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Articles Conference Reviews |
200714Wills1.4: Popular Culture as Metaphor
Stephanie Anderson (Bowling Green State University), Jill Mckay Chrobak (University of Miami), Melissa Tombro (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) Maybe this session seemed especially engaging because it was held in a room flooded with sunshine, maybe it was because this was the first session of the conference, or maybe it was because the topic was hip-hop pedagogy, but whatever the reasons, this session, populated mostly by energetic graduate students, rocked. The crowd of 21 attendees heard three well-articulated presentations on strategies and arguments about how to teach hip-hop or popular culture pedagogy while incorporating recent technological applications. Stephanie Anderson: "Framed Language in Digital Literacies: Connecting Relationships Between Student Writers and Diverse Texts." Stephanie Anderson suggested that undergraduates learn all about wikis by learning how to use Wikipedia in class to define “Hip-hop” and “popular culture.” Rather than lecture or provide the students with her singular definition of terms, such as “performativity”, Anderson asks students to use a wiki to come to a collective understanding. She has students research the histories and discographies of music stars J-Lo, Young Dio, Jurassic 5, Mos Def, Aaluyah, and others. Anderson’s students might first answer these descriptive questions: What do you see?
What do you hear?
What do you think?
She then asks student to make an argument for the benefits or costs of hip-hop culture in society. Jill McKay Chrobak: "Fumbling Towards Technology: A Tech-Hater Teaches the Visual Rhetoric of Hip Hop" Chrobak shared with the audience a spirited transformation narrative about how she morphed from a technophobe (one who fears technology) to technophile (one who loves technology). Her transformation was made possible by designing a course on the visual rhetoric of hip-hop, which she reported interested her students more than previous themes, lesson plans, or content. Chrobak in her classes and her ongoing dissertation work examines identity appropriation and technology. For example, how does technology influence the appropriation of cross-cultural identities (e.g. hip-hop)? She urged researchers and teachers to be as transparent as possible about their motives and assumptions—and to be prepared to be “called out” by students. Melissa Tombro: "Technologies of Personal Performance: Engaging Popular Personal Writing in the Rhetoric of the Classroom." Tombro described an assignment from her Rhetoric 233 course that she based on student performativity as theorized and informed by Performance Studies. Tombro noted that while this particular section of her class took a decidedly political turn and tone by focusing the assignment on genocide in Darfur, "Silent Darfur,” other classes and instructors need not be politically focused. Her class rhetoric assignment culminated in a real life student performance/protest against Darfur genocide on the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana campus (Daily Illini 11/13/2006). Q&A Discussion after the presentations centered on questions such as “Can the critical be personal and can the personal be critical?” and “How well do the critical objectives of the class blend with personal narrative and performativity?” In other words, if students are wrapped up in their affective responses are they learning objectivity?
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