Author: MediaSmarts
Level: Secondary Cycle Two
Subject Area: English Language Arts
Lesson Link: Violence on Television

Description: This lesson will introduce students to the organizations of the Canadian broadcasting industry, and to the codes, guidelines and issues relating to violence in television and radio programming.

This lesson satisfies the following English Language Arts Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

COMPETENCY 2 Reads and listens to written, spoken and media texts

Constructing a Reading of a Text

• Focuses on the relationship between self as reader and the text to construct an interpretive reading
• Activates relevant prior personal knowledge and experience to make sense of a text which is frequently expressed in text-to-self connections, text-to-world connections, text-to-text connections
• Asks questions of self, writers(s) and text(s) as s/he reads to clarify and focus reading
• Determines the most important ideas/messages/themes in a text
• Retells or synthesizes what s/he has read, e.g. attends to the most important information and the quality of the synthesis itself to better understand the text

COMPETENCY 3 Produces texts for personal and social purposes

Researching as a Writer/Producer

• Develops topics that are personally and socially relevant:
  • looks at multiple perspectives on the topic, e.g. pros and cons of an argument, how different people perceive the issue
  • broadens and/or narrows the scope of the topic

Public and Private Space

Examines the difference between producing texts for private and public audiences:

• questions issues of ownership, intellectual property, creative freedom, boundaries of genres

Production Process

Media Practices

• Examines issues of media ownership and control

Planning and Drafting

• Brainstorms ideas, clarifies and extends thinking by talking with peers and teacher