Presented by: Kelly Drumright, PhD in Spanish, and Maggie Rosenau, PhD in German

Memes are a multimodal format that can be used as an effective pedagogical tool to bring humor and critical thinking together in the language classroom. Relying on a tension between text and image, memes enhance visual literacy while often encapsulating complicated subjects. This workshop will consider the meme’s history and developments, and demonstrate ways it can serve as a fun and useful tool for emergent to advanced language learners. Teaching students how to analyze a meme’s meaning-making techniques and produce their own objects, supports learners toward building communicative competence and visual literacy skills. While using this digital media in class infuses our learning environments with levity and creativity, we will also discuss how cultivating learning moments that center humor, joy, play and pleasure could not be more important (or more fraught) than during our current moment of multiple global concerns, among them COVID-19, climate catastrophe, and systemic racism.

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