Bringing the Classroom to Life with Pop Culture and Fine Arts

Many teachers are constantly looking for ways to capture students’ attention and increase engagement which leads to better understanding and comprehension of content. Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004) state that there are three levels of engagement: behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement. This study discusses how to implement different forms of pop culture and fine arts into the classroom and how it affects student engagement and learning. Fine arts include music, dance, theater, poetry, and art. Pop culture is a set of the practices, beliefs, and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. This includes popular characters from movies and TV shows, and popular songs that students know. Participating in this study were 4th grade students who engaged in class discussions and lessons, observed videos, and listened to music. Their academic experiences, reactions, and levels of engagement and comprehension were documented through observational field notes, lesson plans, and student work. Since students comprehend and learn more when they are engaged in the lesson, it is significant for teachers to find content to implement into their lessons that leads to more engagement, like pop culture and fine arts