Social Media as Valid Texts: Approaches to Classroom Analysis

When 5th grade language arts teacher Marissa King shows her students an Instagram post with an image of a horribly askew haircut or a person with a broken umbrella being drenched in a deluge, she isn't just interested in snagging their attention. Sure, the kids might laugh, she says, but the combinations of images and captions also provide fertile ground for analysis. "We're trying to discover why writers make rhetorical or grammatical moves through examining Instagram posts."

Many educators use social media in the classroom for engaging lesson hooks or one-off activities, but teachers like King, a faculty member at Kendall Whittier Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are pioneering methods to help young people think critically about the steady flow of content they receive on their devices.