Lesson 3: what is the curriculum-driven approach to media literacy?

Link back to the mini-course homepage: Krystal Haight Media Literacy Mini-Course

Link back to Unit 1 overview: Unit_1:_Understanding_the_importance_of_media_literacy

Objective: By the end of this lesson, you will be able to define and understand the benefits of the curriculum-driven approach to media literacy.

Activity 1:

Mini-lecture:

Ok, so now that we know that building our students' media literacy skills is SUPER important, we want to focus on how to incorporate these skills within our curriculum in the most efficient way possible. After all, do we not already have a plethora of standards to hit? Nonetheless, in this lesson, you will learn about the curriculum-driven approach to media literacy, which focuses on weaving the skills to decode and analyze media seamlessly into your ELA lessons. Better yet, hopefully you will begin to notice that this is a terrific way to enhance your curriculum and cultivate student' higher-level, critical thinking.

Media literacy education is not simply about what students observe in a particular media document, but it is also about their ability to fully grasp the document’s important role in creating or supporting a certain worldview or perspective. Moreover, media literacy questions give students the tools to not only personally interpret media, but also to recognize how media can strengthen a status quo that serves their own interests at the expense of competing interests. If this inquiry is done properly, it shows students a more precise picture of the world than they would otherwise obtain from mainstream media. Nevertheless, as educators, we must realize that students must be free to arrive at their own conclusions. After all, effective media literacy education is student-centered. The curriculum-driven approach that is supported by Scheibe & Rogow means that teachers should start from what they already need to teach. In other words, this allows educators to teach core content while simultaneously building on students’ media literacy skills. The curriculum-driven approach is an excellent way to implement media literacy education. It prevents “artificial” or “out-of-place” lessons that do not align with instructional goals. Furthermore, I believe that media literacy should be woven throughout the curriculum and built on throughout the year. “Teachers need to scaffold media analysis by providing Key Questions and follow-up probes, then gradually back out of the process so that students can ask their own questions of media messages and reflect on their - and others’ - interpretations of them” (Scheibe & Rogow, 2012, p. 53). The ultimate goal is for students to learn how to ask questions for themselves; thus, students should eventually be able to take the lead and initiate the inquiry process on their own. A curriculum-driven approach helps this happen. I completely agree with the authors, as media literacy education cannot be a “once and done” topic, but rather an ever-evolving continuum of skills, knowledge, attitude, and actions (Scheibe & Rogow, 2012, p. 55).

Activity 2:

Discuss: What are your thoughts about the curriculum-driven approach? What are some of the concerns that you have? Do you think that it is manageable for your own practice? Why/why not? Create a Google Doc in this mini-course's folder: Media Literacy Mini-Course 2016.

Please use the following format for your title: Your First Name.Your Last Name.Lesson 3 (ex: Krystal.Haight.Lesson 3)

Congratulations! You are ready to move on to...Unit 2: Implementing media literacy in the ELA classroom through the curriculum-driven approach

References:

Scheibe, C. & Rogow, F. (2012). The Teacher's guide to media literacy: Critical thinking in a multimedia world. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.