A Free and Open Press: Evaluating the Media

Encourage your pupils to think critically about media and the messages media portrays. Starting off with a quick-write about pop culture, this assignment launches into a hands-on, collaborative collage project. After creating collages,...

Here is a phenomenal language arts lesson on media literacy for your middle and high schoolers. In it, learners produce a research product in the form of a public service announcement (PSA). First, they view examples of these PSA's to...

Fake news. Alternative facts. Internet trolls. In an age of Newspeak, it's increasingly important to equip 21st century learners with the skills needed to determine the legitimacy of claims put forth on social media, in print, and in...

Take a close look at news reporting techniques and global issues. Begin by creating a graphic representation of developing nations and defining the term. After class discussion, the second day's activities pick up by deconstructing news...

With so many ways to follow the news today, it is imperative to think critically about the sources of information we are turning to. Here is a fantastic graphic organizer that will help your learners develop the skills to...

This learning experience fosters awareness of representations we see, and don't see, in the media. Learners list TV programs, games, and films they enjoy, identify characters' ethnic, religious, (dis)ability, and sexual orientation...

In an age of fake news and photoshopped images, it is vital that 21st century learners development the skills they need to evaluate mass media and assess its validity. A great way to launch such a study is with a carefully crafted...

How do you get the truth unfiltered by middlemen? Tune into various sources and note the differences is the suggestion in a short video that begins by providing examples of how media gatekeepers have manipulated information and how those...

To conclude their case study of media coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, class members consider the role of citizen watchdogs in a democratic society, develop strategies for combating...

The framers of the United States Constitution felt a free press was so essential to a democracy that they granted the press the protection it needed to hold the powerful to account in the First Amendment. Today, digital natives need to...