Quebec Competencies Chart - Thinking About Television and Movies

Author: Adapted from Live TV activity guide
Level: Elementary Cycles One, Two and Three
Subject Area: English Language Arts, Drama
Lesson Link: Thinking About Television and Movies

Description: In this lesson, students begin to think about basic concepts - such as how audiences interpret meaning, and the constructed world of television and film. They accomplish this by exploring the differences between worlds created on film and real life, film-making techniques, sound and music, and storyboarding.

Cross-curricular Competencies

  • To use information
  • To exercise critical judgement
  • To be creative
  • To use effective work methods
  • To use information and communications technologies for learning purposes

Broad Areas of Learning

  • Media Literacy

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

Competency 1: To Read and Listen to Literary, Popular and Information-Based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

  • Uses prior knowledge and personal experience of the content of a text
  • Use of pictures and other graphic representations to interpret texts
  • Uses knowledge of the relationships between sounds and written symbols
  • Questions and talk with others to clarify and enrich interpretations
  • Makes predictions, confirmations and inferences, when prompted by the teacher
  • Makes connections to prior knowledge or to other texts
  • Uses different reading strategies according to the text type
  • Reads, listens to and views a range of self-selected and personally relevant texts that include:
    • Use of personal, social and cultural background and experiences to interpret texts
  • Develops a personal response process in the context of a community of readers through:
    • Discussion of responses with others individually, on small groups and in the whole class
    • Recount of the story and, with guidance, outline of information in a text
    • Development of opinions on literary or popular texts
    • Sharing of responses with others to clarify meaning and enrich interpretation
    • Comparing own responses with those of others at a beginner's level
    • Discussing own response process at a beginners level
  • Moves beyond the initial response through:
    • Responses to texts in a variety of ways that include talking, writing, the Arts, Media
    • Early attempts to explain own views of a text
    • Support for own views with references to the text in small and large group discussions
    • Discussions of structures and features of text and their impact on the reader
    • Discussion of the structures and features of a text and their influence on the meaning of a text
    • Returning to a text to confirm interpretations and understandings in discussions with peers
    • Adjustment of own interpretations in the light of the responses of others at a beginner's level
  • Sees a text as a construction through:
    • Suggestion of alternative endings or actions in a literary or popular text
    • Plausibility of events, characters, opinions and/or information in a text in relation to own values and experiences
    • Identification of some of the ways in which information is presented in popular and information-based texts
  • Understands the influence of familiar structures and features on the meaning of text through:
    • Identification of some structures and features of familiar text types
  • Begins to identify the view of the world presented in a text through:
    • Making of inferences, when prompted, about the view of the world presented by the text
    • Discussions, with guidance, of whose voices are heard and whose are missing in a text
    • Comparison, with guidance, of own values with some of the social, cultural and historical values in a literary text in teacher and peer discussions
  • Recognizes self as a member of a reading audience

Competency 2: To Write Self-expressive, Narrative and Information-based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

  • Writes to a familiar audience in order to express meaning(s):
    • Specific structures and features of familiar texts incorporated into own writing
    • Selection of ways to influence a familiar audience in self-expressive and narrative texts
  • Experiments with familiar structures and features of different text types in own writing:
    • Based on wide repertoire of texts read, viewed in the media and encountered in her/his community
    • To suit own purpose and audience
  • Develops concept of writer's craft:
    • Guided discussion and questioning of texts read, listened to and produced in order to discover how the text works

Competency 3: To Represent Her/His Literacy in Different Media

Essential Knowledges:

  • Uses the familiar images, signs, symbols and logos in his/her environment:
    • Recognition that they are made by people for different purposes
    • Recognition that they have meanings/messages
    • Identification of how these images contribute to the messages/meanings of various media texts
  • Uses a repertoire of strategies to unlock messages/meanings in various media texts:
    • Use own questions in order to predict and confirm
    • Draw on prior experience with familiar media texts to understand how they are constructed
    • Rereads/looks again in order to clarify and extend understanding of a text
  • Uses structures and features of texts:
    • Compare structures and features of familiar media texts
    • Uses visual texts to communicate information in group productions of media texts
    • Uses familiar structures and features to respond to and produce media texts
    • Applies her/his understanding of the structures and features of a range of familiar (media) texts to unlock their messages/meanings
  • Makes meaning of a media text by:
    • brainstorming
    • drawing on prior knowledge
    • sharing responses with peers
    • making connections to own experiences
    • returning to text
    • considering some of the functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
    • Using structures and features of the medium and text type in order to clarify meaning and explain her/his response, in collaboration with peers
    • Confirming, in collaboration with peers and teacher, that a media text can contain more than one meaning or message
    • Identifying and discussing some of the ways in which pictures, illustrations, popular symbols and signs and images enhance the messages/meanings in media texts designed for young viewers
    • Using text to support interpretation of characters' points of view in narrative and popular texts
  • Consider some of the functions of the media through:
    • Collaboration with peers in pairs, small groups and whole class to clarify, decode and respond to media texts
    • Recognizing and naming of familiar media: television, radio, film, magazine, video, Internet, CD-ROM, children's magazines
    • Identifying her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of familiar media texts
    • Looking at some functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
    • Locating texts that entertain and inform by searching the Internet
    • Describing some of the features of media texts, with content aimed at viewers of the same age and younger, that entertain, inform and promote
    • Locating examples from some features of age-appropriate texts that indicate the target audience
  • Understands that texts are social and cultural products through:
    • Own response and responses of others:
      • Compares own response with those of peers in order to support and enrich own understanding
      • Investigates, with teacher's guidance, how different media text types construct reality for us
      • Explores, with guidance, some of the structures and features for communicating and presenting information in age-appropriate popular and information-based media texts
      • Explores how the structures and features of texts shape meaning for audience
  • Real and Imaginary Worlds
    • Explores, through discussion, how characters, incidents and/or events in media texts that tell a story relate to her/his personal experiences
    • Returns to text to make sense of real and imaginary events
    • Explores and discusses the distinguishing features of real and imaginary events and characters
    • Tentatively interprets the feelings, thoughts and motives of real and imaginary characters in discussions with peers
  • Selection from the following text types:
    • Greeting cards, illustrated picture books, storyboards, paintings and drawings, illustrations (using different media), cover for a favourite book
    • Immersion in the text type to be produced and discussion of its structures and features
    • Creation of criteria for guiding production:
      • Initial consideration, based on her/his knowledge of familiar text type
    • Exploratory planning in a risk-taking environment that promotes trial and error and includes:
      • Discussion about purpose, audience and context, in collaboration with teacher and peers
      • A familiar audience of peers, family and teacher
      • Writing of script, storyboard or rough draft of project
  • Production of the texts listed above in groups with peers that:
    • Incorporate images, symbols, signs, logos and/or words to communicate meaning or message
    • Incorporate appropriate communication strategies and resources given the text type and the context
      • Communicates information to familiar audience
      • Follows an appropriate, prescribed procedure to locate, organize and present information, with guidance, on a familiar topic
    • Use different technologies in order to construct a variety of text types:
      • Multimedia resources to support learning
      • An audio recorder to listen to or record a story
      • A VCR, audio recorder and other technologies
  • In collaboration with group members:
    • Review of texts produced in order to focus on message/meaning
    • Seeking of feedback from peers
    • Presentation of text to intended audience

Competency 4: To Use Language to Communicate and Learn

Essential Knowledges:

  • Shares information with peers and teacher
  • Talks about responses and point of view with peers and teacher
  • Asks and answers questions from peers and teacher
  • Participates in collaborative improvisation and role-playing activities to communicate experiences and responses:
    • Spontaneous creation of a scene
    • Creation of a scene, given a framework
    • Enactment of stories heard or read
    • Experimentation with form
  • Responds to the ideas and points of view of others with sensitivity and interest
  • Talks through new ideas and information
  • Examining of alternative points of view and providing reasons for choosing one over the other
  • Uses language (talk) for learning and thinking by:
    • Participating in collaborative reading, writing, viewing, visually representing, listening and talking activities:
      • Writing, producing and reading together
      • Planning of a project
      • Brainstorming
      • Planning of a cross-curricular or mixed media project
    • Participating in role-playing, improvisation and storytelling activities to try out new ideas in new situations and for other purposes
    • Questioning and challenging of different points of view/perspectives
  • Use of technology resources for collaborative writing, producing and publishing projects for peer audiences
  • Listens critically