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Children's Media Literacy
Strategies
Here is a list of strategies that you can implement within your classroom to help your students improve their media literacy!
1. Thinking Pro
“Thinking Pro is a school curriculum that uses local news media as a tool to teach critical thinking, reading, and communication skills in a student-centric, teacher-supported learning environment.”
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This website allows students to dig into articles and view different sources
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This source allows students to evaluate what they read online and to learn to become aware of what they read online
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2. Dissecting Company Logos:
In a previous day, ask the students what logos they like the most for companies they know of and make a list. Some examples of this could be Taco Bell or Nike. After this, print out the logos in a variety of colors that are not the same as they typically are. Then see if the students can recognize the logos now that they look different than normal. Prompt the students to explore how important the colors or shapes of logos are and how it is harder to recognize them with slight changes. This can be helpful in determining what is fake or edited online.
3. Theme and Character Traits
1. Have students watch a short television clip or even a commercial that includes characters and a storyline.
2. Before watching, encourage students to pay close attention to character traits.
3. After watching, put students into groups and assign them each a character to analyze. Have each group come up with three traits that their character demonstrated.
4. After, prompt the students with further thinking and ask them, why do you think this character had these traits? What evidence from the media clip made them think that way?
This activity is a good way to show that oftentimes information is presented to us to get us to view someone or something a certain way while learning about character traits.
4. Childrens Literature
By reading literature, students are able to learn while reading about the importance of being literate while using media!
Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots
This book asks students if they know the difference between a fact and an opinion. Throughout the book, students learn that some things are facts like a certain number of robots, or that some things are opinions like one’s favorite color of robot. In order to find the difference between, fact and opinion, you need to know whether the information can be proven to be true or false or it it can’t.
Can You Believe It?: How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts
By Joyce Grant (Author), Kathleen Marcotte
This book is for students to use as a resource for learning what they should read on the internet. This book expresses the importance of how we should not believe everything online and says why. This book also explores how real journalism is made, what “fake news is” and how to spot the difference between fake and real news.