Media Literacy

These links are designed to help students learn to critically evaluate and understand the media and its impact on their lives. Media literacy is a part of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's recommended curriculum, or is included in DPI model academic standards, for many subjects. Among them are art and design education, English language arts, family and consumer education, health education, information and technology literacy, and social studies. (ECB also provides excellent video resources on Media Literacy for Wisconsin teachers.)

Student Sites | Teacher Sites | Lesson Plans | Instructional Video Series for Wisconsin Teachers

Student Sites

Games for Kids, from the Canadian Media Awareness Network, helps 7- to 13-year-olds learn how television, film, and video games are produced and marketed. The site uses cartoons, interactive games, and questions to help children understand the Internet and other media.

Jo Cool or Jo Fool: An Online Guide to Savvy Surfing is a tongue-in-cheek online module designed to help 6-8 grade students learn to think critically about online privacy, online marketing, responsible Internet use, authenticating online resources, and Internet safety. The Canadian Media Awareness Network also provides a complete teachers' guide.

My Pop Studio invites middle and high school students to go behind-the-scenes and explore how media such as television, magazines, music and websites is manipulated with a purpose you visit? This interactive Web site lets students explore, create and comment on the media they are studying.

The Media from the Girl Power! BodyWise Web site provides a discussion of how the media represents women's bodies and an activity designed for middle school students.

Ad Decoder from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection gives a quick look at some of the hidden messages behind every day ads.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest features SmartMouth, a site that aims to make children aware of how advertising practices attempt to influence their buying and eating habits.

The Merchants of Cool, from PBS's Frontline, examines the marketing of popular culture to teens. The program Web site includes information, interviews, and the entire video available for online viewing.

Reach Out is a media literacy campaign developed by a group of high school students from the Just Think Foundation. Their work is based on the PBS series Senior Year and includes a "Media Myth Quiz" and sections on how to read the media and how to counteract negative media portrayals.

More to it: Media Literacy, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, uses the work of photographer Robert Cottingham to explore issues such as gender stereotypes and "spin" in mass media.

The Cyber Newseum, from the Freedom Forum's interactive museum of news, features several exhibits dealing with the press and its influence on public opinion. Exhibits deal with news coverage of topics such as the war in Iraq, September 11, and the Holocaust.

Media Literacy is one of the themes of the PBS teen program In the Mix. The Web site includes a teachers' guide with suggestions for media literacy activities.

Medicine and Madison Avenue, from the National Humanities Center and Duke University presents 600 health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines. They illustrate the variety and evolution of marketing images from the 1910s through the 1950s. The site includes a student guide and teacher guide.

Ad*Access, from the Duke University Libraries, presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.

Teacher Sites

This ERIC Digest article on "Media Literacy" provides a definition of the term and basic information for educators.

The New Media Literacies Project from MIT defines media literacy as the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape. These skills include not only evaluating media, but producing it in a variety of formats.

The Center for Social Media at American University provides a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education.

The Media Awareness Network site offers practical support for media education in the home, school, and community. This Canadian site has sections for students, teachers, and parents. The teacher section includes an overview of media education, lesson plans, and other resources.

The University of Oregon's Media Literacy Online Project provides information and resources related to the influence of media on the lives of children, youth, and adults.

The National Institute on Media and the Family works to give educators and other adults information about the impact of media on children and families. The Web site presents activities and quizzes for adults on the impact of the media.

Media Literacy, from the National Clearinghouse on Alcohol and Drug Information, offers several publications on media literacy.

This bibliography on "Media Literacy" includes articles that can be accessed directly by Wisconsin teachers via Badgerlink.

Lesson Plans

Assignment Media Literacy provides a complete curriculum for elementary, middle, and high school students to explore the impact of media and technology in society. It includes specific lesson plans, discussion questions, and worksheets. The six-module curriculum was developed by Professor Renee Hobbs of Babson College and her staff in collaboration with the Discovery Channel for the state of Maryland, but is available for download. Some lessons require use of a video that is not available online, but many do not.

Arthur's Guide to Media Literacy from the PBS Kids Web site is a set of lesson plans designed to help teachers and caregivers discuss media literacy issues with kids. Each lesson is coordinated with an episode from the cartoon series Arthur.

In the Web quest And Now a Word from Our Sponsor, students are asked to take the role of prospective advertising agency employees who must analyze some current advertisements, demonstrate their knowledge of advertising techniques, and create an ad for a fictional product. The quest was designed by an eighth grade teacher.

Don't Buy It Guide for Teachers is a set of lessons for 9-11 year olds from PBS. The lessons are designed to touch on the six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy

The PBS TeacherSource Web site has a guide to media literacy called Getting Started: Activity Ideas for Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Health. It provides ideas for activities and discussion questions for kindergarten through grade 12.

Learning from Pictures is a selection of links to help teach visual literacy. It comes from the University of Oregon's Media Literacy Review.

Media literacy expert Renee Hobbs provides Critical Questions for Analyzing Media Messages as part of an online lesson in analyzing advertisements. These simple questions could be used as a basis for many media literacy activities.

Instructional Video Series for Wisconsin Teachers

Wisconsin teachers may tape these programs about Media Literacy for classroom use. Click on each lin k to find information about the program, teacher guide and broadcast schedule from the ECB Instructional Database.

Media Wise from Life Skills 101 (grades 2-3)

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