Brigham Young University's Media Education Database

This lesson is based on Core Principle 1 (Media Literacy Education requires active inquiry and critical thinking about the messages we receive and create) and invites students to learn how to recognize how media messages are constructed for particular audiences. They will learn to analyze the different tactics used to attract different audiences. They will also write a commercial that would appeal to them.

In this lesson the students will be slightly immersed in the commercial world of advertising. Since this is written for a beginning multimedia class I would not delve too deep into the subject since I would probably delve deeper into a more advanced class. I have decided that the main form of instruction would be through discussion with the class. This promotes critical thinking and allows the entire class to participate equally. There are several questions that I have listed to ask the students to help them in their critical thinking and to help them learn more about advertising. The students start out answering the questions I have listed as consumers or viewers of the advertisements because they are accustomed to that role. After a little while I give the students the opportunity to switch roles and think more like an advertiser. This allows them to step into a new role and see some of the conventions of advertising that they don’t see as a consumer. I then break the students into groups of 3-4 to discuss an advertising strategy for a particular company or product of the class’ choosing. This allows them to work in groups and develop better teamwork skills. Groups of 3-4 are best so that everyone can participate equally.

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.

This lesson is based off of the philosophies presented in several articles read in class that Media Literacy Education can be incorporated into any sort of curriculum, and should be. It should not be separate from the things students are studying in any classroom. The idea for this lesson is that any High School government or History Class will cover in some form or fashion the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Because the first amendment is so essential in who we are as Americans, we should spend more time with it, in order for students to better connect with the very basis of the freedoms involved in how our government is set up.

While this lesson does not teach media specifically, it teaches about how to analyze media and how that shows what sort of freedom of expression is being employed, as well as have them think about what sorts of media they could use in order to personally be involved in the First Amendment.

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.

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.

Core Principle 5: Media Literacy Education recognizes that media are a part of culture and function as agents of socialization.

Core principle #5 suggests that: Media Literacy Education recognizes that media are a part of culture and function as agents of socialization. This includes showing diverse voices, perspectives and communities within our society as well as giving opportunities to examine alternative media and international perspectives. Also, this principle addresses topics like violence, gender, sexuality, racism, stereotyping and other issues of representation. This also gives media owners, producers, and members of the creative process a responsibility in facilitating mutual understanding of the impact of media on individuals and on society.

The objectives of this lesson are to:

1) allow the students to realize that every type of media contains messages – both explicit and implicit – that a piece can have multiple messages, and that these messages can be intentional, and unintentional.

2) Help them learn that they have the ability to see these messages (both explicit and implicit), and that they have the power to agree, disagree, or even partially agree and/or disagree with them.

3) Help the students to begin to think on their own how to detect explicit and the harder to find implicit messages in the media they consume on a daily basis.

4) Help them to be aware and consider that the media they produce will, too, have implicit and explicit messages – even if the messages are unintended.

5) Have them realize and understand that each individual gains different meanings from the media we receive based on our own experiences we have had in life, and because that there is no right or wrong answer on what a piece of media’s message means to them.

Core Principle 6: Media Literacy Education affirms that people use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.