The Front Page Lesson Plan
Level(s): Grade 9 to 12
Author: Adapted from News is Not Just Black and White, a workbook created by the Canadian Newspaper Association (CAN)
This lesson is part of USE, UNDERSTAND & ENGAGE: A Digital Media Literacy Framework for Canadian Schools.
Overview
This lesson begins by helping students to identify and understand the different aspects of news outlets. Using these skills, students will then collect and identify news stories and categorize them according to subject matter.
Learning Outcomes
Know: Students will learn the following essential domain knowledge:
- Reading media: Differences between hard and soft news stories and news, opinion and analysis articles
- Consumer awareness: How news outlets determine “newsworthiness”
Understand: Students will learn the following key concepts/big ideas:
- Media are constructions: Media works were made many people who made choices that affect the final work
- Media have social and political implications: News plays an important role in informing the public; what things are and aren’t considered “newsworthy” influences audiences’ views
- Each medium has a unique aesthetic form: Different media and genres communicate in different ways
Do: Students will:
- access news stories using digital tools, use media tools to create a news outlet front or home page.
- understand how media makers’ choices and industry standards influence how works are made and experienced, and
- engage with the social and political impacts of values of newsworthines
This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.