Using Pop Culture to Engage Drama Students

A great way to engage students is to bring popular culture into the classroom. From celebrity headlines to social media trends, students are highly engaged in pop culture and are always eager to discuss and debate the latest trends. Here are three ways you can use pop culture as a tool to engage your students.

Journal Topics

If your students are required to complete a journal entry as part of their daily routine, you can create journal prompts based on pop culture to get your students to write about trending people or events. When a celebrity or event is in the headlines, or blowing up on social media, create a journal prompt asking students what they think about what is going on, and what they might do to change or improve the situation. These topics are a terrific opportunity to get your students to think about current events in a different light and engage in critical thinking. Phrase your journal prompt in terms of “how,” “why,” or “what if” and ask your students to think beyond the headlines. You might be surprised with what they share.

Improv Scenarios

Another way to bring pop culture into your classroom is by inserting references into improv scenarios. You don’t need to create entire scenarios based on recent cultural events; you can simply include a pop culture reference in a larger scenario, and that will enable your students to incorporate some trendy topic into the scene. This strategy is useful in a couple of ways: First, it allows your students to bring their personal thoughts and feelings about current events into the scene. Second, it gives additional content structure to the improv circumstances the students are working with. Both of these are beneficial because the more information your students can connect with on a personal level, the more confident and creative they will be in their actions.

Playwriting Prompts

You can also use pop culture as a starting point for playwriting assignments. It’s easier for students to approach a writing project when they are familiar with, or at least interested in, the subject. Their knowledge of popular culture will give them an easy head start when writing a scene or story. Create open-ended scenarios and allow your students to fill in the details based on celebrities in the headlines or viral events. Challenge them to put themselves in the shoes of those they are seeing on social media and ask how they would change the story. Again, the more familiar and engrossed your students are with the circumstances, the more willing they will be to dive deep and generate creative works.

Additional Reading:
Three Ways to Engage a Large Drama Class
Engaging the Non-Theatre Student in the Drama Classroom