Just a joke? Helping youth respond to casual prejudice
One of the barriers to youth pushing back against prejudice is not wanting to over-react, particularly if they feel their peers were just ‘joking around.’ Humour, however, can often be a cover for intentional bullying and prejudice. In this lesson, students analyze media representations of relational aggression, such as sarcasm and put-down humour, then consider the ways in which digital communication may make it harder to recognize irony or satire and easier to hurt someone’s feelings without knowing it. Students then consider how humour may be used to excuse prejudice and discuss ways of responding to it.
Junk Food Jungle
This lesson familiarizes children with how and why “junk food” is advertised to kids. The lesson starts with an introduction to advertising and a discussion of the gimmicks involved in food advertising to kids. Students discuss the various foods they see advertised in their daily lives versus the ones they don’t see, drawing important points from this data. With this information in mind, students complete an advertising log and also choose an advertisement and analyzing its subject matter in relation to what they have just learned.
Teaching Media: Thinking About Media
In this lesson, children begin to think about basic concepts such as how audiences interpret meaning, and the constructed world of television and film.
Media Kids
In this lesson, students deconstruct gender portrayal and depictions of boys and girls in the media. They begin by looking at the appearance and mannerisms of boys and girls in TV, movies, ads and comic books and identify any stereotypes that are used. In a series of group activities, students explore gender stereotypes and representation in greater depth, as well as compare these representations to their own life experiences.
Talking to kids about media violence
Talking to kids about violence in the media they consume – television, movies, video games, music and the Internet – can help them put media violence into perspective and perhaps diffuse some of its power.