the course title implies, a critical essay course in which the students analyze today's popular culture, searching for underlying meanings and implications on today's values (among other things). In this course, the student will write a huge number of essays, depending on which site you go to, each about different subjects of America today--topics include (but are not limited to): a "Myspace" web page, magazine advertisements, movies, songs, and college campuses, television shows, etc. While writing hoards of essays may seen intimidating, the workload isn't too bad, however, it is a small step up from Crafting the Essay, the prerequisite to the popular culture course. In fact, this class is, in many ways, less stressful. Students in this class get the chance to watch many movies (past movies include Napoleon Dynamite and Mean Girls), TV shows (My Super Sweet 16, The Office) and listen to various contemporary songs.

In essense, Popular Culture is a cooler, more interesting and thought-provoking version of Crafting the Essay, except not as focused on essay structure, but rather on style and content. The course is designed to incorporate things we all know, such as magazine ads and brand names, into semiotics (finding a deeper meaning), pop culture appeal, and just general fun.