Level: Grades 4 to 6

Author: Adapted, with permission from, Television Families: A Media Literacy Resource Unit, Grades 2 - 6. The Waterloo County Board of Education © 1992.

This lesson is part of USE, UNDERSTAND & ENGAGE: A Digital Media Literacy Framework for Canadian Schools.

Overview

In this lesson, students identify the differences between media families and real families by analyzing the conventions used by various types of TV shows media and by comparing the problems and actions of media families to real world families. Students begin by analyzing and discussing excerpts from different types of television shows, and YouTube channels about families. Using observation charts, students then work in groups to deconstruct media programs about families.

Learning Outcomes

Students will demonstrate:

• an awareness of the codes and conventions used in different media texts to portray families 
• an understanding how the media construct reality 
• an awareness of how they, as an audience, respond to these codes and conventions 

This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.