Making time for Media Literacy
by Diana Day
- Students need help now to navigate and make sense of the complicated media landscape. Photo by Jorge Franganillo on Unsplash
Even before the Israel-Hamas war began in October, bringing with it rampant misinformation and disinformation, one of my goals for my media arts and journalism classes this year was to be more intentional about teaching media literacy. I tend to react to specific events in the news and to use those charged moments to teach this crucial skill set, rather than to proactively plan more in-depth lessons and projects.
It’s clear from recent conversations with students this approach doesn’t serve them; they need help now to navigate and make sense of our complicated media landscape
I have found some outstanding resources. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but is rather a roundup of tools on my radar right now:
The Sift is published weekly during the school year by the News Literacy Project and is named after the SIFT method (formerly called The Four Moves) created by Mike Caulfield: Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace claims back to the source.
The newsletter “offers a rundown of the latest topics in news literacy — including trends and issues in misinformation, social media, artificial intelligence, journalism and press freedom. It provides discussion prompts, teaching ideas, classroom guides and a video series that feat
From the News Literacy Project, the same folks who publish The Sift. I’ve been wanting to dig into this one for a while. It’s a series of lessons that cover a number of media literacy topics, including bias, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I tried some of the sample content and was impressed. It’s straightforward, smart, and doesn’t talk down to kids.
This quiz comes out every Friday. Now, my students ask to do the quiz if I forget. Whether you get the answers correct or incorrect, the quiz shares some context and main points after you have clicked your answer; you end up learning a lot about the news even if you don’t do well on the quiz.
Teenagers and Misinformation: Some Starting Points for Teaching Media Literacy
I am always impressed with the materials and contests in the New York Times Learning Network. The lessons typically provide a rich context and thoughtful discussion prompts and include a NYTimes article as a part of the lesson, making them a great way to get students reading the news.
Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers
This is a free e-book by Mike Caulfield, who created the SIFT method (see above). The first section is called “Why This Book?” and offers the following, which is a perfect close to this post about media literacy teaching tools:
The web gives us many such strategies, tactics, and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds.
Unfortunately, we do not teach students these specific techniques. As many people have noted, the web is both the largest propaganda machine ever created and the most amazing fact-checking tool ever invented.
But if we haven’t taught our students those fact-checking capabilities, is it any surprise propaganda is winning?