Interdisciplinary investigation of relationships between American life and popular culture; includes defining popular culture and high culture; roles of formulating popular culture in films; role of advertising in popular culture; stereotypes of the sexes and ethnic groups; role of sports in American life; popular music and its audience; and television. Writing assignments, as appropriate to the discipline, are part of the course.

Course Objectives:

Explore different types of contemporary American culture.
Examine the various elements of popular culture and how they inform or reflect our attitudes, behavior, and society, in general.
Learn strategies to connect cultural knowledge to everyday life and practices.
Learn to develop thoughtful and critical analyses of culture both verbally and in writing.

Learning Outcomes: By the end of the semester students who have successfully completed the course will:

Understand the differences and intersections between popular (mass) culture and high culture.
Become familiar with the role and impact popular culture has on American life.
Be able to identify examples of the portrayal of various ethnic, racial, and other stereotypes in popular culture.
Know how to effectively identify and communicate their understanding of culture in broader social contexts.

Grading:

Grading for this course will comprise of three parts:

Attendance 10%

Weekly Blog Assignments 40%

Midterm Case Study Essay 30%

Group Case Study Presentations 20%

Grading Scale: 90%-100% A

80%-89% B

70%-79% C

60%-69% D

59% and below F

Please note that I do not accept late homework or essays unless previously agreed upon by the instructor.

Participation:

Attendance is required – both physically and mentally. You are expected to take an active role in class discussions and online. Also, please make sure your phone is off or on buzz (and buried deep inside your backpack), so it’s not heard while in class. Save your text messaging for after class or at break. I do not want to see anyone text messaging during class.

Attendance:

Attendance will be taken at the beginning of every class. If you are more than ten minutes late or leave ten minutes early from class, you will be marked with an absence. You should be in each and every class, though I understand that things sometimes come up. I would appreciate some advanced notice if you know you will be absent, and I expect you to exchange your contact information with a few other classmates so that if you are out, you can contact them for information on what you missed in class. You are responsible for getting the information you missed. Please keep in mind that each time you are absent, you miss a lot of in-class discussion that may affect your overall understanding of the topics being covered and inevitably your performance.

Harold Washington College’s Policies:

Students who do not attend at least two of the first three class sessions, and do not notify me of their intention to continue in the class, will be withdrawn from the class as a “no-show”. A “no-show” means your registration for the course has been canceled. You will not be re-instated.

If you are continuously absent beginning three weeks before the mid-point of the semester, you will be administratively withdrawn (ADW) from the class. Students who receive an ADW are not eligible to attend class or to be reinstated in the class.

Academic Integrity

Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated. If I suspect either, I will forward the materials on to the disciplinary committee. They will hold a hearing and decide whether or not you did cheat or plagiarize, and if so, what your punishment should be. The best case scenario is that you fail the assignment; the worst case is that you are expelled from the college. Academic dishonesty is not worth the penalty it incurs, so don’t do it!

For a description of what constitutes plagiarism please refer to http://www.turnitin.com.

Online Weekly Responses:

Each week, with the exception of weeks in which other major assignments are due, students will be required to post a thoughtful and critical response to readings and/or class discussions via questions posed by the professor in an online class blog discussion forum. Students are expected to not only engage with the topic and/or question, but also with one another, so that it truly becomes a discussion forum. Emphasis will be placed on quality of writing (over quantity) and one’s ability to contextualize readings (making responses relevant to the broader concepts being studied).

If, for some reason, the blog server (Wordpress) is down, you must still turn in your response on time, in class. I recommend that everyone copy and paste the assignment into a word document and keep a copy of their responses on their computers, just in case the blog server or your internet provider encounters a problem in the middle of your posting. There is nothing worse than spending an hour or more writing a response on the blog and losing it to “technical difficulties” before you hit the send button. If you have a copy of your response on word prior to posting, all you need to do is copy and paste it into the comments section on the blog. Your blog responses will count as 40% of your final grade.

Be warned early on: if you skip more than two blog responses, your overall final grade will seriously suffer. You have to keep in mind that we will only have about ten blog responses during the entire semester, so missing two or more will automatically lower your response grade by quite a bit, which will, in turn, significantly impact your overall final grade, since these assignments are cumulatively worth 40% of your total grade. It’s always better to write something (and get some credit) than nothing.

Midterm Case Study Essay:

About halfway through the semester, you will be required to observe and research some artifact or phenomenon (of your choosing) of popular culture and produce a 4-5 page essay. Details about what is expected in this essay will be handed out at the appropriate time, but involves observation and one outside source to help support your findings or conclusions. The most important aspect of this essay, however, will be formulating a good, solid, and specific question about what it is that you want to know. Therefore, as we go through the first half of this course, if something in particular strikes you as interesting – something that you want to further explore – be sure to start jotting down notes and make a list of questions to which you can later refer. This midterm case study essay will count towards 30% of your final grade.

Group Case Study Presentations:

Near the end of the semester, you will be placed into small groups to examine a particular area of popular culture that has NOT been already explored within the class. The primary purpose of this assignment is for you and your colleagues to demonstrate your ability to identify and critically think about previously unexplored examples of popular culture. I will provide a list of basic possibilities (in terms of general ranges of artifacts and/or phenomenon), but it will be up to you and your group to decide what, specifically, you will examine. No written work will be required, other than a summary of what tasks each of you performed and how your group collaborated on the project, as a whole. Your group will present your findings to the class using visual aids (video, music, handouts, internet, etc.) on an assigned date. And the more creative the presentation, the better! More information will be provided to you at the appropriate time.