Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What does the term “popular culture” mean? Why are people influenced by the opinions of popular culture? What roles do the media, marketing, art, entertainment, and fashion play in this influence?

Teaching Suggestion: Characters in This Is How it Always Is are greatly impacted by the popular culture debate about biological sex. Armed with more knowledge about how popular culture influences individuals, students will have greater empathy for and understanding of the characters, conflicts, and perspectives in the book. To prepare students for more in-depth discussions about current popular culture controversies, it may be beneficial to follow this Short Answer with a discussion of controversies that have occurred over the last decade. Students might attempt preliminary answers to this prompt; if so, you might ask them to revise after reading the resources below.

• This article from Philosophy Now offers definitions and examples of popular culture, and it discusses how popular culture forms and influences.
• This article from Psychology Today explores how television both positively and negatively influences our attitudes and beliefs.