Pop Culture Analysis Lessons for Media Literacy Skills - 15 Texts and Lessons

Do you want your students engaged in high-interest pop culture analysis activities? This resource includes 15 pop culture analysis lesson plans that are easy for you and super fun for students!

Your Pop Culture Analysis Resource Includes:

⭐ 15 short texts (see the titles below)

⭐ 15 easy-to-implement standards-aligned lesson plans

⭐ Options for discussion strategies

⭐ Editing capabilities to personalize & differentiate

Each Pop Culture Analysis lesson plan includes…

✨ Background information on the short text

✨ Any pre-knowledge needed (if applicable)

✨ An objective to guide their learning

✨ An anticipatory activity

✨ A group analysis

✨ A wrap-up activity

✨ Extension ideas to continue the learning

This resource also includes the first digital escape game of Terminus and a week of Poetry Bell Ringers.

Why is this Pop Culture Analysis resource worth it?

✨ Students practice digital literacy in a standards-aligned yet engaging manner

✨ Hours of research poured in to ensure your short texts are appropriately picked

✨ BONUS! These lessons make for PERFECT, ready-to-go emergency sub day plans

We are so excited for you to use these pop culture lessons with your students! Each 45-minute lesson is skills-based, so it’s easy to integrate a text here and there in your existing curriculum. These alternative text types (short films, songs, video games, TV episodes, and more) get your students thinking about analysis in new ways. Using pop culture in ELA is a great way to HOOK all learners.

The 15 Pop Culture Analysis Texts Included:

⭐ “The Blind Bandit” from Avatar, The Last Airbender - TV episode

⭐ Subnautica’s opening scene - video game

⭐ “Burning House” by Cam - song

⭐ Horizon Zero Dawn’s opening scene - video game

⭐ “Sound the Bells” by Dessa - song

⭐ “Lock Up” by Blood Cut Films - short film

⭐ “Bao” by Disney’s Pixar - short film

⭐ “Paused Play” taken by Danielle Hall - photo

⭐ Chapter 1: Reveil from Terminus - digital escape room

⭐ Poetry bell ringers sample - poems & songs

⭐ “Poor Unfortunate Souls” by Disney’s The Little Mermaid - song

⭐ “The Rashomon Job” from Leverage - TV episode

⭐ “Be Prepared” by Disney’s The Lion King - song

⭐ “Lifted” by Disney’s Pixar - short film

⭐ “Dear Mama” by 2Pac & “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes - song & poem

What teachers like you have said about our other media literacy activities

❤️ Review for 15 Pop Culture Analysis Lessons

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I love anytime I can trick my students into learning! These lessons do just that! And if you've bought anything from Nouvelle ELA, you know how fun the lessons are but also how thoroughly planned and standards aligned they are as well!" - Tara P., 9th grade ELA (honors, SpEd, and ML)

❤️ Review for Terminus Digital Escape Room Series:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This is such an engaging way to get students thinking deeply about a text! Even some of my readers who may struggle reading in a more "traditional" format felt confident in working through this series because it felt more like solving a mystery than straightforwardly analyzing a text." - Stormy D.

❤️ Review for Analyzing Song Lyrics - Literary Elements in Music:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I am excited to remind my students that language arts extends beyond essays and books!" - Erin H.

❤️ Review for TV Episode Review:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “This is a wonderful resource to use with films or TV episodes. Students must be actively watching and listening to do well on this assignment. This is a great resource to use for multimedia studies and visual texts. Great product as always from Nouvelle ELA.” - Hannah H.

About your resource:

Your Pop Culture Analysis resource will download in a .zip file. The lesson plans, bell ringers, and worksheet will be available in both PDF and an editable Google versions (lesson plans are editable via Google Docs while the worksheet and bell ringers are editable via Google Slides). 

In the Teacher’s Guide, you will find instructions on how to create a copy of the resources. Please email me if you have any questions!

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If you have any questions, I’d love to hear from you!

-Danielle @ Nouvelle ELA