Article of the Week: Free Media Literacy Classes for Grades 9-12

Our college students are bombarded with media messaging on daily basis. With the massive quantity of content material they eat, younger persons are discovering it more and more difficult to acknowledge actual data vs. pretend. The should be media literate has by no means been extra necessary. However discovering the time to develop complete classes will be difficult. That’s the place these Article of the Week mini-lessons are available. Created in partnership with The Wall Avenue Journal Excessive College Program, these ready-to-use actions every give attention to a special media literacy talent. Utilizing present newspaper articles you’ll have interaction college students and spark significant discussions every week. We’ve designed them to suit seamlessly into your busy schedule whereas enhancing your college students’ understanding of media and its affect.

Exercise 1: Learn-and-Reply

Utilizing any information article (The Wall Avenue Journal has supplied three glorious articles on this obtain to get you began!), you and your college students will observe studying media critically by marking the article with the symbols on the Learn-and-Reply poster and bookmarks. It’s an ideal technique to observe important studying abilities, annotating the textual content with their questions and ideas.

Exercise 2: Article Overview Evaluation

The second exercise asks college students to take a detailed have a look at the primary function of the article. Moreover, they’ll establish key parts of the article. The exercise is easy, however the advantages of studying the way to establish these fundamental elements of an article helps construct the inspiration of your college students’ media literacy abilities.

Exercise 3: Figuring out Bias

By now, your college students will likely be very conversant in the article they’ve been finding out. And that’s good, as a result of now they’re going study it by a special lens. This exercise asks them to search for examples of bias. Is the creator attempting to steer readers to really feel a sure manner concerning the matter? Do the phrases, phrases, pictures, or graphics be used to current a specific viewpoint? These questions will information your college students towards pondering deeply concerning the media they eat.

Exercise 4: Growing Dialogue Questions

By this level, your college students have studied their article from many alternative angles. Now they get to spotlight the concepts they’re most excited about. They’ll create two totally different questions they discover fascinating or necessary concerning the article. Perhaps they wish to speak concerning the topic of the article. Perhaps they wish to tackle bias current within the article as an alternative. That is their likelihood to spotlight what stood out to them.

Exercise 5: Dialogue and Subsequent Steps

Giving our college students probabilities to share their ideas with one another is so necessary. The ultimate exercise on this Article of the Week bundle encourages college students to ask their classmates the questions they posed within the earlier exercise and reply to their friends questions. This doesn’t must be something formal, simply 10-Quarter-hour of sophistication time is sufficient! Lastly, we’ve supplied a complete grading rubric for those who’d prefer to assess and supply suggestions to your college students.

Subsequent Steps

When you’ve downloaded your Article of the Week media literacy classes and browse the primary three articles from The Wall Avenue Journal, however positive to go to The Wall Avenue Journal Excessive College Program to search out out how one can proceed accessing their nice content material shifting ahead. Signing up for this system offers:

• Limitless article entry on WSJ.com
• Choices accessible to obtain print copies of The Wall Avenue Journal
• Informative podcasts and movies, that includes interviews with WSJ editors and notable influencers
• Month-to-month entry to Class Notes, an unique e-newsletter highlighting content material and classroom sources for top schoolers