Week Six: ReadWriteThink Media Literacy Lesson Plans

Lesson:

PersuasiveTechniques in Advertising

Content and CSO’s:

Ninth Grade Reading and Language Arts

RLA.O.9.3.2
formulate and deliver grammatically correct messages, taking into consideration the purpose of the message and the speaker’s and the listener’s culture, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, and life experiences.

RLA.O.9.3.4
use active listening strategies to analyze the message, formulate a response and react to

• determine purpose
• make predictions
• differentiate fact from opinion
• construct meaning of discussion, speech, or media

RLA.O.9.3.5
understand, interpret and evaluate various media communications.

RLA.O.9.3.7
plan, create, organize, and present an age appropriate media product that demonstrates an understanding of format, purpose, and audience.

 

Can integrating media literacy into your classroom activities help prepare your students for taking the WestTest? Use what you learned from this week's reading in your answer.

Integrating media literacy into your classroom activities will help prepare your students for taking the WESTTEST by helping them with their critical thinking skills, including their ability to analyze printed word. A lot of the time, students’ answers’ are wrong because they don’t read the problem correctly. The study from the Double Entry Journal Seven showed an improvement in analysis of reading, visual, and auditory materials due to media literacy instruction within the classroom.

Double Entry Journal 7

Why did the authors do this study?

The authors wanted to find out how teaching media skills affect students’ ability to identify certain things within a written, audio, and visual media source.

How did the authors do the study?

The authors picked a yearlong junior English media/communication course that incorporated extensive critical media analysis of print, audio, visual texts and compared those students to ones from a demographically matched group who received no instruction in critically analyzing media messages. Each group of students were asked to respond to questions regarding a print newsmagazine article, a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) audio news commentary, and a television news segment targeted at teenagers. Comprehension, writing skills, and analysis skills were measured.

What data/results emerged from the study?

The pretest scores were used as a covariant, or varying in accordance with a strict mathematical relationship, and the posttest scores were the dependent measures. Results from the study suggests that media literacy instruction improves students’ ability to identify main ideas in written, audio, and visual media, as well as, an improved ability to identify the purpose, target audience, point of view, construction techniques used in media messages, and the ability to identify omitted information from a news media broadcast in written, audio, or visual forms.

What do the authors conclude from the data analysis?

The authors of this study stated that there are substantial weaknesses to the research that limit the value of the study. Because of the limitations of this research, it is impossible to make generalizations to other instructional contexts, but as far as the area of the study is concerned with the print, audio, and visual media outlets, students with media literacy instruction incorporated in their learning has better analysis skills than those students who receive no instruction. “Students who received media-literacy instruction were more likely to recognize the complex blurring of information, entertainment, and economics that are present in contemporary nonfiction media” (Hobbs & Frost, 2003).

What is the significance of the study?

This study shows the importance of teaching media literacy skills as not only instruction on the analysis of printed material, which is considered as the exclusive form for the representation of knowledge and expression within the classroom, but as well as visual and auditoria forms of media. Visual and electronic messages are now central aspects of contemporary culture, they are still often ignored or treated superficially in the classroom, and this study showed the importance of incorporating other media outlets besides print within the curriculum.

How do these findings influence your position on media literacy and school curriculum?

The findings of this research only emphasized my position on media literacy and school curriculum. Students need these skills in order to become better analyzers, if not just to be better critical thinkers.

Reference:

Hobbs, R., & Frost, R. (2003, September). Measuring the acquisition of media-literacy skills. Retrieved September 23, 2011, from www.aeforum.org: http://www.aeforum.org/aeforum.nsf/8f28d4e3625611a780256c5100355eb9/e5b3dcb7858a818780256f390044f8db/$FILE/RRQ12004.pdf

Week Eight: Reel Works Movie

How do these movies resist the naturalization of the dominant perspective. How do they help us see from the standpoint of marginalized groups in order to gain multiple perspectives on issues and phenomena that appear as common sense?

I love these films. My three favorite films are: silence in black and white, the true story of the birds and the bees, and survivor of the twins. These teen-produced videos are a sneak peek into the lives of marginalized groups in order to show their certain perspectives on issues that they have personally dealt with. Since these issues are common among all groups of people, these videos become a powerful sharing outlet.

These films allow the freedom for students to voice their unadulterated perspective on issues. Because of this, they are impactful videos of human emotion and experience that any viewer would be able to relate to in some way. They are awesome videos. I love when students voice share their work like this.

Double Entry Journal 6

Quote:

“She suggests teaching critical thinking by applying it to the study of media literacy.” (nb5619, 2010)

Reaction:

Although, I believe that critical thinking can be applied through teaching media literacy. However, I don’t think that media literacy is the only thing that can be used to improve critical thinking skills. I had a class in college that taught me how to critically examine texts in literature. I do believe that critical thinking would be easier to teach with media literacy, rather than critiquing an essay or story, because students are more conscious of media outlets than they are reading texts. Also, I love the five media literacy questions Summers suggests with teaching critical thinking skills.

Reference:

nb5619. (2010, October 25). Learn critical thinking through media literacy education [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/learn-critical-thinking-through-media-literacy-education/

Related Resource:

In this resource, it talks about some obscure pictures that can produce emotions, and relates it to how the media uses imagery and literature to produce feelings, whether positive or negative, in an individual or group of individuals. Also, it gives worksheets to teachers who would like to do an activity on media literacy to promote critical thinking skills.

StudentWorkbook

Worsnop, C. M. (1989). Media literacy through critical thinking. Ontario: Queen’s Printer.Retrieved from http://depts.washington.edu/nwmedia/sections/nw_center/curriculum_docs/stud_combine.pdf

Week Five: Magazine Cover

Double Entry Journal 5

Quote:

“They say that it is no coincidence that as women are achieving greater social, political and professional equality, these magazines symbolically relegate them to subordinate positions as sex objects.” (Network, 2010)

Reaction:

I was shocked by this quote, not because I didn’t agree with it, but because I didn’t realize it sooner. More often than not, women are treated as objects in commercials, magazines, and other various media outlets, instead of human beings who have taken great strides in becoming equal to men. Now, I’m not a feminist, but I do agree that men and women are equal. Moreover, I believe that women are stronger than men in a sense because of everything we’ve had to push through in order to get where we are today as a group. It makes me sick to think that men try to reduce a woman’s role in life to nothing more than a sex object.

Reference:

Network, M. A. (2010). Men's Magazines and the Construction of Masculinity. Media Issues.

Related Resource:

Below is a link that talks about the construction of masculinity in men and how there is a difference in femininity. I would mainly focus on pages 4-8 of the text. It talks about how men are called “sissy” or “wimp”, if they do something that is socially considered feminine.

 Constructions of masculinity article

Courtenay, W. H. (2000). Constructions of masculinity and their influence on men's well-being: a theory of gender and health. Retrieved September 13, 2011, from sociology.osu.edu: http://sociology.osu.edu/classes/soc635/heimdal/Readings/Courtenay%202000.pdf