The object of much debate, attention, and scholarship since it first aired over 20 years ago, The Simpsons provides excellent, if unexpected, fodder for high school and college lesson plans. There are many benefits to using The Simpsons in the classroom, the most obvious of which is that it's funny. After all, laughing students are hardly sleeping students! But The Simpsons also provides a familiar student knowledge base which instructors can use as a jumping-off point to introduce concepts ranging from literature composition to linguistics, the humanities, cultural studies, gender studies,...

Twenty original, classroom-tested assignments: This innovative collection of college writing assignments explores the practical applications of each lesson. Drawing upon current best practices, each chapter includes a discussion of the rationale behind the assignment, along with supplemental elements such as guidelines for evaluation, prewriting exercises and tips for avoiding common pitfalls. The assignments are designed for a range of courses, from first-year composition to upper-division writing in various disciplines."