The Forms of Popular Culture as Ways to "Make" Meaning

I know I talked a bit about Gee and his work in What Video Games have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy in an earlier blog, and I know that we read another piece from Gee this week; but, nonetheless, I think that some of his ideas on literacy and what he calls semiotic domains from that specific book further complicate ideas and concepts from the this week’s readings, namely the chapter from Barbara’s book. In Gee’s What Videogames he defines literacy not as one’s ability to simply read and write, but as one’s ability to understand and make meaning in their own unique semiotic domain. Now obviously, as Gee points out, these semiotic domains are not natural but highly socialized, structured and influenced by outside pressures, internal struggles and un-written, negotiable characteristics. Further, one’s affiliation with a semiotic domain does not prohibit them from an association or participation with another semiotic domain: domain groups overlap, as do affiliations. Enough summary. Ultimately, what I want to pull out of Gee’s work in What Video Games for the use of this blog is the fact that semiotic domains not only dictate and/or influence member epistemologies, but also dictate and/or influence what kind of action comes from the epistemology. In other words, as Gee says, semiotic domains prescribe how meaning (or knowledge) is understood/learned as well as how meaning (or knowledge) is made.

This “made” part is what I think is important to consider when thinking about Barbara’s work in “Storytime on the Reservation” from Crossing the Digital Divide. In the chapter, Barbara explains how traditions of “storytime” in the domestic sphere heavily influence children’s epistemologies and consequently their literacy performances in school settings. Showing how traditional school institutions and assessment standards privilege the literacy learned from white middle class rituals of storytime, Barbara points out how group variations in “storytime” rituals can actually lead to students understanding discourse differently. Consequently, that difference in “storytime” and the subsequent difference in epistemology can have detrimental impact on how the student’s literacy is assessed by educators. However, just because the discourse of a student is assessed as poor or struggling, does not mean that the student is actually struggling with literacy; instead it might mean that the student is working from a different variation of home literacy education and that home education is reflected in their discourse. For instance, as Barbara shows, many students in her research population did not experience traditional storytime, where a book is read to the child accompanied with contextual questions, but instead spent more time watching television or watching films. Student’s who experienced this different “storytime” showed different literacy capabilities, though not necessarily less sophisticated or intelligent when compared to the students who had grown up being read to. Barbara then challenges educators to introduce these different epistemological-forming agents, namely popular culture artifacts like TV shows or films, into the classroom.

Okay. I get this and I see the benefit of this (here comes the inevitably foreseen “but”), but I want it to go further. Even though I don’t necessarily know how. This is what I mean: if we know that semiotic domains influence how we get meaning and how we make meaning, then should we not also find ways of promoting students’ use of the forms of popular culture to make meaning. And I don’t think that Barbara is not not suggesting this. I just greedily want more of it. If we introduce popular culture into the classroom, understanding that it is a mechanism of epistemology, then can we really turn around and ask students to make sense of popular culture through the discourse of which the popular culture does not support and did not help form? Or, more simply, if popular culture is how students have come to understand meaning then should the forms of popular culture not also be used to make meaning? The introduction of popular culture into the classroom is good start to expanding ideas of literacy and allowing much larger populations of students literacy “success” but it cannot stop there. If literacy is really a two headed beast, as Gee suggests above, then we must find ways to allow, promote, encourage the use of popular culture forms in discursive activities. I just don’t think that we can bring in popular culture and then ask students to discuss it in more traditional and conservative methods and forms of discourse. Whether this means using programs like Comic Life in the composition classroom or the film review genre in the fourth grade classroom, I don’t know. But if we are trying to meet students at their own epistemological development then I feel like we have to use the forms of their own epistemological development as ways for them to not only understand meaning, but to also, and maybe more importantly, make meaning.