Assignments & Readings | AMST 101 T Autumn 2014 | Drew University

Assignments

Critical Response Papers -- Everyone must complete at least 6 of the 14 possible short critical and analytical response papers; response papers for Week 1 and Week 4 and Week 8 are strongly recommended of all students. Each week, response papers are due on Saturday by noon. Papers are submitted electronically via Moodle: https://moodle.drew.edu/2/course/view.php?id=3188. Email submissions will not be accepted unless previously arranged.

Pop Screening Worksheets: As you watch each week's film or videos, use the worksheets to consider and answer a few questions. Your answers will be used for discussion this week in class and on the course message board. Worksheets will be collected at the end of the beginning of the following week and will count toward class participation.

Pop Screening Worksheet: Animal House
Pop Screening Worksheet: Fast Times at Ridgmont High
Pop Screening Worksheet: The Breakfast Club
Pop Screening Worksheet: Dead Poets Society
Pop Screening Worksheet: Lean On Me
Pop Screening Worksheet: Fame
Pop Screening Worksheet: A Different World, Saved By the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210
Pop Screening Worksheet: Clueless

Pop Culture Logs -- You will keep and maintain a weekly "pop culture log" or "popLog," recording, detailing, and thinking about your encounters with and explorations of American popular culture. Your "popLog" will function as a kind of workbook, an analytical and metacognitive journal, and reading notes, connecting your observations and experiences to the texts, media, and ideas of the class. Approximately each week, logs will be posted to the course message board and will be graded on timeliness and completion.

PopLog #1: Popular Culture at Drew University: For your first PopLog, consider Drew University and what you have seen, heard, felt, and done here. Observe the people around you. Take a look around at the buildings, halls, classrooms, offices, paths, public and private spaces, dorms, fields, even the forest. What are things that seem like they belong to the "popular culture" of Drew? These things, practices, activities, artifacts, even ideas need not be unique to Drew but they should be something that reveals something about the institution. For example, a student that goes to Drew is called a "drewid." Why is that? Well, given that the nickname of the school is the "University in the Forest," then people who live and tend to the forest and to nature are "druids." For this PopLog, identify something that you find interesting and telling and write a brief description or explanation and offer a response to it says about Drew's culture and identities. Post a picture or useful links, if possible. Simply REPLY to this thread. Your PopLog need only be a paragraph (or two) in length.

PopLog #2: Cliques, Groups, In-Crowds, and Outsiders: What kind of high school student were you? What groups did you identify with, belong to, or distance yourself from? Not that these cliques and categories are hard and fast and set in stone. Since we are watching The Breakfast Club (1985) this week, which stars kids from different social circles, this week's PopLog asks you to think about the stereotypes and real life experiences of high school groups. Take the "Which Breakfast Club Character Are you?" quiz: http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/which-breakfast-club-character-are-you#scnp1n -- post your result and discuss. Post a picture or useful links, if possible. Simply REPLY to this thread. Your PopLog need only be a paragraph (or two) in length.

PopLog #3: Madison, NJ: Your next PopLog asks you to explore the town around Drew University (if you have not done so already) and to think about popular culture specific to Madison, NJ or to New Jersey more generally. Take a walk around town. Visit some shops, restaurants, or the one coffee shop in town Drip. Maybe even visit the Madison Historical Society -- http://www.madisonhistoricalsociety.org/ -- which is located within the Madison Public Library at 39 Keep Street -- http://www.madisonhistoricalsociety.org/content/how-find-madison-historical-society. Write about something you discover, observe, or try that is local to Madison or New Jersey. Post a picture or useful links, if possible. Simply REPLY to this thread. Your PopLog need only be a paragraph (or two) in length.

PopLog #4: Pop Music: Since we are watching Fame this week, your next PopLog asks you to think about and write about popular music. What is pop music? What is American pop music? What makes it different from "regular" or non-pop music? How does pop music compare from other parts of the world or other countries? Pick one telling example and discuss what your example reveals about American culture (or your culture). Post a video, picture, or useful links, if possible. Simply REPLY to this thread. Your PopLog need only be a paragraph (or two) in length.

PopLog #4: Teachers & Professors: For this week's PopLog, you are to observe and think about the various teachers, instructors, advisors, and professors you have at Drew. Identify something that you think bespeaks of Drew's culture or Drew's pedagogy. Be respectful, obviously. For example, one thing common to Drew (and to many small, liberal arts institutions) is that teachers are all addressed as "professor" and that it is uncommon to address your teacher by their first name. Post an image or useful links, if possible. Simply REPLY to this thread. Your PopLog need only be a paragraph (or two) in length.

Pop Culture Presentation -- You will be a required to sign up for an oral presentation individually or in pairs. For your presentation, research a topic relevant to the week's texts, generate a critical question to get class discussion started, and create a single-spaced, 1-page handout for the whole class. Presentations are 5-6 minutes and may include media.

American Pop Culture Critical Review -- a 500-750 word analytical review of a text you would think could be or should be included in our class. Critical Reviews are due by the last day of instruction and will be posted to the class blog.

Information Sheets

The following are handouts, informational sheets, and readings that will be assigned or used over the course of the quarter. Each student will recieve a copy of each as a handout in class during the appropriate week. If you miss a sheet, feel free to print out a new copy.

Ed's Top Ten List of "Ways to Survive University"

Ed's Top Ten Rules of Writing

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

MLA Citation and Bibliographic Format

What is Close Reading?

Readings

All of the course readings are provided via the class Moodle. The following is a full bibliographical list of the class readings (additional readings may be assigned over the course of the semester):

Hall, Stuart. Deconstructing Popular Culture as Political." Major Problems in American Popular Culture. Eds. Kathleen Franz and Susan Smulyan. Boston: Wadsworth, Cenage Learning, 2012. 9-16.

Lipsitz, George. "The Case for Studying Popular Culture." Major Problems in American Popular Culture. Eds. Kathleen Franz and Susan Smulyan. Boston: Wadsworth, Cenage Learning, 2012. 3-9.

Price, Planaria J. and Euphronia Awakuni. "101 Characteristics of Americans/American Culture." Life in the USA: An Immigrant's Guide to Understanding Americans. Minneapolis, MN: University of Michigan Press, 2009. 1-8. https://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472033041-101AmerCult.pdf.

Storey, John. "What is Popular Culture?" Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 5th Edition. Harlow, England: Pearson, 2009. 1-15.

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