This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Ontario, Grade 8 Language curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
Understanding Media Texts
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
- explain how a variety of media texts address their intended purpose and audience
- interpret increasingly complex 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 a variety of media texts
- demonstrate understanding that different media texts reflect different points of view and that some texts reflect multiple points of view
- identify who produces various media texts and determine the commercial, ideological, political, cultural, and/or artistic interests or perspectives that the texts may involve
MediaSmarts Resources
- Media Minute Lesson 3: Audiences negotiate meaning
- Media Minute Lesson 4: Media have commercial implications
- Media Minute Lesson 5: Media have social and political implications
Advertising
Alcohol
- Gender Messages in Alcohol Advertising
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising: Interpreting Media Messages
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising: Understanding Brands
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising: Young Drinkers
Internet
- Cyberbullying and Civic Participation
- Cyberbullying and the Law
- Deconstructing Web Pages
- Promoting Ethical Behaviour Online: Our Values and Ethics
- That’s Not Cool
- Understanding Cyberbullying : Virtual vs. Physical Worlds
Newspapers
Privacy
- Online Marketing to Kids: Protecting Your Privacy
- Privacy and Internet Life
- What Students Need to Know about Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy
- Who Knows? Your Privacy in the Information Age
- Social Smarts: Nothing Personal!
Stereotyping
- Exposing Gender Stereotypes
- Put Your Best Face Forward
- The Girl in the Mirror
- Calling Out Versus Calling In
- Just a Joke? Helping Youth Respond to Casual Prejudice
Television
Tobacco
Video Games
Educational Games
Student Tutorial (Licensed Resource)
Understanding Media Forms, Conventions, and Techniques
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
- explain how individual elements of various media forms combine to create, reinforce, and/or enhance meaning
- identify the conventions and techniques used in some familiar media forms and explain how they help convey meaning and influence or engage the audience
MediaSmarts Resources
- Beyond Media Messages: Media Portrayal of Global Development
- Bias and Crime in Media
- Break the Fake: Verifying Information Online
- Buy Nothing Day
- Comic Book Characters
- Deconstructing Web Pages
- Getting the Toothpaste Back into the Tube
- Images of Learning
- Impact! How to Make a Difference When You Witness Bullying Online
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising - Lesson 4: Interpreting Media Messages
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 1: Messages About Drinking
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 2: Young Drinkers
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 3: Understanding Brands
- Know the Deal: The Value of Privacy
- Learning Gender Stereotypes
- Marketing to Teens: Alternate Ads
- Marketing to Teens: Gotta Have It! Designer & Brand Names
- Media literacy key concepts Lesson 3: Audiences negotiate meaning
- Media literacy key concepts Lesson 4: Media have commercial implications
- Online Marketing to Kids: Strategies and Techniques
- Police in the Media
- Prejudice and Body Image
- Privacy and Internet Life: Lesson Plan for Intermediate Classrooms
- Scapegoating and Othering
- Taming the Wild Wiki
- The Girl in the Mirror
- Thinking about Hate
- Thinking Like a Tobacco Company
- Tobacco Labels
- Up, Up and Away? (TM)
- Video Games
- Video Production of a Newscast
- Violence and Video Games
- Violence in Sports
- Watching the Elections
- Winning the Cyber Security Game
- Writing a Newspaper Article
Creating Media Texts
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
- explain why they have chosen the topic for a media text they plan to create and identify challenges they may face in engaging and/or influencing their audience
- 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
MediaSmarts Resources
- Bias and Crime in Media
- Break the Fake: Verifying Information Online
- Celebrities and World Issues
- Comic Book Characters
- Cyberbullying and the Law
- Digital Media Experiences are Shaped by the Tools We Use: The Disconnection Challenge
- Exposing Gender Stereotypes
- Gender Stereotypes and Body Image - Lesson
- Images of Learning
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 2: Young Drinkers
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 3: Understanding Brands
- Know the Deal: The Value of Privacy
- Marketing to Teens: Gender Roles in Advertising
- Marketing to Teens: Marketing Tactics
- Media Kids
- Mirror Image
- Mixed Signals: Verifying Online Information
- Online Marketing to Kids: Protecting Your Privacy
- Online Marketing to Kids: Strategies and Techniques
- Police in the Media
- Prejudice and Body Image
- Privacy and Internet Life: Lesson Plan for Intermediate Classrooms
- Put Your Best Face Forward
- Selling Tobacco
- Taking Charge of TV Violence
- Television Broadcast Ratings
- That’s Not Cool
- The Anatomy of Cool
- The Hero Project: Authenticating Online Information
- The Impact of Gender Stereotypes
- The Invisible Machine: Big Data and You
- The Price of Happiness
- Thinking Like a Tobacco Company
- Tobacco Labels
- Video Games
- Video Production of a Newscast
- Violence in Sports
- Watching the Elections
- Who Knows? Your Privacy in the Information Age
- Winning the Cyber Security Game
- Writing a Newspaper Article
Reflecting on Media Literacy Skills and Strategies
By the end of Grade 8, 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
MediaSmarts Resources
- Prejudice and Body Image
- Behaving Ethically Online: Ethics and Values
- Beyond Media Messages: Media Portrayal of Global Development
- Deconstructing Web Pages
- Digital Media Experiences are Shaped by the Tools We Use: The Disconnection Challenge
- Exposing Gender Stereotypes
- Finding and Authenticating Online Information on Global Development Issues
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising - Lesson 4: Interpreting Media Messages
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 1: Messages About Drinking
- Kids, Alcohol and Advertising 3: Understanding Brands
- Marketing to Teens: Alternate Ads
- Marketing to Teens: Gender Roles in Advertising
- Media literacy key concepts Lesson 3: Audiences negotiate meaning
- Media literacy key concepts Lesson 4: Media have commercial implications
- Media literacy key concepts Lesson 5: Media have social and political implications
- Online Marketing to Kids: Protecting Your Privacy
- Online Marketing to Kids: Strategies and Techniques
- PushBack: Engaging in Online Activism
- Sports Personalities in Magazine Advertising
- Stereotyping and Bias
- The Anatomy of Cool