Lesson Plans
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students view a brief parody of the science-fiction genre and identify the generic conventions which are being made parodied. The students will then view Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the film will be followed by a large-group discussion in which the classmates apply what they know about the 1950s Cold War culture to the film.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
This lesson will be in a unit about political media and how it is created. (In a general education course it could be related to “current events”). The media that is created in the political world is different than most other kinds of media and has a different tone and feeling. It is persuasive by nature, and is meant to incite very specific feelings from a target audience. I think it would be important to allow students to watch the videos and dissect the creation of them to understand the messages that the candidates are really sending so that they can understand that these media messages are constructed.
The information is relevant because it also relates to the politics that surround them. It would be a positive and fun way to involve students more in the elections and the issues that are dealt with, but also allow students to understand that they can create their own meaning and opinions of the media they view. In our post-modern world, the media plays a large role in how we view reality and understand what is going on around us. After a few layers of distortion, the media creates a new reality for us. In this setting, the actual candidates or issues are given multiple identities and views through our understanding of them with the use of various forms of media—both true and fabricated.
This lesson plan focuses on Core Principle 4: Media Literacy Education develops informed, reflective and engaged participants essential for a democratic society.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Using the Know-What-Learned (K-W-L) strategy, students identify what they already know about the 1950s American culture. Working in groups, students then generate a list of questions that they have about the 1950s. Students will then view a portion of the documentary Atomic Café. During or after the documentary, students write down what things they learned about the 1950s culture. See the note in Curricular Goals below.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description:
Using computers, the students will explore websites that explore cultural, aesthetic, and scientific definitions of beauty. They will then formulate their own definition of what is beautiful.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: The teacher will introduce the final project that students will be completing for the unit on documentary film, showing examples of projects to get students excited about the project. The students will decide which component of the project they will do and make a list of the steps they need to take to accomplish the project. With the remaining time, the class will read Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who and talk about how it is related to the documentary film unit.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description: Students will be introduced to adaptations via Matt Madden’s book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. They will start to create adaptations in various media as a way to understand the difference among media and to recognize that each medium stands as “a work of art in its own right.”
Subject: Theatre
Description:
This is the beginning lesson of the Dramaturgical Unit in an advanced high school theatre class. It supports the 3rd Core Principle of Media Literacy. • Media Literacy Education builds and reinforces skills for learners of all ages. Like literacy, those skills necessitate integrated, interactive, and repeated practice.
This lesson reinforces good research skills through interactive and repeated practice, as students will do what they did in this lesson, again in other lessons, but in more depth. It also introduces basic Dramaturgical skills by the creation of a primary resource collage which correlates with a lobby display and study guide, and by the encouragement of students to actively inquire about and compare/contrast “then vs. now.” They will gain a better understanding of how historical context can inform a political movement, piece of art, etc.
It also provides diverse opportunities for students to practice and develop skills of analysis and expression. In the Dramaturgical Unit that I’ve conjured up in my head will end with a devised piece of theatre based on this beginning lesson. This means that students will create a piece of theatre based on the theme of college and students’ ideas of college, 1960s vs. now, modern colleges, what higher education means to each student, fears of colleges, hopes for the future, etc. All of these ideas could be consolidated for the students in a “What Comes After High Schoool” theme. In this theatre piece students will have applied all the dramaturgical skills, as they will have created the style of the piece, found “vice” for the piece, created a world for their piece, asked/answered important questions of their piece, wrote everything for the piece, collaborated to make a piece where every element of theatre employed supports their main theme. This lesson is a good seed for a whole year where advanced theatre students use all their knowledge of theatre to create a devised piece. It can also stand on its own as a history and research lesson.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
The students will learn why the media is often called the 4th branch of government. The class will discuss the various forms of media and the unique role of each. They will participate in an investigatory activity with newspapers, magazines, and internet.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Several factors had to be taken into consideration when creating the following series of lesson plans. Perhaps the most important (as I understood these lesson plans were to be posted on the internet and distributed to other teachers) was to make sure the lesson plans were designed with as much flexibility as possible in the materials required. Use and distribution of media materials by teachers are two entirely different things; and, while it is generally accepted that materials can be used (under “fair use”) for educational purposes without ownership, it is very rare to find materials that can be freely distributed. Certainly, then, it seemed far safer to provide links and information on where to find materials than it did to include the actual materials themselves. As these lesson plans are intended to be adaptable to a variety of grade levels, the ability of each individual teacher to procure their own suitable materials must be further emphasized. To summarize, in these plans you will find suggested support materials and links to materials resources. Use of these resources in an ethical and legal way becomes the sole responsibility of the individual teacher. Most teachers should be familiar with the concepts and have their own materials in mind anyway.
Taking into consideration, as well, that these lessons were to be adaptable for a wide variety of ages and curriculums, I have kept the subject matter very basic. As you will see from the following outline of objectives, the lesson plans are meant to give a general overview of the different media genres rather than a detailed examination of each. Using these lessons as a starting point in your discussion of media literacy will enable your students to have a common starting base of knowledge to which more detail can be added during subsequent discussions. Reorganizing the lesson plans, if necessary, to fit the needs of your individual schedule is also advised. I, for example, teach on a block schedule of eighty minute class periods; so, I would combine most of these lesson plans and teach them over three or four class periods instead of seven.
Subject: History (Social Studies)
Description:
Students will illustrate their memories of 9/11 and class will discuss the reasons for similarities. The teacher will present and discuss with the class other mediated historical events. The teacher will also present vocabulary and information about factors that limit the influence of mediated political information. In groups the students will research a current event story in three different media formats, comparing and contrasting the differences.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: The students will understand the significance of narrative structure in film.
The students will have a foundation for looking for the narrative structure of Rashomon. Their abilities to analyze the film's narrative structure will be assessed in their response papers due next week.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: This activity teaches about film history and the concept of film as a unique medium. After a brainstorming activity in which students identify a few of the things that makes film unique as a medium, students will view a Powerpoint presentation which gives a brief overview of the history of painting styles up to 1895 (when film was invented). The purpose of this Powerpoint presentation is to demonstrate how art before 1895 historically seemed anticpate the coming of the film medium. For the remainder of the class period, students will make thaumatropes, phenakistoscopes, kineographs, or zoetrope machines (little film-like machines that were popular in the years preceding the invention of film).
Subject: Film & Video Production
Description:
Students will present and evaluate their group projects.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Students will go to the computer lab to complete an assignment in which they write about what they learned while completing their documentary film project. If there is time at the end of class, students will talk about what they did for their project and read their assignment out loud to the class.
Subject: Film & Video Production
Description:
Students will produce their multimedia projects. This should take up two class periods.
Subject: Film & Video Production
Description:
Students will present and evaluate their projects.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students will demonstrate their knowledge of genre, teen genre conventions and film analysis by reviewing the information and taking a test.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students will analyze the reality of a teen film by applying their rules of reality to the film Rebel Without a Cause.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students will analyze the reality of a teen film by applying their rules of reality to the film Rebel Without a Cause.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description: Working in groups, students will read an introductory article about Realism and Formalism and fill out a comparison/contrast worksheet as they do so (to help them process what they're reading about). In those same groups, students go to nine different learning stations which further reinforce or expand the concepts discussed in the article. At each learning station, students will participate in a brief activity which explores a different aspect of Realism and Formalism.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students will hand in written/filmed reflections on their work and the work of their peers in relation to capturing genre conventions, adding their individual identities, and presenting mediated reality.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
This lesson explores Core Principle 5: Media Literacy Education recognizes that media are a part of culture and function as agents of socialization. I chose to use simulations (Buckingham 79) during this lesson as a key teaching method. I felt that by using simulations and helping the students create media, it would help them to understand the thought process that goes into designing social networks.
I have quite a few questions written out in the lesson plan, but there is one question that is essential in this lesson: Do social networks create media, or do media come out of social networks? I intend for this to be a thought-provoking question that will cause students to reflect on the way media affects their social networks. I chose to start the lesson off with something that most everyone would easily identify with and participate in—cell-phones. I then tried to transition into something that isn’t quite as popular (Social Networking Sites), and finally leading into identity and “masks,” the lesser-known topics. If I had started with identity, I think students would have been interested at first, but would have lost interest without seeing how it fit into the big picture. I think that by starting with a bigger picture and funneling down to personal identity, students are less likely to get lost along the way.
I think this lesson fits well with a unit that discusses media and personal expression. Identity is a key part of personal expression, and this would help students see how they can use their own identity to their advantage as they seek to be media producers. The key concepts that are discussed in this lesson are: the idea of social networks; how media producers improve upon social networks; how we have different “masks” for different social situations; how Social Networking Sites relate to individual identity; and the dangers of losing your identity completely.
Subject: English (Language Arts)
Description:
Students will examine songs with unrequited love as a theme as a gateway to writing poems and understanding the play more fully.
Subject: Film Studies (Film as Literature, Media Literacy)
Description:
Students will demonstrate their teen film literacy by sharing and discussing their media projects.