Television Newscasts - Lesson

Lesson Plan

Level(s): Grades 11 - 12

Author: "Television Newscasts" was adapted from a teaching unit created by Gord Forsythe, of the Scarborough Board of Education in the 1992 Supplement to the AML Anthology, produced by the Association for Media Literacy.

Overview

"Television Newscasts" helps students develop a critical awareness of how television news is shaped and manipulated and how they, as audience members may be affected by this. Students will conduct a survey about media sources of news; keep a "news log" throughout the unit of study; identify and discuss how a TV newscast is constructed; identify and discuss the use of entertainment in TV news; identify, discuss and compare the values and ideologies presented in a variety of Canadian and U.S. TV newscasts, at the local and national levels; produce a complete school newscast, as a team; and identify and analyse the processes involved in their production and how these relate to the key concepts studied in this unit.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• demonstrate critical thinking skills by identifying bias and by analysing explicit and implicit messages in television news
• analyse the relationship between television newscasts and their audiences
• identify the characteristics of a television news broadcast
• analyse how the language and visuals used in television news influences the interpretation of messages
• compare their own and others' responses to television news

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

Lesson Kit:

Lesson_TelevisionNewscasts.pdf