Curated OER
Favorite Sports and Athletes: an Introduction to Sports Media
Even young children watch sports and like team logos and products. It's never too early to think critically about what's onscreen. This exercise develops awareness that media communicate values (i.e. who participates in sports and who...
Social Media Toolbox
Reporting with Social Media
What does it take to create news stories that are both informative and objective? Aspiring journalists walk the line between engagement and activism with lesson 15 of a 16-part series titled The Social Media Toolbox. Grouped pupils...
ReadWriteThink
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this lesson, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives. Learners browse...
News For Kids
News For Kids.net
Media lovers read articles on a variety of current events with a website made especially for kids. The website is easy to navigate and includes sections about everything from science to sports.
Curated OER
Cartoons for the Classroom: Satire or Slander
Encourage your young learners to analyze and think critically about how media portrays people or events. Upper graders analyze a political cartoon depicting President Obama as a Muslim and the First Lady as a revolutionary. Guided by...
Curated OER
Sports Personalities in Advertising
During a series of four activities, class members examine and deconstruct advertising that features famous athletes. They determine target audiences, analyze ads, explore "emotional climate," and role play a meeting between a sports...
Curated OER
Mining Mass Media
Students take a closer look at the attributes of electronic media. For this journalism lesson, students compare and contrast electronic and print versions of the same news stories. Students then write their one broadcast news stories.
Curated OER
Women in the Media
Students discuss ways they think women and men are portrayed in the mass media. They watch an excerpt from SISTERS OF '77 discussing media coverage of the event. Students write an essay describing their reactions to women in the media.
Curated OER
Mixed Up Media
Students explore online journalism. In this journalism instructional activity, students discover how electronic medias are changing journalism, examine the conventions of electronic media, and discuss the authority and reliability of...
Curated OER
Heroic Images: Visualization and Media Messages
Students examine media messages. In this media awareness activity, students analyze online messages about heroism as they complete a jigsaw reading activity.
Newspaper Association of America
Press Ahead!
Give class members some great news! A media unit teaches individuals about ethics, parts of a newspaper, business writing, photojournalism, and more topics that have to do with the press. Full of material for a variety of learners,...
Curated OER
Violence in Sports
Students explore the gratuitous use of violence in televised sports. They discuss sports they participate in, and the rules and consequences that relate to unsporting behaviour. They see if the same rules apply to professional athletes.
Curated OER
Media Views
Students create a collage of images depicting trends in the media. In this media lesson, students watch excerpts from several films, television shows, and commercials. Students compare and contrast media views and Christian views,...
Curated OER
The Generation Gap as a Result of Media Use
Students compare digital natives and digital immigrants. In this media usage lesson, students read "The Generation Gap is Not New" and then compare today's generation gap with the generation gap of the 1920's.
Curated OER
Sport as Social Ritual
Students become familiar with the sport that became a social ritual in ancient American cultures, examining its importance. They gain an understanding of how contemporary sports have acquired importance within modern American culture.
Curated OER
Watching the Clock: An activity to build media-savvy students
Students analyze time constraints on broadcast news. They apply data collecting and data display skills. They identify the difference between news progams and the evening news.
Curated OER
The News Behind the Story
What a fun way to analyze plot, setting, and character. Learners review story elements, read a short fictional story, then turn the events of that story into a headlining news paper article. Not only does this lesson engage critical...
iCivics
NewsFeed Defenders
How can people learn to spot viral deception? Players do just that with the NewsFeed Defenders media literacy game. Scholars choose avatars and the focus of their news feeds: student life, health and wellness, or sports and...
Curated OER
Comparing the Satellite and Broadcast Radio Landscapes
Learners research the development of satellite technology over the last 50 years students explain how the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 changed the rules for corporate ownership of multiple media outlets.
Curated OER
Sports Survey
In this sports survey learning exercise, students respond to 16 open-ended and multiple choice questions regarding sports and advertising.
Curated OER
Equipment Ad
Students create a one-minute advertisement for a piece of sports safety equipment. They define the terms ad, advertisement, and commercial and demonstrate creative-thinking and creative-writing skills.
Online Publications
Become a Journalist
Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...
National First Ladies' Library
Michigan vs. Ohio State: A Serious Rivalry!
Middle schoolers discuss and research the pros and cons of school rivalries. In particular, they study the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry. Through their research, they think about how media accounts of college football games can be shaped...
Curated OER
You Are There: Television News Reports on Apartheid
Young scholars, in groups, research apartheid and its effects on South Africa. They present their information to the class.