1. All media messages are constructed.
Elementary School
Middle
School
Key Idea: Messages have an author and you (the student) can be an author.
Rationale: Teaching students that “all media messages are constructed” begins with teaching them that media messages are created by someone. Depending on the medium, it may be more appropriate to substitute creator for author.
Sample Instructional Content:
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Students can recognize authors and are familiar with several media sources, at least one of which is local.
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Students learn to identify types of media, focusing on text-based media e.g. newspapers and magazines.
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Students also begin to create their own media products, including podcasts, reports, presentations, and videos.
Related Common Core Learning Standards
CC.K.R.L.6 Craft and Structure: With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.
CC.2.SL.5 Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas: Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
CC.3.W.6 Production and Distribution of Writing: With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
CC.5.SL.5 Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
Related AASL Standards
1.1.6 Read, view, and listen for information presented in any format (e.g., textual, visual, media, digital) in order to make inferences and gather meaning.
3.1.3 Use writing and speaking skills to communicate new understandings effectively.
3.1.4 Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess.
Key Idea: Media is designed for an audience.
Rationale: Having learned that media messages are created by an author, students can now begin to focus on the target of these messages: the audience. In middle school, students start to explore how audiences shape, interpret, and alter media messages.
Sample Instructional Content:
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Students analyze a variety of media messages to determine possible intended audiences, identifying the visual and linguistic cues, explicit or implicit, that indicate these audiences.
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Students continue to create media products, experimenting with similar products for different audiences. Project reflections focus on how students altered the design of the message to fit the particular audience.
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Focus expands to visual forms of media, including film, television, graphic novels, and advertising.
Related Common Core Learning Standards
CC.6-7.SL.2 Comprehension and Collaboration: Analyze the main ideas and supporting details presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how the ideas clarify a topic, text, or issue under study.
CC.7.R.I.1 Key Ideas and Details: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CC.7.R.I.4 Craft and Structure: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone.
Related AASL Standards
1.1.5 Evaluate information found in selected sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness to needs, importance, and social and cultural context.
2.1.6 Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.
High
School
Key Idea: Media has a purpose.
Rationale: In high school, students explore the final component of this core concept - media messages are constructed for particular purposes. Students thoughtfully examine, evaluate, and reflect on the intentional and unintentional motives of media creators.
Sample Instructional Content:
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Students trace the impact of speeches, films, music, advertisements in their historical context.
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Critical analysis focuses primarily on examples of political and social discourse.
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Students consider the ethical implications of deceptive, misleading, and disingenuous messages.
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Students continue to create media products, reflecting on their own purposes for doing so.
Related Common Core Learning Standards
CC.9-10.SL.2 Comprehension and Collaboration: Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.
CC.9-10.SL.3 Comprehension and Collaboration: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.
Related AASL Standards
2.1.6 Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.
4.3.2 Recognize that resources are created for a variety of purposes.
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