Media Literacy Curriculum/Syllabus

[camille napier bernstein]

Hey, folks,

I am proposing a semester-long media literacy course for our h.s.  I have sketched out some ideas, based on my own studies and experience, but I would love to peek at some syllabi or overviews of teachers who offer/have offered a similar course/unit.

We'll be in a 1:1 environment, and I'm comfy with tech, so bring it!

Advice, if you wanna share it, is fine too.

Thanks,

Camille

[Chris]

Can you share what you've sketched out so far in your syllabus?

[camille napier bernstein]

Happy to elaborate, Chris.  I should've started with that, I realize.

Although I recognize the limitations of a semester-long elective (especially since the expectation is little homework in electives), the course idea is a result of my frustration with our current English curriculum: heavy on the classics, still organized like a college English major's plan of studies: lost of close reading, no attendance to new media, etc, etc....  I am given lots of freedom, but there's just so little time, so....

The syllabus is inspired by a reference to Condorcet's 1794 treatise, "The Future Progress of the Human Mind," which blew me away in its contemporary application.  Here's a tiny snippet about the need for education in a democracy:

"From such time onwards the inhabitants of a single country will no longer be distinguished by their use of a crude or refined language; they will be able to govern themselves according to their own knowledge; they will no longer be limited to a mechanical knowledge of the procedures of the arts or of professional routine; they will no longer depend for every trivial piece of business, every insignificant matter of instruction on clever men who rule over them in virtue of their necessary superiority; and so they will attain a real equality, since differences in enlightenment or talent can no longer raise a barrier between men who understand each other's feelings, ideas and language, some of whom may wish to be taught by others but, to do so, will have no need to be controlled by them, or who may wish to confide the care of government to the ablest of their number but will not be compelled to yield them absolute power in a spirit of blind confidence."

I want to divide the syllabus into three sections, I think, exploring news, entertainment, and advertising for each of the following:

• Media: modes & messages: the products of media and how they are constructed; the language/signs/symbols of messages
• Media: makers & motives: the author of messages, their purposes, and what might be left out
• Media: meaning & mindfulness: the audience and what it brings to the messages; finally, the tools to be deliberate in our choices to consume/create/be convinced

I want the course, ultimately, to be positive -- not just media-bashing -- by providing students with tools to be consumers AND creators of media, probably through a semester-long project creating a variety of messages in a public relations campaign on an issue of importance to them (policy, cultural issue, local issue). 

Hope that helps -- and that you can help me!

Thanks!

Camille