8P24 Literacy - Media Literacy Strand

TEACHING STUDENTS HOW TO APPROACH MEDIA – Media Literacy Strand

Today’s society is hooked on media, whether it is newspapers, movies, television shows, magazines, or games. Having easy access to these types of media is both a positive and a negative; we have the ability to access just about anything, but unless we can approach the sources critically and analytically, the information we consume from it might actually harm our understanding of the topic. Taking this into consideration, it is crucial to teach students how to be media conscious and literate as they are growing up in a media-obsessed world.

CONNECTING TO THE CURRICULUM

Looking at the Ontario Curriculum for Language through grades 4-8, the word “understanding” appears in the overall expectations for media literacy in every grade. All media is created with a purpose, for a target audience, and with a specific intended message. It cannot be approached as pure fact as all media originates from somebody’s perspective. Everything created is laced with bias or a set perspective. It is no coincidence that the general expectations in all grades for media literacy contain these core four actions:

·      Understand

·      Identify

·      Create

·      Reflect

All of these expectations are geared towards creating a responsible consumer. If we cannot understand then we cannot generate an informed response. Our consumption of information increases as we age and our ability to comprehend and put meaning to what we are engaging with grows. That is why it is important to incorporate media literacy into the classroom with students who are learning how to interact critically, analytically, and responsibly with information.

ADVOCATES OF AWARENESS

There are many blogs and articles that touch base on the importance of media literacy in classrooms. In one blog post on Langwitches, the author says, “Our students are gravitating (on their own) to Social Media for learning on their own terms outside of schools” (Rubin). If students are already naturally moving into the world of online information then it is crucial that we teach them the safest and smartest way to approach what they are seeing. Rubin also says:

“Information has changed our lives. The way we have access to it, the way we filter it, the way we consume it, the way we need to evaluate it, the way we produce it, the way we disseminate it.”

We do not just consume things; we are constantly reading, reflecting, and producing our own information. If we can understand that we wear our own veil of perception when creating media, we can apply this knowledge into approaching other forms of it. We are creatures of habit and we learn through experience, so the more familiar we become with our own skills, the more we can utilize it when we are engaging with someone else’s work.

In order for us as professionals to teach this self-aware approach, we must educate ourselves on reading the media. A blog post by Sylvia Tolisano, Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students- Part I: Reading, focuses on the habits we should form before we can facilitate an intelligent and successful approach to media for students. Tolisano's mentality with reading media supports Rubin's comment on how the digital universe is a natural part of today's society. She suggests that by reading more educational blog posts, we will be able to understand the complexity of sources and "how ideas are linked, connected, expanded, influenced, etc" (Tolisano) in the online world.

In a post on Edutopia, the author talks about the critical reading of visual images and having awareness with the media. Like Rubin and Tolisano, Mark Phillips talks about the way perception is inextricably linked with media literacy. Phillips mentions a comment made by one of his students that almost sums up exactly why consciousness is crucial when reading media:

"What we see and hear is not reality, it’s what they present as reality."

All three authors support the same notion that works of media must be approached with the understanding that it is developed under someone's perspective. It is not necessarily fact, and it is important that we teach our students how to read, analyze, and give meaning to the sources they work with.

INTEGRATING MEDIA LITERACY INTO THE CLASSROOM

There are multiple ways you can teach this strand. I would want my students to have the mindset that there are multiple factors that have influenced media. In order to figure out these factors, students would have to read critically and form their own assumptions. By evaluating sources, students can figure out whose perspective it is from, who the target audience is, what techniques are being used, etc., and this will help students give the information meaning. An activity that can be done on the topic could follow this outline:

·      Have students read a piece of media (blog post, news article, posters, advertisements)

·      Have students list the visible and invisible factors that influence the message of the resource (text, writing style, key words, perspective, pictures, etc.)

·      Have students draw conclusions from their findings (who is it meant for? What is the message it is trying to convey? Who would agree with the message? Who would disagree? What could be changed to make the overall message different?)

·      Now that they have analyzed the resource, have students reflect on their own personal biases that could have influenced the way they perceived their piece of media.

This is a basic activity, but it focuses on being able to approach media critically instead of blindly trusting the information in front of us. The earlier we can get students to understand the multiple factors that gives media meaning, the more equipped they will be when they are engaging with it inside and outside of the classroom.

Sources

Phillips, Mark. “It's Not a Pipe: Teaching Kids to Read the Media.” Edutopia, 9 Aug. 2012, 
www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-kids-to-read-images-mark-phillips.

Rubin, C M. “Can Social Media Have a Role to Play in Managing a 
SuccessfulClassroom?”Langwitches Blog, 13 Oct. 2015, langwitches.org/blog/2015/10/13/can-social-media-have-a-role-to-play-in-managing-a-successful-classroom/.

Tolisano, Sylvia. “Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students- Part I: Reading | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog.” Langwitches Blog, 29 Oct. 2011, langwitches.org/blog/2011/10/29/learning-about-blogs-for-your-students-part-i-reading/.