The Simpsons in the classroom: embiggening the learning experience with the wisdom of Springfield

341 Pages·2010·1.303 MB·English

by  Waltonen, Karma;Du Vernay, Denise

The Simpsons in
the Classroom
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The Simpsons in
the Classroom
Embiggening the Learning
Experience with the
Wisdom of Springfield
KARMA WALTONEN
and DENISE DU VERNAY
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Waltonen, Karma, ¡975–
The Simpsons in the classroom : embiggening the learning
experience with the wisdom of Springfield / Karma Waltonen
and Denise Du Vernay.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4490-8
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
¡. Simpsons (Television program) I. Du Vernay, Denise,
1973– II. Title.
PN1992.77.S58W35 2010
791.45'72—dc22 2010008145
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2010 Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay. All rights
reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover images ©20¡0 Shutterstock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Karma dedicates this book to Alexander,
her special little guy.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Preface 1
I’m Learnding!: An Introduction to Simpsonology 3
Chapter 1. They Have the Internet on Computers Now—
A Collection of Simpsons Resources 77
Chapter 2. The Composition Class: Me Fail English?
That’s Unpossible! 111
Chapter 3. A Noble Spirit Embiggens the Smallest Man,
or The Simpsons and Linguistics 159
Chapter 4. Literature with a Capital L: Fiction, Poetry, Film,
Theater 179
Chapter 5. The Simpsons and the Outside World:
Culturally Literate and Socially Significant 210
Chapter 6. The Simpsons Class: Satire and Postmodernism 265
Chapter Notes 303
Bibliography 313
Index 317
vii
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank David Silverman, Dana Gould, Denise
Sirkot, Sergio Guerra, Rick Miller, Jouni Paakkinen, Tammy Hocking, Debo-
rah Coxwell-Teague, and Al Yankovic. We’d also like to thank our interns, Alan
Eng, Minh Nguyen, and Brian To. Special thanks to Alexander Waltonen, who
contributed and fact-checked even though he probably had better things to do.
Thanks also goes out to Susan Wolfe, who quickly answered emails with lin-
guistic inquiries; Roberto Delgadillo, who found secondary sources for us; Mar-
garet Mercer, who checked our French; Elizabeth Lanceman, who checked our
British English; and Kurt and Kelly Kramer, who helped us uncover the mys-
teries of Word 2007. Also, we can’t forget Mignon Fogarty (aka “Grammar-
Girl”), who, through the magic of Twitter, answered punctuation questions on
the fly. Thank you to everyone who talked Simpsonswith us over the years and
to our students for inspiring us and for putting up with our (mostly) perfectly
cromulent teaching. Finally, thank you to The Simpsonsfor embiggening our lives.
In addition to acknowledging her wonderful friends, family, and col-
leagues, Karma would like to specifically thank the Margaret Atwood Book
Club of Davis, Ken Freeman, and Rae Gouirand for their support; Heather
Watne for physical health; Mitchel Adler for mental health; and Jim Bradley
for the most extraordinary writer’s retreat imaginable. Denise, I have just
three words for you: Best. Friend. Ever.
Denise would like to thank her sometimes skeptical but always support-
ive family, the wonderful teachers she’s learned from and worked with over
the years, especially John O’Brien, Joe Basile, Ed Allen, Bonnie Braendlin,
Tonia Hoffman, and, of course, the lovely and brilliant Karma Waltonen,
without whom life is unimaginable. Thanks to my loved ones who’ve encour-
aged my writing and Simpsonology over the years, especially Joe Vince for
keeping me in pizza and Diet Coke (not to mention lending swift Google-
Fu skills), TJ Young, Jeff Du Vernay, Amy Deuchler, Justin Shady, Kather-
ine Bryja, Carrie Antlfinger and the rest of the food night group, the Harrisons,
and Reed Bender (you’re the coolest).
viii
Preface
The Simpsonshas been the deserving object of attention, debate, and
scholarship since its start more than 20 years ago. We have been part of
the discussion in classrooms, conferences, and the occasional brewpub; we
have collected what we’ve learned about teaching The Simpsons in this
book.
There are many secondary texts that deal with The Simpsons, and
while some of them do focus on education, there is currently no peda-
gogy text. We have written that pedagogy text. This book aims to help
high school and college teachers integrate The Simpsons into lessons
smoothly, whether the course’s focus is composition, literature, linguis-
tics, theater or film studies, or any humanities discipline. The book also
offers ideas on how to teach a full Simpsons course. We share the exercises,
prompts, and even syllabi that we use in our own classrooms. Because we
have been teaching The Simpsonssince 1999, we are sharing our most suc-
cessful assignments (sparing teachers the need to start from scratch) and
we’re happy to do it!
There are many benefits to using The Simpsons in classes. The most
obvious is that it’s funny: Laughing students are not sleeping students.
The fact that the students will already know the show—and that we can
then use the show as a jumping-off point for their lessons—is beyond
helpful. Students may at first be resistant to seeing the familiar as strange,
which is required for critical thinking, but they soon become engaged
when they are able to use their familiarity with a subject as knowledge.
They are already experts on their culture; why not let them use their
strengths as we take them into unfamiliar realms of discourse?
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