Using Popular Culture to Teach Law Students

A recent article by Victoria S. Salzmann, Here’s Hulu: How Popular Culture Helps Teach the New Generation of Law Students [42 McGeorge L. Rev. 297] explains how and why popular-culture references are effective teaching tools for younger law students, especially the Millennial Generation of twenty-one to thirty-one year-olds. Salzmann demonstrates that law students in this generation respond to visual stimuli at a rate far beyond their predecessors. After discussing the psychology of why popular-culture references engage students, Salzmann explains how to incorporate popular-culture references into law teaching, and addresses challenges with using them.  Salzmann suggests using popular-culture references as hypothetical fact patterns, using them to illustrate a point, or for their actual content. The author provides examples from all media types, including TV, movies, songs, and the Internet. Another resource for teaching: check out I’ve Got A Hit — a wiki collecting legal pop culture references. Thanks to Kevin Garewal for the wiki tip!

Image source: http://en.clipart-fr.com/Clipart/Simpson/