1st Edition

Building Literacy Through Pop Culture in the ELA Classroom Strategies for English in High School and College

By Jen McConnel Copyright 2025
    144 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    144 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Designed to support English-teaching faculty across high schools and universities, this practical guide presents novel ideas for integrating pop culture into ELA classroom instruction.

    By establishing a theoretical framework rooted in critical and digital literacies, this book provides a solid foundation for preservice and college teachers to tap into the pop culture that inspires and engages students and teachers alike. Enacting as an essential text for courses in literature instruction and ELA methods, McConnel offers strategies and research-based tools to blend film, fan fiction, and other popular multimodal texts in ways that will reenergize the curriculum, meet standards-based goals, and motivate students.

    Building Literacy Through Pop Culture in the ELA Classroom is an innovative textbook that belongs on the shelves of current and aspiring English instructors.

    1. Choosing to Teach with Pop Culture  2. Worldbuilding: Theory and Framework  3. Teaching on the Big Screen: Heroes, Villains, or In-Between?  4. Fan Practices in the Classroom: Shaping the Narrative  5. Teaching Shakespeare: Familiar Ground, New Adventures  6. Digital and Critical Literacies in Contemporary Teen Fiction: It’s Dangerous to Go Alone  7. Allyship in the Multiverse: What Rick Riordan Presents Can Teach Us  8. Pop Culture in the Pandemic: A Moment in Time

    Biography

    Jen McConnel teaches English at North Carolina State University, USA. She earned her Ph.D. from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada and is also the author of Styling Your Writing: Mixing and Matching Academic Writing Techniques to Create Something Uniquely You (Routledge 2022).