Workshop 6: What Is Culture and What Is Cultural Criticism?

Transcription

1 58 Student Workshops Workshop 6: What Is Culture and What Is Cultural Criticism? Learning Goals: The goal of this workshop is the introduction of the concepts of culture and cultural criticism in the humanities. Location: Classroom with whiteboard and projector Team: Teacher, librarian, and library aide/resource guide Unit: As the selection of topic is made, students are introduced to basic humanities scholarly resources, especially cultural criticism. Total Time: 50 minutes Starter Time: 10 minutes Work Time Time: 30 minutes Time: 10 minutes Notes: The teacher begins the workshop by placing on a desk an original painting, a book, a large artisanal bread loaf, an elaborate garment, and so on. All represent culture. Then ask students, what is culture? What does culture mean to them and can they name some objects or work from their own culture? Perhaps the students could have a piece of the bread as food for thought. The librarian will distribute - and to be read aloud by the class. During the work time, the librarian introduces the concepts of culture and cultural criticism with print or digital examples of cultural critics. This example might be of a work the student is already familiar with, having studied the work in a ninth- or tenth-grade class. Students (with the help of the librarian and the resource guide) can begin to examine critical work or reviews of their chosen topics. Students gather together with the teacher and librarian to discuss how critics treated a particular work or creator of the work and whether the critic was being fair. Why did the critic say what he said? Accessing, assimilating, and assessing information by cultural critics is often a major portion of humanities research. This work time is just the beginning. Another nonstructured workshop could be scheduled to permit students the time and guidance necessary to access, read, and analyze cultural criticism of the student s chosen topic.

2 Workshop 6 59 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and summary of the text.

3 60 Student Workshops Workshop 6 Student Handout #1: Tips for Encountering Cultural Criticism You are about to begin serious research on some aspect of culture, how the cultural work(s) you have chosen and the cultural creator of that work influenced the United States of America. These tips may help you with your research: 1. Your topic is a cultural work or involves cultural work. 2. A cultural work is some object, work of art, speech, idea, political or social movement, activity, or organization of effort that reflects some aspect of culture. 3. A cultural creator is the individual(s) who thinks of and executes the cultural work. 4. Culture that is created is recognized as intellectual property. 5. As culture is created and then distributed for use by the public through publication, performance, etc., it becomes the object of judgment by cultural critics. 6. Cultural critics, for the most part, are trained to look at the cultural work and place the work in the context of the culture in which it is created to determine the influence of the work on the surrounding culture (and particularly the audience of the work). 7. Cultural critics may also review a cultural work to determine the influence of the surrounding culture on the cultural work itself. 8. Cultural critics may also compare the work to other works by the same creator or to other works by different cultural creators. 9. Because it is always beneficial to obtain more than one opinion, you should also read more than one cultural critic s ideas about a cultural work. 10. Cultural critics often work for daily newspapers, weekly or monthly magazines, and online blogs. You can find cultural criticism in the culture, style, or entertainment sections of these publications.

4 Workshop 6 61 Workshop 6 Student Handout #2: List of Cultural Criticism Resources (Sample) Cultural commentary and criticism can be found in multiple media such as newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programs. Education publication houses will create critical commentary series such as Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Newspapers: Large city newspapers both in print and online have sections of the paper that cover lifestyle stories and cultural news and events. Within these sections, cultural critics write reviews of recently published books; newly released music and technology; performances in dance, theater, and music; art shows and restaurant openings; and new examples of architecture, graphic design, and fashion. These reviews are considered cultural criticism. Newspapers also contain stories about the cultural creators. Magazines: Magazines, particularly popular monthly magazines or magazines that focus on cultural subjects both in print and online also publish columns and articles that review culture and provide cultural criticism. For example, Rolling Stone magazine is a reliable source for music information as well as other pertinent cultural issues and Sports Illustrated is a reliable source for sports information and the business of sports. In addition, letters to the editor, responding to a previous issue s cultural content, are often written by cultural authorities who have educational and vocational expertise and are identified at the end of the letter to the editor, by name and role. Documentary Films: Documentary films are often created to comment upon and criticize some aspect of society. Examples of social impact documentary films are: Errol Morris s Thin Blue Line about a death row inmate and a wrongful conviction; David Guggenheim s An Inconvenient Truth about Al Gore s efforts to educate the public about global warming; and Cynthia Hill s Private Violence about domestic violence. Television: Television shows such as those on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that focus on investigative programming can be considered as commentary and may be produced by cultural critics. Bill Moyers s programs are such an example. Look on the PBS website for an archive of programming. Radio Broadcasts: Radio shows such as those produced on National Public Radio (NPR) often contain interviews and commentary by cultural critics and cultural creators. Such broadcast transcripts can sometimes be found in the e-library database. Books: Books published in a series such as the Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (TCLC) or Modern Critical Views provide multiple critical essays about the works of authors, novelists, and dramatists. Other reference-type book series located in the library s reference section cover the visual arts, photography, music, architecture, and the creative output of other cultural workers. Online databases also contain much of the above-mentioned resources. One particular database, Bloom s Literature on Infobase Learning, recently won an award for educational software.

5 62 Student Workshops Databases in which many of these cultural resources can be found include: EBSCO HOST Green File Academic Search Premier Literary Reference Center Proquest Historical New York Times International Edition