News Literacy Project
Story Explorers: Evaluate News Coverage
What makes an issue or event newsworthy? Scholars complete a K-W-H-L chart based on a recent news event. As they complete the chart, small groups collaborate to analyze coverage of the story or event.
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What Famous Landmarks Have You Visited?
Responding to blog posts can increase written communication skills, critical thinking skills, and the use of social media as a means for discussion. Kids will compose a blog post in response to the provided article related to famous...
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Evaluating Media Materials
Students demonstrate the ability to select and evaluate media materials. They demonstrate comprehension when listening and reading for literary experience, to be informed, and to perform a task. Students evaluate a fiction book based on...
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Media/Citizenship: Speed 1
Students investigate media images of cars and speed. They examine drivers' atitudes to speed by completing an activity sheet and responding to press reports about speeding drivers.
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Media/Citizenship: Speed 3
Students examine data about the effects of speed in car accidents. They create their own media campaign about safety while driving. They share their ideas with the class.
J. Paul Getty Trust
Exhibiting Common Threads
Artists working in different media often explore the same themes—to model how these same themes weave their way through different forms of artistic expression, scholars analyze images by Dorothea Lange, identifying key themes in her...
Southern Poverty Law Center
Evaluating Online Sources
All sources are pretty much the same, right? If this is how your class views the sources they use for writing or research projects, present them with a media literacy lesson on smart source evaluation. Groups examine several articles,...
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Exploring Media: Understanding and Identifying Editorial Perspective in Television and Radio News
Students research the topics Boat People: A Refugee Crisis, Dr. Henry Morgentaler: Fighting Canada's Abortion Laws, and CANDU: The Canadian Nuclear Reactor on the CBC Radio and Television Archives Web site.
Media Smarts
Teaching TV: Television Techniques
As part of a five-lesson unit on how television uses technology and film techniques to communicate meaning, elementary students create their own media productions that demonstrate their understanding of these concepts.
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Day 12
Class members compare the final 30 minutes of Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope with Act V of Doescher's play, William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope and consider how the choice of media influences viewers' impression of the...
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Now That's Beautiful!
Your class experiences dozens of messages about beauty every day by reading magazines, watching movies, and listening to the radio. Have them analyze society's view of beauty in groups after discussing several resources, including Dove's...
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Check It Out: Verifying Information and Sources in News Coverage
If it’s in the news it must be true, right? Prompted by a New York Times article, class members consider the importance of accuracy in reporting and validating sources. The detailed plan includes warm-up exercises, discussion questions,...
Media Smarts
Teaching TV: Enjoying Television
What makes a TV program enjoyable? As an introduction to media analysis, kids identify their favorite programs and the elements they find engaging.
101 Questions
Representative Sample
At what point does data switch from being an outlier to part of the average? Scholars view conflicting news articles about protesters. They must decide which, if any, side is using the correct sample to draw their conclusions. It's a...
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Young People and Television
Students explore communication by participating in a role playing lesson. In this media analysis lesson, students answer surveys about their own television watching habits and compare them to the rest of the class. Students complete...
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The Sons of Sultan Bey (Libya)
Imagine you could increase reading comprehension and social media skills at the same time. Learners can read and then respond to the tale "The Sons of Sultan Bey." Their comments are guided by comprehension-style questions and can be...
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A Free and Open Press: Evaluating the Media
Students compare and critically evaluate the different media as sources of news, develop criteria for defining "news", experience the editorial process of selecting news stories and detect bias in news reporting.
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First Nations in the Media
Students analyze the portrayal of Aboriginal people in the media. In this stereotype identification lesson, students investigate the ways the media represents Aboriginal culture. Students use the Internet to research, and present their...
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Exploring Media Messages
This lesson uses discussion and activity to help students explore how advertising and the media affect self-image. Students will learn how to recognize how advertising exploits young people.
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Race and Gender in the Media
Students analyze race and gender in the media. In this algebra lesson, students apply their knowledge of percents and ratios to determine the representation of race and gender in the media. They discuss and graph their data.
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T.V. Smarts
Students research visual messages by completing a media quiz. In this television programming lesson plan, students identify the many programs and commercials which use sexual imagery to sell their program or product. Students discuss...
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"War of the Worlds": A Broadcast Re-Creation
Why did Orson Welles' 1938 Broadcast of a adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds cause such a panic? To answer this question, class members listen to the original broadcast and research the panic that resulted. They then engage...
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The Ad Campaign
Young scholars explore how political candidates use mass media to deliver their messages to voters. Focusing on specific issues in the upcoming election, students create television commercials representing different parties' views.
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No Bigger Than a Minute
Students view a video clip about ideas displayed through images. They work together to analyze paintings and complete activities. They discuss how media representation of an issue can affect one's viewpoint.