Teaching Tolerance
Evaluating Online Sources
Newspapers, television, social media ... how do people get their news? Using the informative resource, scholars locate and verify credible sources of information. Working in small groups, they discuss strategies for evaluating the...
Curated OER
Media Literacy Skills
Third graders watch a news story from three different networks in order to determine how the same story can be presented in three different ways. Next, working in small groups they create a newscast of a current event to share with the...
Curated OER
The World in 22 Minutes: Constructing a TV News Lineup
Students examine several newspapers to compare front pages, headlines, and photographs, experience role of news editor, define and discuss factors that go into news judgements, and arrange twenty-two minute news broadcast by selecting...
Newspaper Association of America
Critical Thinking through Core Curriculum: Using Print and Digital Newspapers
What is and what will be the role of newspapers in the future? Keeping this essential question in mind, class members use print, electronic, and/or web editions of newspapers, to investigate topics that include financial literary,...
Curated OER
Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events
Teaching current events can be an amazingly-rewarding part of your teaching week. This resource presents twenty-five ways to incorporate current events into your curriculum. It offers some outstanding ideas, such as providing your...
Curated OER
A News Story of Your Own: Sentence and Lexical Variety
Given the two-sentence skeleton of a news story about a car theft/joy ride, budding writers create their own version of the story varying diction and sentence structure to heighten interest and complexity in their writing. Resource...
Curated OER
Hazardous Waste Issues in the News
Students work together to research hazardous waste in the news. They discover how large the hazardous waste issue is. They complete an experiment and discuss how the issues affect their community.
Curated OER
Media Literacy Lesson Plans
Students familiarize themselves with the definition of media literacy and why it is important. In this media literacy lesson, students examine the front pages of three different types of newspapers. Students discuss the lead stories...
National History Day
Reporting on World War I
Throughout history, newspapers have reported the events of the day as they unfolded. Using primary and secondary sources from World War I, scholars uncover how the American people learned of the events of the War to End All Wars. History...
American Press Institute
Creating a Classroom Newspaper
Hot off the press: a mini-unit for class members to create their own newspaper. Complete with graphic organizers, extension activities, and helpful learning targets that teach parts of a newspaper, the resource contains everything needed...
Stanford University
Vicksburg
Long before the term fake news, media outlets offered competing narratives of events at the time. Looking at newspaper reports from the Battle of Vicksburg, class members consider two different versions of the strategic siege—one from...
Online Publications
Become a Journalist
Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...
National History Day
Uncovering a World at War
Has media always had an influence on public policy? After researching and reading news articles written during World War I, learners understand the influence of communication and media. They discuss articles in small groups and as a...
Curated OER
The Campaign: Issues and Strategies. What do you think?
Young scholars research a candidate in an election and discuss how the media portrays that candidate and how the media influences voters. In this candidate lesson plan, students also distinguish fact from opinion, look at political...
Curated OER
Benjamin Franklin: Colonial Printer and Journalist
Fifth graders explore how important print media is to everyone's daily life. Students use present daily newspapers and they are to reproduce weather forecasts.
Curated OER
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here
Learners examine the presence of the paparazzi. In this media awareness lesson, students visit the noted Web sites to determine the influence and support that the paparazzi enjoys in modern society. Learners create guides to the paparazzi.
Curated OER
Ad Awareness from Admongo.gov
Students explore mass media by completing worksheets in class. In this consumerism activity, students discuss the meaning behind advertisements and how they are used in television, the Internet and print. Students analyze a group of ads...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: The Black Press
Students examine the history of the black press. In this media awareness lesson, students watch videos and conduct research regarding the history of the black press in America. Students explore media careers as they read provided...
Curated OER
You Are There: Television News Reports on Apartheid
Students, in groups, research apartheid and its effects on South Africa. They present their information to the class.
Curated OER
Propaganda/Stereotypes Used in the Media
Students write a character sketch on a television character who they feel is a stereotype. In this propaganda/stereotype instructional activity, students discuss the definition of the terms and ways that the media uses both. Students...
Curated OER
Mixed Media Painting
Students create mixed media still life paintings in this "Happy Accident" art lesson introducing the concepts of using pen and ink, watercolors, and pastels. The lesson can be adapted for various grade levels and abilities ranging from...
Curated OER
That Is Not My Opinion!
Being an informed citizen requires distinguishing fact from opinion and understanding persuasion methods. Secondary learners evaluate newspaper editorials. They read opinion pieces, identify the writer's purpose and position on an issue,...
Curated OER
Media and War
Students investigate how written media and word of mouth helped foment rebellion during the Revolutionary War. They compare and contrast that with the role of the news media in the war in Iraq focusing on cause and effect relationships.
Media Smarts
Newspaper Ads
Just how free is the press? After examining the advertising and propaganda techniques used by advertisers, class members consider the influence advertisers may exert over newspaper content.