Judith Briggs, Art
Elementary Education majors use John Berger's (1972) essay “Ways of Seeing” to evaluate the fine art undertones of today's print advertising. They apply this analysis to their own lives. This assignment reflects the growing incorporation of popular media within the Art Education field as it changes to accommodate a visual culture curriculum. This study also overlaps discussion of gender roles within children's media, particularly picture books, along with concerns about the part that commodification plays within school classrooms. Both topics are currently being discussed within Curriculum and Instruction classrooms and mirror the contemporary inclusion of cultural studies within some teacher training curriculum. By training students to become critical viewers of a visual society, and,hopefully, will enable them to make socially conscious and empathetic choices within a narcissistic, media-influenced world.
Dawn Beichner, Criminal Justice Sciences
In a 1996 article, Katheryn Russell proposed a writing assignment that centered upon students reading and responding to a hypothetical scenario. Students read Derrick Bell's (1992) short story, "The Space Traders," in which aliens visit the earth and offer the United States government gold, chemicals to eliminate environmental pollution, and a safe nuclear engine and fuel in exchange for the entire African American population. After reading the scenario, Russell's students were required to write an essay addressing the plausibility of the proposed trade. The presenter implemented Russell's assignment in an upperlevel Race, Ethnicity, and Criminal Justice course and a 100-level general education Global Justice course. The session will provide an overview of students' responses to the assignment and discuss the assignment's usefulness in providing a forum for discussions of the history of race relations in the United States, as well as contemporary social inequalities.
