Elections and the Media - Lesson

Lesson Plan

Level: Grades 5 to 8

Author: This unit was created by James Warkentin as part of a Media Education course taught by John Pungente at the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba, 1992

Overview

This lesson helps students to reflect upon, understand and filter the many media messages within political platforms and around political personalities. Students begin by collecting, and then discussing and deconstructing, examples of campaign materials from a wide range of media. Understanding of the importance of the media in the political process is further developed through a series of activities, including the creation of a school-based election campaign.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

• recognize that the media construct reality and identify ways in which this might be done
• compare the pros and cons of using different mediums
• dissect campaign literature for symbols, colours, etc.
• tour a local media production facility
• produce a group ad for a class election.

This unit is designed to be part of a larger unit on Canadian political life and decision making, but could be used separately as well.

This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.

Lesson Kit:

Lesson_Elections_Media.pdf