4 WAYS TO INTEGRATE MEDIA LITERACY IN THE CLASSROOM

Use this flexible approach to build students' critical thinking and literacy skills.

With a recent focus on "fake news" and the realization that many of us (adults and kids alike) get
our news primarily through social media, the concept of "media literacy" is buzzing. And
the #medialiteracy community is responding to this buzz with gusto. Below are a few framing ideas,
planning tools, and media-literacy-infused project examples that can help you leverage this
momentum, expand media-literacy education in your classrooms, and coordinate a media-literacy
program schoolwide.
"Media literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and communicate using
information in all forms." -- Common Sense News and Media Literacy Topic Backgrounder
Simply put, media literacy is literacy expanded to include all forms of communication -- whether
that's a paperback book or a Twitter chat. Embracing that broader definition of literacy is
essential for the development of curricula that can empower students to fully participate in all
aspects of life these days. Given that schools vary in their priorities, digital resources, and student
and teacher backgrounds, it can be difficult to prescribe a cookie-cutter approach to schoolwide
media-literacy integration that works for all. The good news is that this reality allows us to develop
unique pathways to student media literacy within K-12 schools. These pathways all stem from
teacher passion, student need, and school philosophy.
Finding a Path to Media Literacy
As you consider how to integrate critical media analysis into your teaching, try this four-step
approach.
1. Imagine the profile of a media-literate student.
Outline a simple target profile of a student who is empowered with adaptable and flexible modern
literacy skills. Work backward from the objective you have in mind. (See example to the right.)
2. Use media literacy to reinforce your existing teaching objectives.
Media literacy doesn't need to be a separate subject -- instead, it can be layered on to support
your current curriculum. Chances are you have ideas for a media-infused project or two, or for
routine classroom activities that use computers or tablets. Think about how, with a little
mindfulness of media-literacy concepts, those practices could help move students toward the
target profile while also adding a new dimension to your core curriculum.
3. Work backward from your most sophisticated media-infused teaching plans.
It’s challenging to have students learn a new tool while also thinking critically about the subject
matter. To set up students for success, build in time for them to acquire new digital skills and to
familiarize themselves with new tools, content, and concepts before putting it all together.
For example, your idea may be to have kids do a close reading of news media video clips and add
annotations using Screencastify. The objective may be for students to demonstrate their
understanding of the content and identify any bias in the way the content was presented. However,
in addition to core content skills, students need time to play with the features of the new tech tools and
read up on media before they can put it all together.
4. As pockets of media-literacy practices build in your school, look to align them vertically.
Once media literacy is authentically taking hold in pockets around your school, use a curriculum
planning template (see The Media Spot’s Media Literacy Scope and Sequence Template) to ensure
that across and within each grade level, you're incorporating digital skills and media-literacy
concepts that build cohesively toward the media-literacy profile you have envisioned for your
students.
Examples from K-12 Teacher Plans and Student Work
Here are some examples of K-12 projects with notes on how they emphasize media literacy
alongside their core curricular goals on the path toward a media-literacy profile.
 KINDERGARTEN PROJECT

Tiny Bop Robot Factory provides open-ended exploration and play that can lead to learning about
engineering design.
Curriculum Enhancement: This project supports generating content for poems and sparking
creativity and engagement.
Media-Literacy Focus: Students learn adaptable digital production skills connected to literacy
fundamentals. They explore and build with an app, connect details in an image to generate text, and
introduce elements of poetry.
Takeaways: The backward plan from this project includes responsible use of classroom media,
introduction to motor skills for operating the iPad, routines for working together, and basic
operations through center time using academic apps.

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROJECT

Whole-class Pad let walls create stories of American history decade by decade using found news,
commercials, political ads, and movies.
Curriculum Enhancement: This project supports inquiry-driven historical research.
Digital Skills: Students learn to find and embed media artifacts in a shared online space as they
create screencast tours of the decades.
Media-Literacy Focus: Students learn how media messages affect the ways people see the real
world as well as how they see themselves.
Takeaways: Digital skills are in place, and students are analyzing the relationship between new and
traditional media texts. They are also mindfully producing their own artifacts and reflecting on
media bias, personal bias, and audience response.

HIGH SCHOOL PROJECT

ELA students write a persuasive essay, then adapt it into documentary videos to express their
perspective on community policing. Screening the videos for police at a town hall can begin a face-
to-face dialogue.
Curriculum Enhancement: This project help students convey complex ideas, concepts, and
information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of
content.
Digital Skills: Students learn to produce videos using iMovie, accessing found video and images
connected to text.

Media-Literacy Focus: Students learn how when translating their writing into video format, their
image choices can change the message. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented?
How might different audiences read our messages differently?Takeaways: Adding specific images
of police to student writing added significant meaning that triggered student and police audience
members differently. Students had rich discussions around their media choices.

6 WAYS TO INTEGRATE MEDIA LITERACY IN THE CLASSROOM

ACcording toImplementing Media Literacy In Your Classroom, media literacy is defined as “the
ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication. The term
“media” refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit
messages–you can read it (print media), see it (visual media), hear it (audio media), or change and
play with it (interactive media), or some combination of each. Literacy is the ability to encode and
decode symbols and to synthesize and analyze messages.”
Teachers are looking for ways to integrate media literacy into their classroom – especially since it
became obvious that students cannot distinguish between real or fake news. Here are six ways to
help you teach your students to be media literate.
1. Teach students to evaluate media.
First, students must be taught how to evaluate media. For example, teachers need to discuss bias
and sources. By showing students that media changes depending on who produced it, who the
intended audience is, and what biases may be attributed to the source, this helps students learn to
evaluate what they are viewing.
2. Show students where to find digital resources and databases.
Teachers should also provide students with reliable media sources. This means teaching students
how to evaluate websites and digital resources for trustworthy content. For instance, there are
several databases designed for students to use for safe resources.
3. Compare/contrast various media sources.
In your discussions, compare/contrast various media sources. For example, when you cover a news
story, have students read the story from different sources. When you are discussing films or
television, compare elements.
4. Discuss how the media edits and alters.
Purposely point out examples of media altering photographs or stories. Teach students to be leery
of what they see or read at face value. For instance, when they realize the magazines have been
altered, it makes a difference in how they perceive themselves.
5. Examine the “truth” in advertisements.
Have students identify what advertisements are trying to sell and what “promises” or ideas are
they using to convince you to buy the product.
6. Have students create media.
Finally, have students create media. Depending on the grade level, you can have students create
presentations, videos, or websites. For example, students can create movie posters of movie
trailers.

EASY WAYS TO INTEGRATE MEDIA LITERACY IN THE CLASSROOM

We live in an outstandingly media-rich world. Waking to our smart phones, working on our
computers, and falling asleep with our TVs, it should come as no surprise that the average American
sees thousands of advertisements each day. However, according to the American Academy of
Pediatrics, young children are “cognitively defenseless” against advertising.
We’ve all heard statistics about how many hours children spend in front of the TV, read about
studies that link video gaming with violent behavior, and worried about how children’s self-images
are influenced by all those impossibly skinny magazine models. But only recently have some
educators decided to address the concerns of media’s influence by incorporating “media literacy”
into the K–12 curriculum.
Frank W. Baker, a nationally recognized media educator and author of Media Literacy in the K–12
Classroom, writes, “Many of our students are media savvy—they know how to upload and download
with ease—but they are not necessarily media literate. They don’t think critically about their media
exposure." According to the CCSS, “The need to conduct research and to produce and consume
media is embedded into every aspect of today’s curriculum. In like fashion, research, media skills
and understandings are embedded throughout the Standards rather than treated in a separate
section.”
Schools and educational programs can also “vaccinate” students against advertising in more explicit
ways. Here are a few ideas:
Teach students to question what ads tell them. Share Unattainable Beauty or "The Photoshop
Effect" with students. (These resources are more appropriate for older students.) Did they know
that almost every photo in magazines and ads has been digitally altered? How do these impossible
ideals influence how students perceive their own appearance and success?
Explain how students can recognize false representations of reality. Ask students to examine
different popular TV shows and discuss how different groups of people are portrayed. How do the
shows stereotype certain people? What groups are marginalized or entirely absent?
Show students how the media influences behavior. Recognizing the often illogical subtexts of
advertisements deprives them of power. Encourage students to “spell out” the promises, threats, or
pleas made in commercials (e.g., “If you buy this sports drink, you will win the basketball game,” “If
you don’t have this phone, your friends will shun you”).
Give students the means to reveal the "truth" behind advertising. For a fun activity, invite
students to create their own “ad-busting” or “subvertising” artwork to reveal the “truth” behind,
for example, cereal mascots.
You can also engage students in larger projects to create their own media or to petition for change
in existing publications:
A Madison-based group called “Project Girl” uses art to educate youth about mass media
advertising: “[Advertisers'] messages are defining the way we view ourselves and those around us,
affecting our health, our relationships, and how happy we are each and every day. Most of us don’t
realize what’s going on, how our lives are being controlled." Project Girl seeks to "discover ways to
resist the messages advertisers are using to manipulate our lives.”
Julia Bluhm, an eight-grader from Waterville, ME, launched an online petition urging magazines to
stop printing digitally altered photos of their models. After she collected over 84,000
signatures, Seventeen magazine pledged to never “digitally alter the body or face shapes of its
models."

INTEGRATING MEDIA LITERACY CONCEPTS AND SKILLS INTO TEACHING

Transforming concepts of media literacy into pedagogical practice can be a major challenge. Media
Services program development has been inspired by three approaches to teaching media education
highlighted in Douglas Kellner & Jeff Shares article, Critical Media Literacy is Not an
Option (2007).
Approaches to Teaching Media Literacy
Media Arts Education Approach
Media Literacy Movement Approach
Critical Media Literacy Approach

Media Arts Education Approach

"students are taught to value the aesthetic qualities of media and the arts while using their
creativity for self-expression through creating art and media" (pp. 61)

In the 21st century, it is vital that all individuals develop the understanding and capability of
creatively expressing their ideas through multiple forms, including multimedia. Beyond the benefits
of media composition and creative expression, the skill sets students develop through media
production are marketable and increasingly being integrated into courses with a focus on
professional development or applied discipline research experiences.

Professional Development Examples:

Human Resource Development (HRD 5201)
IoE: Food Sustainability Google Map (SUST 4004)
Electrical Engineering PowerPoint Slide Show (EE 5601)
Science Ed. Student Teaching Video Capture (SCIED 5007)

Discipline Based Research Examples:

Architecture Video as Ecological Tool (ARCH 5110)
Linguistics Video for Conversational Analysis
Family Social Science Outreach (FSOS 2101)

Student produced media assignments are an excellent way to integrate this approach into your
teaching and should be structured to align with articulated learning objectives. For further
guidance, the Penn State Media Commons offers an excellent guide on developing media assignment
instructional strategies. Minnesota also has a fair amount of campus media support infrastructure
as Library Media Services often partners with other campus support services, such as OIT
Consultation Services, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and various college/department level
media services to support student media assignment develop and projects.

Media Literacy Movement Approach

"[the media literacy movement] approach attempts to expand the notion of literacy to include
popular culture and multiple forms of media (music, video, Internet, advertising, etc.) while still
working within a print literacy tradition" (pp. 61)

The media literacy movement approach is characterized by a more general level of media literacy
concepts and outcomes. Though some are critical of this approach this level of media literacy is
appropriate in many courses. Fundamental media literacy skills are an important foundation for
becoming a critical consumer of media. Students should, at minimum, understand how media is used
within their discipline contexts (in all forms), how to access relevant media resources, how to
analyze information in multiple forms and evaluate its authority.

As an instructor, you can encourage students to develop foundational media literacy skill sets by
encouraging a diverse use of sources, challenging students to consider the information being
conveyed regardless of form ("read" images, sound), and to always consider the authority of a
source within course and discipline contexts.

Critical Media Literacy Approach

"[critical media literacy] focuses on ideology critique and analyzing the politics of representation of
crucial dimensions of gender, race, class, and sexuality; incorporating alternative media production;
and expanding textual analysis to include issues of social context, control, resistance, and pleasure.
A critical media literacy approach also expands literacy to include information literacy, technical
literacy, multimodal literacy, and other attempts to broaden print literacy concepts to include
different tools and modes of communicating" (pp. 61)

Media in all forms conveys information purposefully constructed from a specific perspective (bias)
that stems from individual experience and context. Though certain disciplines have established
understandings and methods of examining media through a critical media literacy lens, many do not
but are nonetheless greatly influenced and impacted from both mass media and discipline specific
representations. As mentioned earlier students should be expected to develop at least a
foundational understanding of how media relates to their disciplines. However, we suggest that
critical media literacy is particularly needed about specific issues, for example the debate over
genetically modified food.

Instructors can aid in student development of critical media literacy skill sets by encouraging
critical analysis of how discipline specific issues are represented in the field and mass media. For
example, instructors can ask students to consider:

1. Who is conveying this message?

2, what incentive might they have to convey information from this perspective?
3. What language and media (e.g., text, audio, video, graphics) are they using to describe this
message?
4. What audience is this message crafted for?
How is the media and language displayed tapping in to commonly held stereotypes or representations
(e.g., the polar bear on the melting ice cap to represent global warming)?
5. How are these points valid or in opposition to current research?
6. What communication strategies and representations might the field take to refute
misinformation?

In addition to screening media and class discussions, instructors in some disciplines likeLinda
Buturian's Water Sustainability course (PSTL 1906), have had their students produce multimedia
projects to reflect on and communicate these complex issues through multimedia.

10 Benefits of Media Literacy Education

"We are drowning in information but starved for

knowledge."
--John Naisbitt, Megatrends
1. Meets the needs of students to be wise consumers of media, managers of information and
responsible producers of their ideas using the powerful multimedia tools of a global media culture.
2. Engages students. . . bringing the world of media into the classroom connects learning with "real
life" and validates their media culture as a rich environment for learning.
3. Gives students and teachers alike a common approach to critical thinking that, when
internalized, becomes second nature for life.
4. Provides an opportunity for integrating all subject areas and creating a common vocabulary
that applies across all disciplines.
5. Helps meet state standards while, at the same time using fresh contemporary media content
which students love.
6. Increases the ability and proficiency of students to communicate (express) and disseminate
their thoughts and ideas in a wide (and growing) range of print and electronic media forms - and
even international venues.
7. Media literacy's "inquiry process" transforms teaching and frees the teacher to learn along
with students -- becoming a "guide on the side" rather than a "sage on the stage."
8. By focusing on process skills rather than content knowledge, students gain the ability to
analyze any message in any media and thus are empowered for living all their lives in a media-
saturated culture.
9. By using a replicable model for implementation, such as CML's MediaLit Kit™ with its Five Key
Questions, media literacy avoids becoming a "fad" and, instead, becomes sustainable over time
because students are able to build a platform with a consistent framework that goes with them
from school to school, grade to grade, teacher to teacher and class to class. With repetition and
reinforcement over time, students are able to internalize a checklist of skills for effectively
negotiating the global media culture in which they will live all of their lives.
10. Not only benefits individual students but benefits society by providing tools and methods
that encourage respectful discourse that leads to mutual understanding and builds the citizenship
skills needed to participate in and contribute to the public debate.