Teaching with Memes

That's a Meme! You've probably seen them before, but you may not have considered their potential for teaching. Students love memes; they're a quick, trendy form of expression,  and easy to make. You can use a website like Meme Generator or an app like Memematic, but be warned that schools often block meme websites, and with good reason. Some memes have adult language, and that's why I strongly recommend Memematic. It has the popular backgrounds, but none of them are captioned.

While most meme websites allow you to create your own backgrounds, some of the existing memes are the best. You may not realize it, but most popular memes have rules. For example, a proper Yoda meme places the subject and verb at the end of the sentence. The Ducreux meme replaces rap lyrics with grandiose vocabulary. Advice Mallard provides useful advice and Philosoraptor asks deep questions.

Yoda and Ducreux are the two memes I've used the most.

My first unit in Language Arts is a science-fiction one, but at the start of the year it's important to do some review and get an idea of where students are and what they remember. We start with complete sentences; structure; and subject, object and verb. Then, the students read this great article by Grammar Girl and learn about how subject, verb and object are used by us and Yoda. Then, they hop on Memematic and construct a Yoda meme. The meme must go object, subject, verb and end with a period. This assesses their ability to acquire knowledge from text and to use subject, object and verb to construct a complete sentence.

The week after Yoda, students reviewed parts of speech and one of the less well-known parts of speech is the interjection. An interjection is a statement that lacks grammar and is added purely to convey emotion. There's a popular Star Trek meme in which Captain Picard is celebrating an epic win. I posted the picture on my Edmodo page and we held a photo captioning contest. To qualify your submission had to have an interjection. "Yes! They just gave me forty hours on the holodeck," was the winning entry, followed closely by, "Hallelujah, my warp rash cleared up."

Ducreux is usually used with rap songs, but many times (my class included) it is used on any song. Students use a thesaurus to change their favorite lyrics into something way more complicated. In the process they're exposed to the practically infinite supply of synonyms and the concept of forgotten, archaic words.

Another popular meme that we've probably all seen is the "What society thinks I do...What I really do," and it's a collection of 2-6 pictures showing the different ways people look at the same subject. Reading a piece of fiction where different characters are seeing things in very different ways? Make a meme for it! Examining the the Founding Father's different views on Federalism? Make a meme for it!

Lastly, you can make your own memes! Find a picture of George Washington or King George and try to think of rules for what they would say. Choose an element from the periodic table. The only limit is your imagination! The fact that it is a meme will really bring up student enthusiasm and it takes only minutes to create a meme. It's a very quick form of assessment.