Date: 5/12/16

Learning Objectives:
Evidence of Student Learning:
(formatives/summatives or
connections to future summative)

Agenda/Lesson Procedure:

Unit: Experimental Forms

Understand issues of authorship, audience, and medium with regard to the

creation and distribution of memes
Memes
Discussion of Poetry Notebook and Goldsmith article
Distribute Poetry Notebook and Commonplace Book assignment sheets
Share Flarf Poetry (5-10 min)
Get students into the Writing Groups to share their flarf poems.
Whole-class share-out of 1-2 Flarf poems & discussion (12-15 min)
Ask for volunteers to share Flarf poems from yesterday
Mold into a whole-class discussion:
Is this flarf poem bad camp or good camp?
Is it simply taking mass culturein the form of [internet searches /
forum postings / spam posts] and regurgitating them in a different form?
Or is it doing something to resist dominant values and ideologies, to
resist dominant or elite notions about what it means for something to be
considered poetry?
Can flarf poetry BE good camp?
What is the point of flarf poetry?
Poetry Notebook #2 (7-8 min)
Discussion of Poetry Notebook #2 (10-12 min)
Talk through students ideas about each question
WHY is that your favorite meme?
Why does it work for you? Try to defamiliarize the meme: what is it that
allows you to understand the message its trying to convey? What is signified
by these images to the left here? What do they mean?
How do words work with your favorite meme? How do you know?
What happens when someone uses the wrong words for the meme, i.e.
a caption that doesnt fit the picture? Why? How do you know?
The Medium is the Message (8-10 min)
As weve touched on a little bit, Marshall McLuhans truism, The Medium is
the message holds true with memes: they work when the writer (yes, writer)
understands the medium, because that understanding is crucial to their ability
to successfully convey that message. The mediumin this case, the meme
becomes a part of the message or expression itself.
Whether you recognize it or not, memes have been a powerful medium
through which people communicate. Think about how many memes you see
in a given day, or, say, in a week. Do you seek them out?
Memes work because of the two complementary components of the
medium: the image and the text. BOTH elements are necessary to convey
meaning; the image of Willy Wonka is meaningless (as a meme) without text
Show EXAMPLE

 The best memes (theres that word again) have an aspect of the
carnivalesque to them. This comes from the idea of the medieval carnival, in
which people of the lower social classes got together to poke fun at the society
and at the dominant, ruling, elite class without fear of retribution/punishment
When used well, memes have the potential to turn things on their side, giving
ANYBODY an efficient medium through which to poke fun at elements of
culture and society; they are a form of folk artanyone with a computer can
jump in and make a meme.
And, in fact, anybody can jump in and make a meme that goes viral and
reaches millions of people. Were in uncharted territory in terms of
authorship and audience.
Memes allow the little guy to make his voice heard above the other
internet noise created by corporate advertising and control.
Half the battle, for that little guy, is understanding the medium:
understanding how a particular meme works, and why it works.
Visual Thinking Strategies: Kermit Sipping Tea (10-12 min)
What is going on in this meme?
If it clearly communicates something to you, why is that? How do language
and image work together here to convey a message?
If it doesnt make any sense to you, why is that? What crucial
social/cultural code are you lacking that would allow you to understand?
What do you see that is EVIDENCE of what you said in the previous question?
In other words: how do you KNOW what message this meme is
communicating?
What did you miss the first time? What might be easily missed here?
Perhaps the language? We have some African American dialect here:
unclear whether weve got a stereotype or the authors dialect
Clearly some judgment going on here pointing something out and then
saying, But thats none of my business. (he is quite clearly making it his
business). Kermit is just minding his own business and drinking tea.
With this meme, a single person (its creator, and we have no clue who that
is) is taking a stance toward something that other people do completely
anonymously sub-memeing
Furthermore, the message is something that many people can relate to or
appreciate because theyve observed the same thing. The meme becomes a
microphone for pointing out social problemsfor, ultimately, calling stuff out
Where else could this sort of message be delivered?
The creator of the meme is able to make a point go viral w/o fear of
retributioncompletely transcending traditional boundaries

Texts/Handouts/Supplies:
Homework/Exit ticket:

Read Goldsmith (10-12 min) IF THERES TIME! | Assign Homework (1-2 min)
Google Slides; Goldsmith, The Writer as Meme Machine
*Print out Poetry Notebook and Commonplace Book assignments*
Create a meme using the elements we discussed in class today. Bring your
meme to class tomorrow (either printed out or electronic) to share with your
writing group. Use imgflip.com/memegenerator or a similar site to create your
meme. Remember: the medium is the message!