Basic Media Literacy Unit

[Anne Williams]

I'm planning on teaching one final unit to my EAL grade 9 class and I'm seriously considering media literacy. I've taught some of this before, but now I have very limited resources - mainly what I can get from the internet. What would you recommend as a basic outline for a 3 week study?

[Ryan Goble]

Anne, this is a HUGE question only because there are so many resources to choose from. I think I'm going to use this post as an excuse, at a later date, to start a media literacy group since that would be a great way for people really interested in this topic to give you suggestions. In the meantime, two great books you could Amazon to get started involve M.C. Pop teacher and media lit rockstar Mary T. Christel (who also happens to be a Bit Lit specialist who does TONS of Shakespeare work). Mary co-wrote this book Seeing & Believing: How to Teach Media Literacy in the English ... and co-edited this book Lesson Plans for Creating Media-Rich Classrooms.

Then if you want to get a start online I'd suggest these websites as starting points:
Frank Baker's Media Literacy Clearninghouse
NAMLE
ACME's Free Teaching Resources
Project Look Sharp
JustThink.org Curricula

Each of these groups has a slightly different philosophy of ML so it is best for you to scope them all out. Since you're only trying to do something in 3 weeks, you might surf all this curricula and find a unit you're really interested in exploring around one issue rather than trying to tackle "ML" writ large the first time out.

That's my 10-cents (worth about 2).

Hope this is helpful,

Ryan

[Anne Williams]

Thanks, Ryan, the advice is always helpful. That was actuallly the kind of thing I was thinking - just a taste of what media literacy can offer. I've done it about 5 years ago but knew that someone in this community would have something more recent. I'd love to have the books, but unfortunately Amazon doesn't deliver to Kazakhstan from the US and it takes 3 weeks to get anything from the UK [if they have it]. I'll try to check out the books in the summer. Meanwhile, I'll hit the internet links. One of my favorite lessons that I've used previously was with Spielberg's Jaws. The lesson was from the British English teachers' site http://www.teachit.co.uk/ When I used it with my 9th graders, it really opened everyone's eyes to how Spielberg built suspense. Again, the problem is that I don't have a copy of Jaws here and haven't been able to find anyone who has. Another item for my bring back next year list. At this rate, the airlines are going to make a killing on me.

[Anne Williams]

My brother recommended Spielberg's Empire of the Sun for which he had an additional feature on the making of the movie. Does anyone else use this or know where to get it? It doesn't seem to be available on the sites I checked.