This outcome chart contains Media literacy learning expectations from the Ontario, Grade 3 English Language curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

Understanding Media Texts

By the end of Grade 3, students will:

• identify the purpose and intended audience of some simple media texts
• use overt and implied messages to draw inferences and make meaning in simple media texts
• express personal opinions about ideas presented in media texts
• describe how different audiences might respond to specific media texts
• identify whose point of view is presented or reflected in a media text and suggest how the text might change if a different point of view were used
• identify who produces selected media texts and why those texts are produced

Lessons

Advertising

• Eating Under the Rainbow
• Looking at Food Advertising
• Packaging Tricks

Body Image

• Prejudice and Body Image

Internet

• Internet Time Capsule
• Can You Spot the Ad?
• Finding Balance in Our Digital Lives
• Representing Ourselves Online
• Adversmarts: Introduction to Food Advertising Online
• Healthy Food Web

Newspapers

• Introduction

Sports

• Violence in Sports

Stereotyping

• Once Upon a Time
• Villains, Heroes and Heroines

Television

• Critically Evaluating TV
• Television Techniques
• Television as a Story Teller
• Thinking About Television and Movies
• TV Stereotypes
• Learning With Television
• Film Production: Who Does What?
• Enjoying Television
• Introducing TV Families
• Comparing Real Families to TV Families
• Humour on Television
• Facing TV Violence: Counting & Discussing Violence on the Screen
• Facing TV Violence: Consequences and Media Violence
• Facing TV Violence: Rewriting the Script
• The Broadcast Project

Teacher/Parent Guides

• Talking to Kids about Advertising
• Talking to Kids about Racial Stereotypes
• Talking to Kids about Gender Stereotypes
• Talking to Kids about News
• Talking to Kids about Media Violence

Educational Games

• Co-Co’s Adversmarts

Understanding Media Forms, Conventions, and Techniques

By the end of Grade 3, students will:

• identify elements and characteristics of some media forms
• identify the conventions and techniques used in some familiar media forms and explain how they help convey meaning

Creating Media Texts

By the end of Grade 3, students will:

• identify the topic, purpose, and audience for media texts they plan to create
• identify an appropriate form to suit the purpose and audience for a media text they plan to create
• identify conventions and techniques appropriate to the form chosen for a media text they plan to create
• produce media texts for specific purposes and audiences, using a few simple media forms and appropriate conventions and techniques

Reflecting on Media Literacy Skills and Strategies

By the end of Grade 3, students will:

• identify, initially with support and direction, what strategies they found most helpful in making sense of and creating media texts
• explain, initially with support and direction, how their skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing help them to make sense of and produce media texts