Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom, 2nd Edition

Frank W. Baker

• Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781564843814
• eBook ISBN: 9781564846112
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Standards

Get the strategies and tools you need to develop a deep understanding of media literacy so that you can pass on essential critical thinking skills to your students. Helping students understand media literacy has never been more important. Today's young people often spend over 10 hours a day consuming media. Aided by technology, they can instantly engage with media outlets and platforms to find answers, share information, shop or connect with friends. But access alone doesn't lead to critical thinking.Media is designed to be analyzed, deconstructed and reconstructed. Understanding how to interpret advertising messages, check for bias or avoid stereotyping are among the skills students need to become knowledgeable consumers and producers of media. This is where Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom, Second Edition comes in.Included in this revised edition:

• A new section that examines "big ideas" in media literacy, such as bias, representation, gatekeeping and symbolism.
• Voices from the field in each chapter, answering the questions: Why do you think media literacy education is important? What resources would you recommend to learn more?
• Two full media literacy lesson plans that can be easily adapted for your classes.
• Guiding questions, exercises and checklists for deconstructing media messages.
• An appendix with over 80 author-recommended resources.

How do you begin to understand the importance of teaching media literacy? Where can you find appropriate resources — lessons, activities, videos and books — to help you do so? This book is the place to start. Audience: K-12 educators, library media specialists

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS MEDIA LITERACY?

It is no longer enough to simply read and write. Students must also become literate in the understanding of visual images. Our children must learn how to spot a stereotype, isolate a social cliché, and distinguish facts from propaganda, analysis from banter, and important news from coverage.

—Ernest Boyer, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Communications scholar Marshall McLuhan observed that the fish swimming in the ocean is oblivious to the water. His metaphor is right: we live and swim in a world of media, but we seldom stop to study how the media work or think about its impact on our lives. Media literacy is designed to do just that, and more.

I teach media literacy, a skill that all students need. By writing this book, I am hoping that you will consider its place in your classroom. But first you need to know what it is and why it is relevant to your students.

Media + Literacy

If we split the phrase media literacy apart, we come up with two words: media (the plural form of medium) and literacy (the ability to read, write, and comprehend). We all know what the media is, especially our students. Literacy is one of the driving forces of education. We want students who can read, write, think critically, and contribute to society.

In today’s education system, literacy is taught primarily through the printed word (books, magazines, etc.). Educators understand that students require the ability to read, analyze, interpret, deconstruct, and create printed words. However, photographers, filmmakers, advertisers, and other media makers know that there are languages and rules that set their media apart from the printed word—and it is these rules that media literacy aims to teach. Filmmaker George Lucas wants educators to value and teach these rules:

If students aren’t taught the language of sound and images, shouldn’t they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read and write? (George Lucas, quoted in Daly, 2004)

Simply put, media literacy is the ability to understand how the media work, how they convey meaning. Media literacy also involves critical thinking about the thousands of media messages we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

One of my favorite definitions of media literacy emanates from Canada:

Media literacy is concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques. More specifically, it is education that aims to increase the students’ understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how they construct reality. Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create media products. (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1989)

Many educators know how to teach with the media; unfortunately, not many know how to teach about the media. In one of my recent workshops, I asked a large group of secondary social studies teachers if they could teach history without images, and they all said no. When I asked how many of them teach “visual literacy,” not one person responded in the affirmative.

Although media literacy has been around since the 1970s, many educators still don’t understand what it is and where it fits into the K–12 curriculum. The American education system has not yet fully embraced it. But there are signs that this is changing.

In 1998, I created the Media Literacy Clearinghouse website (www.frankwbaker.com/mlc) because I wanted to offer educators a single location for resources that would help them better understand media literacy and its place in the classroom. I hope you will take some time to explore the site. One word of advice: it is easy to get lost on a web page with hundreds of embedded links. Choose a topic (e.g., advertising) or a curriculum discipline (e.g., English) that interests you, and explore the resources on those pages.

One-Stop Venue for Media Literacy Resources

Media Literacy Clearinghouse Website: www.frankwbaker.com/mlc

Media literacy encourages us to consider the world of our students—their media, their popular culture—as the hook to get their attention and get them engaged, while also meeting those important teaching standards. On my website, you will find ideas for teaching with and about visual images, film, television, advertising, and more. You will find topics as diverse as advertising, bias, journalism, news, parody, propaganda, and much, much more. I hope, after reading this book, and considering its recommendations, you might also feel more comfortable helping your students become critical thinkers and viewers in a media-saturated world.

Media literacy is recognized as one of the new skills all students need to succeed. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (www.p21.org) defines media literacy in terms of two skill sets—analysis and production—which students need to acquire.

Analyze Media

• Understand both how and why media messages are constructed and for what purposes

• Examine how individuals interpret messages differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded, and how media can influence beliefs and behaviors

• Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of media

Create Media Products

• Understand and utilize the most appropriate media-creation tools, characteristics, and conventions

• Understand and effectively utilize the most appropriate expressions and interpretations in diverse, multicultural environments

Source: P21.org (www.p21.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=349&Itemid=120)

The Partnership for 21st Century Learning, working with teachers from all disciplines, has produced 21st century skills maps and ICT (information, communication, and technology) literacy maps, all of which make specific recommendations to teachers who want to revise their instruction for the challenges of the 21st century. Included in each of the ICT maps is a page devoted to information and media literacy. To read more and find the map for your discipline, visit the Resources for Educators page on the P21 website (www.p21.org/our-work/resources/for-educators#SkillsMaps).

The 2016 ISTE Standards for Students emphasize the skills and qualities we want for students, enabling them to engage and thrive in a connected, digital world. Media literacy is addressed in standards such as Standard 3.b.

Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources. (ISTE, 2016)

Media literacy is also a component of what is known as “digital citizenship.” This phrase is often used to emphasize the importance of using technology appropriately, understanding the rules, and applying some critical thinking to what one does with technology.

The Importance of Analysis

Many teachers (and students) have become enamored of small camcorders because they are inexpensive and easy to use. They are increasingly being incorporated into instruction. Although I applaud this move, learning how to use a camera, understanding editing techniques, and incorporating video into a project is only half of the equation. Students, in this example, are only creators and producers. Teachers should also be teaching their students how to analyze media productions. When we take time to help students analyze media messages, they learn to understand the underlying techniques that influence them everyday and they become healthy skeptics.

Writing in her book Reading the Media in High School, media scholar Renee Hobbs (2007) found that teaching students to analyze media messages also helped them become better readers of print material.

Put simply, Hobbs has found that analysis combined with production translates to effective media literacy practice. Teachers who will teach it need to engage their students in both activities. But media literacy is much more than just analysis and production.

Media literacy is also:

• a set of skills, knowledge, and abilities

• an awareness of personal media habits

• an understanding of how media work (production; economics)

• an appreciation of media’s power/influence

• the ability to discern; critically question/view

• understanding how meaning is created in media

• healthy skepticism

• access to media

• ability to produce and create media

What media literacy is not:

• media bashing: it is not designed to say media is bad

• protection against media we might disagree with

• just about television: it offers many opportunities to analyze and produce new media and technology

• just video production

• how to use audio-visual equipment

• only teaching with media; it is also teaching about the media

Media literacy is not a separate course; instead, it is lens though which we see and understand our media-saturated world. It is also a teaching strategy that should be incorporated into every course.

Whenever teachers use a photograph, a film clip, a commercial, an educational video, an audio recording, or a snippet from the news, they have an opportunity to engage students in better understanding:

• how that media message was created and constructed

• who the intended audience is

• what techniques might be used to engage, inform, persuade, educate

• who or what might be omitted and why

• who benefits/profits from the message being told in this way

• what biases might be inherent

• what stereotypes are promoted

These and other questions are considered crucial to media literacy education. Questioning media messages, which many of us have not been trained to do, is one of the major strategies that can be employed in teaching about the media.

Tessa Jolls, president of the Center for Media Literacy (CML), agrees:

It is our dream that by the time they graduate from high school, all students will be able to apply the Five Key Questions almost without thinking. … Practicing and mastering the Five Key Questions leads to an adult understanding of how media are created, what their purposes are, and how to accept or reject their messages. (Center for Media Literacy, n.d.)

Five Core Concepts

The Center recommends students become familiar with the five core concepts as well as the corresponding critical-thinking questions:

1. All media messages are “constructed.”

2. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.

3. Different people experience the same message differently.

4. Media have embedded values and points of view.

5. Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power. (Thoman & Jolls, 2003, p. 18)

Five Key (Deconstruction) Questions

1. Who created this message?

2. What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?

3. How might different people understand this message differently from me?

4. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?

5. Why was this message sent? (Thoman & Jolls, 2003, p. 18)

CML’s core concepts and key questions are explained and explored in Chapter 2.

Key Questions to Ask When Analyzing Media Messa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About ISTE
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Preface
• INTRODUCTION: BIG IDEAS IN MEDIA LITERACY
• CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS MEDIA LITERACY?
• CHAPTER 2: TEACHING MEDIA LITERACY
• CHAPTER 3: VISUAL LITERACY
• CHAPTER 4: ADVERTISING
• CHAPTER 5: MOVING IMAGES
• APPENDIX A: MEDIA LITERACY REFERENCES
• APPENDIX B: GLOSSARY
• APPENDIX C: REFERENCES
• APPENDIX D: ISTE STANDARDS
• INDEX
• Back Cover