Bringing Bart Simpson to School.

Teachers are challenged by contradictory demands on curricular time. The social needs children bring to school sometimes collide with basic literacy instruction priorities. This research addressed concerns about television violence via a project that encouraged children to log their television viewing and write in daily journals their perceptions of those viewing experiences. The goal was to integrate social content issues of educational concern with the academic demands of teachers to enhance the writing competency of their pupils. The study participants were 70 students from grade 6 who were asked to respond to 8 questionnaire items on their attitudes toward violence on television. Results indicate that heavy viewers reported more favorable attitudes toward television violence, and boys had higher percentages of positive or neutral evaluations of violent content than girls. Results also show lower than expected viewing rates and that journal entries involved more discussion of comedy and sports than any other topic, including violence. Using children's out-of-school interests as the content for in-school literacy instruction was found to be an effective way to reconcile two potentially conflicting educational priorities. (SD)