Resources for Teachers - Television

Television Broadcast Ratings - Lesson

This lesson introduces students to the theory behind television ratings and encourages them to explore the commercial pressures driving the medium.

News you can use

Online news is one of the hardest things to verify. Sometimes early reports that turn out not to be true still circulate on the Internet, and people may spread false reports for commercial or malicious reasons, or even just for “fun.”

Taking Charge of TV Violence

In this lesson, students become aware of the types and amounts of violence in children's programming, and how media violence influences young viewers.

Just a joke? Helping youth respond to casual prejudice

One of the barriers to youth pushing back against prejudice is not wanting to over-react, particularly if they feel their peers were just ‘joking around.’ Humour, however, can often be a cover for intentional bullying and prejudice. In this lesson, students analyze media representations of relational aggression, such as sarcasm and put-down humour, then consider the ways in which digital communication may make it harder to recognize irony or satire and easier to hurt someone’s feelings without knowing it. Students then consider how humour may be used to excuse prejudice and discuss ways of responding to it.

Violence in Sports

In this lesson, students explore the gratuitous use of violence in sports.