Resources for Teachers - Television

Teaching Media: Learning With Media

In this lesson, students learn about media as a source of information, and how this information is presented from a particular point of view.

Miscast and Seldom Seen - Lesson

In this lesson students consider how well their favourite TV shows, movies and video games reflect the diversity of Canadian society.

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.

Junk Food Jungle

This lesson familiarizes children with how and why “junk food” is advertised to kids. The lesson starts with an introduction to advertising and a discussion of the gimmicks involved in food advertising to kids. Students discuss the various foods they see advertised in their daily lives versus the ones they don’t see, drawing important points from this data. With this information in mind, students complete an advertising log and also choose an advertisement and analyzing its subject matter in relation to what they have just learned.

Teaching Media: Thinking About Media

In this lesson, children begin to think about basic concepts such as how audiences interpret meaning, and the constructed world of television and film.