Quebec Competencies Chart - Comparing Real Families to TV Families

Author: Media Smarts
Level: Cycles One, Two and Three
Subject Area: English Language Arts
Lesson Link: Comparing Real Families to TV Families

Description: In this lesson, students learn how the media construct reality by studying the families portrayed on television, and comparing them to the real-life families they know: their own, and those of their peers. The lesson begins with a survey of student's favourite TV shows about families, and what they enjoy most about them. In groups, students select a family-based television show to monitor and report on. As each group reports, students will discuss whether or not the program accurately represents real families and family relationships.

This lesson satisfies the following English Language Arts Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

Competency 1: To Read and Listen to Literary, Popular and Information-Based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

• Uses prior knowledge and personal experience of the content of a text
• Use of pictures and other graphic representations to interpret texts
• Questions and talk with others to clarify and enrich interpretations
• Makes connections to prior knowledge or to other texts
• Uses different reading strategies according to the text type
• Reads, listens to and views a range of self-selected and personally relevant texts that include:
  • Use of personal, social and cultural background and experiences to interpret texts
• Develops a personal response process in the context of a community of readers through:
  • Discussion of responses with others individually, on small groups and in the whole class
  • Recount of the story and, with guidance, outline of information in a text
  • Development of opinions on literary or popular texts
  • Sharing of responses with others to clarify meaning and enrich interpretation
  • Comparing own responses with those of others at a beginner's level
  • Discussing own response process at a beginner's level
• Moves beyond the initial response through:
  • Responses to texts in a variety of ways that include talking, writing, the Arts, Media
  • Early attempts to explain own views of a text
  • Support for own views with references to the text in small and large group discussions
  • Discussions of structures and features of text and their impact on the reader
  • Discussion of the structures and features of a text and their influence on the meaning of a text
  • Returning to a text to confirm interpretations and understandings in discussions with peers
  • Adjustment of own interpretations in the light of the responses of others at a beginner's level
• Sees a text as a construction through:
  • Suggestion of alternative endings or actions in a literary or popular text
  • Plausibility of events, characters, opinions and/or information in a text in relation to own values and experiences
  • Identification of some of the ways in which information is presented in popular and information-based texts
• Understands the influence of familiar structures and features on the meaning of text through:
  • Identification of some structures and features of familiar text types
• Begins to identify the view of the world presented in a text through:
  • Making of inferences, when prompted, about the view of the world presented by the text
  • Discussions, with guidance, of whose voices are heard and whose are missing in a text
  • Comparison, with guidance, of own values with some of the social, cultural and historical values in a literary text in teacher and peer discussions
• Recognizes self as a member of a reading audience

Competency 2: To Write Self-expressive, Narrative and Information-based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

• Writes to a familiar audience in order to express meaning(s):
  • Specific structures and features of familiar texts incorporated into own writing
  • Selection of ways to influence a familiar audience in self-expressive and narrative texts
• Experiments with familiar structures and features of different text types in own writing:
  • Based on wide repertoire of texts read, viewed in the media and encountered in her/his community
  • To suit own purpose and audience
• Develops concept of writer's craft:
  • Guided discussion and questioning of texts read, listened to and produced in order to discover how the text works

Competency 3: To Represent Her/His Literacy in Different Media

Essential Knowledges:

• Uses the familiar images, signs, symbols and logos in his/her environment:
  • Recognition that they are made by people for different purposes
  • Recognition that they have meanings/messages
  • Identification of how these images contribute to the messages/meanings of various media texts
• Uses a repertoire of strategies to unlock messages/meanings in various media texts:
  • Use own questions in order to predict and confirm
  • Draw on prior experience with familiar media texts to understand how they are constructed
  • Rereads/looks again in order to clarify and extend understanding of a text
• Uses structures and features of texts:
  • Compare structures and features of familiar media texts
  • Uses visual texts to communicate information in group productions of media texts
  • Uses familiar structures and features to respond to and produce media texts
  • Applies her/his understanding of the structures and features of a range of familiar (media) texts to unlock their messages/meanings
• Makes meaning of a media text by:
  • brainstorming
  • drawing on prior knowledge
  • sharing responses with peers
  • making connections to own experiences
  • returning to text
  • considering some of the functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
  • Using structures and features of the medium and text type in order to clarify meaning and explain her/his response, in collaboration with peers
  • Using text to support interpretation of characters' points of view in narrative and popular texts
• Consider some of the functions of the media through:
  • Collaboration with peers in pairs, small groups and whole class to clarify, decode and respond to media texts
  • Recognizing and naming of familiar media: television, radio, film, magazine, video, Internet, CD-ROM, children's magazines
  • Identifying her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of familiar media texts
  • Looking at some functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
• Understands that texts are social and cultural products through:
  • Own response and responses of others:
    • Compares own response with those of peers in order to support and enrich own understanding
    • Investigates, with teacher's guidance, how different media text types construct reality for us
    • Explores, with guidance, some of the structures and features for communicating and presenting information in age-appropriate popular and information-based media texts
    • Explores how the structures and features of texts shape meaning for audience
• Understands that texts are social and cultural products through:
  • Own response and responses of others:
  • Compares own response with those of peers in order to support and enrich own understanding
  • Investigates, with teacher's guidance, how different media text types construct reality for us
  • Explores how the structures and features of texts shape meaning for audience
• Real and Imaginary Worlds
  • Explores, through discussion, how characters, incidents and/or events in media texts that tell a story relate to her/his personal experiences
  • Returns to text to make sense of real and imaginary events
  • Explores and discusses the distinguishing features of real and imaginary events and characters
  • Tentatively interprets the feelings, thoughts and motives of real and imaginary characters in discussions with peers

Competency 4: To Use Language to Communicate and Learn

Essential Knowledges:

• Shares information with peers and teacher
• Talks about responses and point of view with peers and teacher
• Asks and answers questions from peers and teacher
• Participates in collaborative improvisation and role-playing activities to communicate experiences and responses:
  • Spontaneous creation of a scene
  • Enactment of stories heard or read
  • Experimentation with form
  • Modelling possible social roles and behaviours
  • Enactment of a specific solution or problem, during a process of discussion or problem solving
• Responds to the ideas and points of view of others with sensitivity and interest
• Talks through new ideas and information
• Examining of alternative points of view and providing reasons for choosing one over the other
• Uses language (talk) for learning and thinking by:
  • Participating in collaborative reading, writing, viewing, visually representing, listening and talking activities:
    • Writing, producing and reading together
    • Planning of a project
    • Brainstorming
    • Planning of a cross-curricular or mixed media project
  • Participating in role-playing, improvisation and storytelling activities to try out new ideas in new situations and for other purposes
  • Questioning and challenging of different points of view/perspectives
• Listens critically