There seems to be a new educational subject out there, which I find very relevant to today's children, especially teens who are learning Life Skills. It's called Media Literacy.
Media Literacy takes this education to a completely new level. What if we can bridge math, science, reading informational text, and real life through media? We can. Children are exposed to media constantly and they are lied to. They need to learn to 'deconstruct' the messages and read between the lines.
Reading between the lines, inferring, and doing their own research seems to be what this new educational subject is about. This is a skill many new adults lack. How can we tell what is true and what is a lie?
Back to integrating more educational opportunities; Ask students how much media they take in, then come with different ways to graph the data; investigate the science of appealing to people's emotions; study the copy writing and logos and have students design their own. Get out some magazines and have them examine ads in the pages. You could do a collage with themes, or put the ad on a larger piece of paper and diagram it around the picture.
I think I need to plan some lessons with my students and my children!
Lessons: NCTE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
By looking at advertising critically, students begin to understand how the media oppresses certain groups, convinces people to purchase certain products, and influences culture. LessonI remember discussing advertising when I was in middle school/high school and how they exaggerate to convince you to buy something. They want to sell you on a product so they use gimmicks, cuteness, arousal, enticement, celebrities, bad math, and skewed graphics or camera angles and great lighting to capture your attention.
Media Literacy takes this education to a completely new level. What if we can bridge math, science, reading informational text, and real life through media? We can. Children are exposed to media constantly and they are lied to. They need to learn to 'deconstruct' the messages and read between the lines.
Reading between the lines, inferring, and doing their own research seems to be what this new educational subject is about. This is a skill many new adults lack. How can we tell what is true and what is a lie?
Back to integrating more educational opportunities; Ask students how much media they take in, then come with different ways to graph the data; investigate the science of appealing to people's emotions; study the copy writing and logos and have students design their own. Get out some magazines and have them examine ads in the pages. You could do a collage with themes, or put the ad on a larger piece of paper and diagram it around the picture.
I think I need to plan some lessons with my students and my children!
Lessons: NCTE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
No comments:
Post a Comment