Table of Contents

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Training Manual Enhancing Media Literacy in
Middle Schools
By Keri Brown
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Table of Contents

• Objective
• Mission Statement Beliefs
• 10 Tips for Teachers
• Tell, Show, Do, Review
• Lesson Plans
• 5 Core Concepts in Media Literacy
• Guiding Questions
• Scheibes 6 questions
• In Class Activities
• Notes

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OBJECTIVE
Understand how to use your training tools, the
importance of training and how you play a role in
it.
Teaching middle school students to become more
media literate.
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Mission Statement Beliefs
Mission
Our mission is to ensure every child the
opportunity to learn and achieve his/her highest
potential. Supported by professional teachers
and administrators, and with the support of the
entire community students will be prepared to be
productive, responsible citizens in an
ever-changing, diverse society.
Beliefs

• We believe
• Responsibility for learning should be shared by
  home, school and community.
• Learning is a life-long process.
• High standards expectations encourage success
  in all students.
• Schools should endeavor to meet the academic,
  emotional, physical, and social needs of
  each child and should foster strength of mind and
  independence.

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Top 10 Training Tips for Teachers

• Build student self-esteem
• Communicate with parents
• Establish rules
• Foster curiosity
• Sound positive

• Keep good records
• Build relationships
• Be proud
• Get organized
• Entertain the students

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Training Methods
TELL SHOW DO REVIEW
TELL Tell me and I will forget.
SHOW Tell and Show me and I may remember.
DO Tell, Show Do - I will remember for a
while.
REVIEW Tell, Show, Do, Review I will always
remember.
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Lesson Plans
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Five Core Concepts in Media Literacy
Questions
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5 Core Concepts
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 media messages
differently. 4. Media have embedded values and
points of view. 5. Most media messages are
constructed to gain profit and/or power.
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All media messages are constructed.

• Media texts are built
• Magazines words, different sizes and
  typefonts, photographs, colors, layout and page
  location. TV and Movies camera angles,
  lighting, music, and sound effects.
• Key Question
• Who created this message?

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

• Grammar, sounds and visuals can heighten our
  deepest emotions, increase our appreciation and
  enjoyment and/or help us to be less susceptible
  to manipulation.
• Key Question
• What creative techniques are used to attract my
  attention?

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Different people experience the same media
messages differently.

• Bring a unique set of life experiences (age,
  gender, education, cultural upbringing, etc.),
  which create unique interpretations.
• Key Question
• How might different people understand the
  message differently from me?

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Media have embedded values and points of view.

• Who and What is important?
• Storytellers
• Require characters, settings, plots, ages,
  gender, race, lifestyles, attitudes, behaviors,
  etc.
• Key Question
• What lifestyle, values points of view are
  represented in, or omitted from, this message?

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Most media messages are constructed to gain
profit and/or power.

• Create an audience, so that the network
  publisher can sell time or space to sponsors to
  advertise products. Persuade others to a
  particular point of view.
• Key Questions
• Why is this message being sent?

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GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR CHILDREN
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Main Question
Who created this message?
Guiding Questions
How is this put together?
What is this?
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Main Question
What techniques are used to attract my attention?
Guiding Questions
What do I see, hear, smell, touch or taste?
What do I like or dislike about this?
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Main Question
How might different people understand this
message differently from me?
Guiding Questions
What might other people think feel about this?
What do I think feel about this?
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Main Question
What lifestyles, values and points of view are
represented or omitted in this message?
Guiding Questions
What does this tell me about how other people
live and believe?
Is anything or anyone left out?
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Main Question
Why was this message sent?
Guiding Questions
Is this trying to sell me something?
Is this trying to tell me something?
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Questions for Teachers to ask Students
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Cynthia Scheibes 6 Questions

• Who madewho sponsoredthis message and what is
  their purpose?
• Who is the target audience and how is this
  message specifically tailored to that audience?
• What are the different techniques used to inform,
  persuade, entertain, and attract attention?
• What messages are communicated (and.or implied)
  about certain people, places, events, behaviors,
  lifestyles, and so forth?
• How current, accurate, and credible is the
  information in this messages?
• What is left out of this message that might be
  important to know?

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Key Question
Who made--and who sponsored--this message, and
what is their purpose?
Guiding Questions

• Who is the author?
• How many people did it take to create this
  message? What are their various jobs?
• What kind of text is it?
• How similar or different is it to others of the
  same genre?
• Which technologies are used in its creation?
• What are the various elements (building blocks)
  that make up the whole?

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Key Question
Who is the target audience and how is the message
specifically tailored to that audience?
Guiding Questions

• Female / Male
• Age
• What did you learn from other peoples response
  -- and experience?
• How many other interpretations could there be?
  How could we hear about them?

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Key Question
What are the the different techniques used to
inform, persuade, entertain, and attract
attention?
Guiding Questions

• What do you notice about the way the message is
  constructed? (Colors Shapes, Sounds Silence,
  Props, Set, Clothing, Movement, and/or Symbols)
• Whats the emotional appeal? Persuasive
  devices?
• What makes it seem real?

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Key Question
What messages are communicated (and/or implied)
about certain people, places, events, behaviors,
lifestyles, and so forth?
Guiding Questions

• What questions come to mind as you watch / read
  / listen?
• What judgments or statements are made about
  personal or social relationships?
• What is the cultural context or worldview?
• What ideas or values are being sold in this
  message?
• What kinds of behaviors / consequences are
  depicted?
• Who or what is left out?

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Key Question
How current, accurate, and credible is the
information in this message?
Guiding Questions

• Whos in control of the creation and
  transmission of this message?
• How old is this message?
• What source did this message come from?
• Who wrote or produced this message?

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Key Question
What is left out of this message that might be
important to know?
Guiding Questions

• Is there anything you feel that is important
  that was not portrayed?
• What else could you add to the media to make it
  more accurate or more easy to understand?
• What creative ideas do you have that would
  change or improve all types of media?

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In Class Activities
WORKSHEETS
HAND-OUTS
SAMPLES
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ACTIVITY 1
All media are constructions

• Have groups of students use the web to research a
  topic being studied by the class. Each group
  must find a different web source. Analyze the
  material using these criteria
• Who created the site?
  
• Is the information credible?
• What is the point of view?
• What information has been omitted?
• How does the site compare with information found
  through traditional sources?

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ACTIVITY 2
All media are constructions

• Create a web site or brochure that helps kids and
  parents evaluate television shows, movies, video
  games, and Internet sites.
• Steps to take when designing your own website
• Open Microsoft Word Create a new web page
• Add background color
• Type information

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ACTIVITY 3
Media use in unique languages

• Analyze a local newscast, newspaper front page,
  and an Internet news site covering news for the
  same day.
• What stories led in each and why?
• Who is featured in pictures and what live video
  is shown?
• How does each source cover the same story?
• What words or pictures are used to grab your
  attention?
• How do they make you feel?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each
  medium?
• Which sources seems more credible and why?

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The BIG Question
Who?
When?
What?
Why?
Where?
How?
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What I know
What I want to know
What I learned
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NOTES
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NOTES
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NOTES