MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Students need opportunities to realize they have not gone beyond surface imagery in constructing meaning. The visual nature of memes allows for ease of access to cultural markers that become norms, or, since “a meme is a unit of thought replicated by imitation”, the viewer (audience) begins to assimilate the meme as a core idea or construct in their framework of personal beliefs, unless they understand the belief exists inside a system that calls for review and resistance(http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2012_...). A discussion about cultural markers can be a source for writing that has relevance across curricula, which can also create an opportunity for composition students to develop and hone their sense of context and connection between personal and public experience. Their knowledge base must include works that encompass a large scope in authorship and period to draw from.
I will demonstrate how I use memes to begin the discussion about self in relation to cultural imagery, specifically, how symbols in popular culture restrict narrative, how language and image intersect to create meaning that students accept as part of their perspective in general, thenfinally, how they (unwittingly) employ those symbolic and ideological norms in their writing.