Quebec Competencies Chart - Diversity and Media Ownership

Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts
Level: Grades 9-12
Lesson Length: 2 ½ to 4 hours
Subject Area: Media’s commercial considerations and their representation of reality
Lesson Link: http://mediasmarts.ca/lessonplan/diversity-and-media-ownership-lesson

Description: In this lesson students are introduced to the media literacy key concepts that “media are created to re-present reality” and “media are influenced by commercial considerations.” They consider the importance of media ownership, the relative roles of minority-focused and mainstream media in reflecting and promoting Canadian multiculturalism, and changes in minority participation and representation in Canadian media.

Cross-curricular Competencies

Broad Areas of Learning

  • To use information
  • To solve problems
  • To exercise critical judgement
  • To construct his/her identity
  • To cooperate with others
  • To communicate appropriately
  • Media Literacy
  • Citizenship and Community Life

This lesson satisfies the following Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

English Language Arts

Uses language/talk to communicate and learn

Establishes a repertoire of resources for communicating and learning in specific contexts

  • Investigates the affordances of spoken language as a mode of communication
  • Examines some of the aesthetic qualities of spoken language
  • Develops rhetorical strategies to achieve specific purposes
  • Examines the affordances of genres
  • Extends the range of strategies for collecting the data needed for use in specific genres

Participates in the social practices of the classroom and community in specific contexts

  • Investigates the uses of spoken language in the school and community
  • Plans and carries out independent units of study
  • Conducts exploratory ethnographic research
  • Organizes and maintains an integrated profile of work over the cycle
  • Engages in a process of self-evaluation and reflection
  • Confers with the teacher in regular and ongoing evaluation conferences

Interacts with peers and teacher in specific contexts

  • Collaborates with peers to construct knowledge about how things are done
  • Participates in collaborative action research groups using an inquiry process
  • Applies procedural and meaningmaking strategies to achieve a purpose
  • Contributes to team efforts as an interactive and critical listener

Reads and listens to written, spoken and media texts

Integrates reading profile, stance and strategies to make sense of a text in a specific context

  • Reads for pleasure and to learn
  • Draws on prior experience and the features of a genre to make sense of a text
  • Adjusts reading strategies and stance to the context
  • Develops research and organizational strategies for working with information

Talks about own response to a text within a classroom community

  • Deepens own meaning(s) of a text in discussions with other readers
  • Situates meanings within own experiences and the world of the text, in order to transform initial readings into more conscious interpretations
  • Considers possible reasons for own responses and the responses of others to clarify and reshape the relationship between self as reader and the text
  • Shares Integrated Profile in teacher-student conferences

Interprets the relationship(s) between reader, text and context in light of own response(s)

  • Explains the impact of a text on self as reader by returning to its social functions, as well as the way meanings and messages are constructed
  • Draws on own reading profile, including knowledge of textual structures and features, to locate textual details that support own interpretations
  • Constructs interpretations that embody both own world and the world of the text

Ethics and Religious Culture

Reflects on ethical questions

Analyzes a situation from an ethical point of view

  • Describes a situation and puts it into context
  • Formulates a related ethical question
  • Compares points of view
  • Explains tensions or conflicting values
  • Compares the situation with similar situations
  • Compares his/her analysis of the situation with that of his/her classmates

Examines a variety of cultural, moral, religious, scientific or social references

  • Finds the main references present in different points of view
  • Looks for the role and the meaning of these references
  • Considers other references
  • Compares the meaning of the main references in different contexts

Evaluates options or possible actions

  • Suggests options or possible actions
  • Studies the effects of these options or actions on oneself, others or the situation
  • Chooses options or actions that foster community life
  • Reflects on the factors that influenced these choices

Engages in dialogue

Organizes his/her thinking

  • Identifies the subject of dialogue
  • Makes connections between prior knowledge and new knowledge
  • Distinguishes between what is essential and what is secondary in the different points of view expressed
  • Takes stock of his/her reflections

Develops a substantiated point of view

  • Uses his/her resources and looks for information about the subject of dialogue
  • Develops further his/her understanding of different points of view
  • Imagines various hypotheses
  • Fleshes out a point of view
  • Anticipates objections and necessary clarifications
  • Validates his/her point of view
  • Reflects on his/her process

Interacts with others

  • Develops an awareness of his/her reaction to the subject of dialogue
  • Looks for conditions that foster dialogue
  • Expresses his/her point of view and pays attention to others' views
  • Explains different points of view, using relevant and coherent arguments
  • Asks for clarification
  • Implements means to overcome obstacles to dialogue