Teaching HBO's The Wire Dr. Andrew Moore, St. Thomas University Author's Contact Information

My intention in this paper is to address some of the challenges and advantages of incorporating television programming into a traditional liberal arts course, drawing upon my own experience teaching the third season of HBO’s crime drama The Wire. First appearing on HBO in 2002, The Wire’s incisive and expansive analysis of contemporary urban communities has increasingly made it a subject of scholarly interest. My argument here is that the series is culturally significant and potentially useful in a wide variety of courses on diverse subjects. However, there are problems with teaching television at the university level, such as limited class time, and students unaccustomed to critically engaging with the medium. I describe how my class addressed those challenges, and suggest ways other teachers might overcome them when teaching The Wire or any other television program. Also, citing student reactions to The Wire from our course blog, I outline the key lessons our class was able to derive from the series. Their comments suggest the wide array of pedagogical possibilities for HBO’s critically acclaimed crime drama, and for television more generally.