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 instructional activity that uses the 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast to introduce learners to the power of mass media news.

Concepts

the war of the worlds, media coverage, media analysis, media bias

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Have class members develop a survey, poll their families, friends, and neighbors about their media use, collect the data, and compare their findings to the information in the introduction to the lesson
• Include the New York Times article on the January 13, 2018 false missile alert in the resource packet

Classroom Considerations

• Presumes students are familiar with the DBQ format and have experience analyzing primary source documents

Pros

• Each document is followed AP DBQ-style questions

Cons

• None

Common Core

SL.9-10.1.a SL.11-12.1.a