Curated OER
ARTSEDGE: Creating Costumes
Young designers examine famous monarch portraits and costume books, create a design for the emperor, examine fabric samples and choose a type and color for their costume. They sketch the costume and present it in a class fashion show.
Curated OER
Writing a Newspaper Article
The perfect resource for a beginning journalism teacher or someone designing a journalism unit, this activity prompts students to write a newspaper article. It covers all aspects of the writing process, such as a guided warm-up...
Curated OER
Whose Feat?
Play a vocabulary game with words from an article about Savion Glover's contribution to the film "Happy Feet." Then, small groups of students design and create original movie advertisements using vivid vocabulary to give Glover the...
Southern Poverty Law Center
Choosing Reliable Sources
It is more important than ever that 21st-century learners develop the skills they need to become savvy consumers of media. Young learners locate and identify reliable sources of information with a helpful media lesson.
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: “Making History” by Marilyn Nelson
What makes an event newsworthy, worth a reference in a news magazine or textbook? Who decides? These are questions Marilyn Nelson asks readers of her poem "Making History" to consider. To begin, class members list details they notice in...
Curated OER
Mixed Media Messages: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Students examine the process of recycling by creating a mock television commercial about recycling. In this recycling lesson, students watch an animated demonstration about recycling and answer content questions. Students play an online...
Media Smarts
Broadcasting Codes
Let your learners be the judges for a series of case studies that focus on broadcast codes in Canada. In order to familiarize your class with the codes and guidelines that govern the broadcasting industry, in particular Canada's...
Curated OER
Vanishing Verbs
Students analyze recent media trends, and develop critical thinking skills by summarizing main ideas, extracting details, formulating opinions, drawing inferences, and comparing and contrasting attitudes. They also practice paraphrasing...
Newspaper Association of America
Power Pack: Lessons in Civics, Math, and Fine Arts
Newspaper in Education (NIE) Week honors the contributions of the newspaper and is celebrated in the resource within a civics, mathematics, and fine arts setting. The resource represents every grade from 3rd to 12th with questions and...
Curated OER
Coast-to-Coast Book Design-Part 3: Brainstorming the Book
Young scholars examine the process of designing a book and identify the steps necessary to publish a book. In small groups they analyze ABC books, and discuss the similarities and differences between the books. Students then brainstorm...
Curated OER
Media Lessons Help Students to Better Understand Persuasive Language
Beginning a media unit by taking a closer look at advertising, and persuasive techniques can keep students engaged.
Curated OER
Front Page News
Students collect and analyze the front pages of various newspapers and perform research on the Titantic tragedy. They choose a name for their newspaper, a headline, gather photographs, and write a front page article. Using computer...
Curated OER
Media Literacy
Students evaluate the effectiveness of Internet book clubs, present their findings to the class, and design their own on-line book club (under the umbrella of a fictional television program) to encourage non-readers to read more.
Media Smarts
Looking at Newspapers: Introduction
A scavenger hunt introduces class groups to the different sections of newspapers and the different types of articles found in each section.
Curated OER
The Fifty States
Students design a multimedia report on one or more of the fifty states.
Curated OER
Young People and Television
Middle schoolers explore communication by participating in a role playing lesson. In this media analysis lesson, students answer surveys about their own television watching habits and compare them to the rest of the class. Middle...
Tech Museum of Innovation
Ant-Man Saves the Day
Provide Ant-Man with a flying device to aid in fighting crime. The first installment of a five-part unit has learners designing and building a flying device for Ant-Man. They write a narrative essay describing the engineering process...
Curated OER
Made You Look
Young scholars spend some time in the world of marketing and advertising by analyzing and creating slogans and campaigns geared toward adolescents. Students work with a partner to create their design and share with the class
Curated OER
Elements for Disaster Reporting
Students identify the elements of natural disasters and gain an understanding on how the media influences people's responses to disasters. In this natural disaster lesson plan, students study the impact of natural disasters, and the...
Curated OER
Hurricane Katrina: You Be the Reporter
Learners work in a small group to create news stories, feature stories and editorials/letters to the editor and organize them in a podcast, video-based program, or newspaper/magazine focused on Hurricane Katrina.
Curated OER
Media/Citizenship: Speed 3
Students examine data about the effects of speed in car accidents. They create their own media campaign about safety while driving. They share their ideas with the class.
Curated OER
Evaluating Media Materials
Learners demonstrate the ability to select and evaluate media materials. They demonstrate comprehension when listening and reading for literary experience, to be informed, and to perform a task. Students evaluate a fiction book based on...
Curated OER
Media Literacy Skills
Third graders watch a news story from three different networks in order to determine how the same story can be presented in three different ways. Next, working in small groups they create a newscast of a current event to share with the...
NPR
Can You Beat Cognitive Bias?
In a time of fake news, media manipulation, and Internet trolls, a resource equips learners with the tools they need to recognize and combat resources that are designed to appeal to our cognitive biases. Introduce learners to five...