Teaching Media Literacy - A Reflection & My Movies Lesson

"If it makes you feel any better, no one at my school follows the news." 

The character Allison McCord made this comment to her parents in a recent episode of Madam Secretary (season 5, episode 19). It stayed with me as I had recently worked with students on a project connecting current events to  themes in a novel. Very few students knew what was happening in the world.

Disappointing? Sure! But when I was a teenager, did I really know or understand what was happening in the news? Ok, I confess, a little bit, but only because my father was a history teacher and both my parents consumed news in newspapers, magazines, and on the radio and television. So it was background noise. I did not follow the news, I had too many other things on my plate with homework, after school activities and a part-time job. Students today are the same, they may follow news that is of importance to them, but many experience news as I did, as background noise (sorry dad, but I do follow it now).

So teenagers not following the news is not revolutionary, but teaching students about "fake news" has gained momentum as a popular educational topic, especially since 2016. Confession: I jumped on that bandwagon, creating independent lessons to teach students about misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. I had hoped I was instilling life skills and creating critical thinkers. I tried hard to include a balance of journalistic ethics and integrity in my lesson, but it is difficult to cover everything in one or two class blocks. Looking back, I did not necessarily have buy in from students on theses lessons as the news is not a media they connected with.

Last month, I was asked by an English teacher to work with some of her classes while she chaperoned a school trip. They had been reading Romeo and Juliet and watching two different movie interpretations, so I decided to do a lesson about media literacy through movies.  

I prepared for the lesson by reviewing everything I could find by one of my favorite media literacy gurus Julie Smith (no relation). I highly recommend her book, Master the Media: How Teaching Media Literacy Can Save Our Plugged In World and her YouTube channel, both of which I used a LOT to create the lesson. I also researched work by Frank W. Baker of the Media Literacy Clearinghouse. The lesson was a short 80 minutes, introducing students to aspects of film literacy. 

The students were completely engaged as I used images and clips from movies and I posed "what do you notice?" "why would they do this?" questions. The students applied this new knowledge to analyze the Romeo and Juliet movies they were watching in class. They even came to talk to me about things they noticed in Avengers: End Game, using those skills in their life outside of school.  

We talk about needing media literacy in our schools, some states are mandating media literacy. What educators also need is a plan to make media literacy effective. What I learned from my students as I taught this lesson on media literacy and film is that educators should start with the media that students know and use, creating a genuine interest and "buy in" before addressing media that students are not connecting to, like the news. That is not to say news literacy is not important. 

Learning about print media television, advertising, movies, news, social media etc is important to build a world of citizens who are media literate critical thinkers. However, I now believe that learning about the media which students most engage with, before addressing media they do not connect with YET,  is pedagogically a best practice in order to instill the skills we want most for our students, that of CRITICAL THINKING... not of cynicism and apathy.   

LESSON PLAN: MEDIA LITERACY THROUGH MOVIES 2019

MEDIA LITERACY THROUGH MOVIES SLIDE DECK