Understanding Media Texts

By the end of Grade 6, students will:

• explain how a variety of media texts address their intended purpose and audience
• interpret media texts, using overt and implied messages as evidence for their interpretations
• evaluate the effectiveness of the presentation and treatment of ideas, information, themes, opinions, issues, and/or experiences in media texts
• explain why different audiences might have different responses to media texts
• identify whose point of view is presented in a media text, identify missing or alternative points of view, and, where appropriate, determine whether the chosen view achieves a particular goal
• identify who produces various media texts, the reason for their production, how they are produced, and how they are funded

Lessons that meet the grade six expectations

Media Minute Introduction: What is media anyway?

Media Minute Lesson 2: Media are constructions

Advertising

Advertising All Around Us

Anatomy of Cool

Media Kids

Creating a Marketing Frenzy

Create a Youth Consumer Magazine

Packaging Tricks

You’ve Gotta Have a Gimmick!

Truth or Money

Elections and the Media

Junk Food Jungle

Online Marketing to Kids: Protecting Your Privacy

Looks Good Enough to Eat

Scientific Detectives

Alcohol

Kids, Alcohol and Advertising: Young Drinkers

Kids, Alcohol and Advertising: Understanding Brands

Kids, Alcohol and Advertising: Interpreting Media Messages

Who’s on First?  Alcohol Advertising and Sports

Body Image

Mirror Image

Image Gap

Prejudice and Body Image

Gender Portrayal

Comic Book Characters

What’s in a Word?

Media

Looking Through the Lenses

Whose Lenses? How Mass Media Portray Global Development

Adjusting the Focus

Newspapers

Reporter for a Day

News and Newspapers: Across the Curriculum

Privacy

What Students Need to Know about Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy

Online Marketing to Kids: Protecting Your Privacy

Sports

Violence in Sports

Stereotyping

Gender Stereotypes and Body Image

Images of Learning: Elementary

Sheroes and Heroes

Villains, Heroes and Heroines

Stereotyping and Bias

Female Action Heroes

Stereotype and Bias: The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf

Television

Teaching TV: Critically Evaluating TV

Television as a Story Teller

Learning With Television

How to Analyze the News

Television Techniques

Who Does What?

The Constructed World of TV Families

Taking Charge of TV Violence

Thinking About Television and Movies

Cop Shows

TV Stereotypes

The Broadcast Project

Tobacco

Freedom to Smoke

True Story

Tobacco Labels

Thinking Like a Tobacco Company

Internet

Stay on the Path Lesson One: Searching for Treasure

Stay on the Path Lesson Two: All That Glitters is Not Gold

Stay on the Path Lesson Three: Treasure Maps

Stay on the Path Lesson Four: Scavenger Hunt

Educational Games

Data Defenders

Student Tutorial (Licensed Resource)

Passport to the Internet: Student tutorial for Internet literacy (Grades 4-8)

A Day in the Life of the Jos

Understanding Media Forms, Conventions, and Techniques

By the end of Grade 6, students will:

• describe in detail the main elements of some media forms
• identify the conventions and techniques used in some familiar media forms and explain how they help convey meaning and influence or engage the audience

Creating Media Texts

By the end of Grade 6, students will:

• describe in specific detail the topic, purpose, and audience for media texts they plan to create, and identify challenges they may face in achieving their purpose
• identify an appropriate form to suit the specific purpose and audience for a media text they plan to create, and explain why it is an appropriate choice
• identify conventions and techniques appropriate to the form chosen for a media text they plan to create, and explain how they will use the conventions and techniques to help communicate their message
• produce a variety of media texts for specific purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques

Reflecting on Media Literacy Skills and Strategies

By the end of Grade 6, students will:

• identify what strategies they found most helpful in making sense of and creating media texts, and explain how these and other strategies can help them improve as media viewers/listeners/producers
• explain how their skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing help them to make sense of and produce media texts