How to Teach Children About the Media & Activities
Students are constantly bombarded by the media from all directions. It's important to educate them in media literacy so they can analyze and understand the barrage of images and ideas drilled into their heads every day. By introducing media studies into your lesson plan, you can teach students about current events, how advertising works, journalism and the media's effect on their daily lives. You can integrate most subjects with media studies, including math, social studies, art, music and science.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Magazines
- Internet access
- Recorded TV news broadcasts and commercials
- Newspapers
Instructions
-
-
1
Use current events to expose students to different types of media. Choose a few major current events, and show how newspapers, televised news broadcasts and Internet news sources handle the same story. Have students compare and contrast and assess pros and cons of the various methods used by each media type. Ask them to decide which method was most effective in conveying the facts of each story. Did any particular source show any sort of bias? Which sources best upheld their journalistic integrity?
-
2
Show a variety of television advertisements for different products and services. Have the students analyze the elements used in each commercial. Have them identify trends in different types of ads. For example, do ads for food products and restaurants use the same techniques as ads for beauty products? Show your students advertisements for upcoming films, and ask which movies they want to see the most and which they want to see the least; then have them explain why. Ask which elements of an advertisement make them want to, or not want to, see the film.
-
-
3
Have students bring in copies of their favorite magazines. Pick up some pop culture magazines geared toward younger crowds. Choose a variety of special interest magazines that focus on fashion, video games, music, television and film. Split students into groups, and have each group focus on a particular genre. Have each group compare the number of pages used for advertisement space versus pages used for actual content in their magazines. Instruct them to create pie charts that reflect their findings, and have the whole class compare the results. Ask questions like: Which magazines used the most pages for ads? Did any magazine use more pages for ads than for actual content?
-
4
Have students keep a journal to monitor their use of media sources. Have them keep track of how many hours a week they spend on their computers, listening to music, watching TV or movies, playing video games, and reading books, magazines and newspapers. Have them keep track of how many advertisements they see while using the various media sources. Before the start of the project, make sure your students understand and can identify all of the different types of advertising techniques, such as commercials, pop-up ads, website banners, product placement, previews before films, print advertisements and so on. Have them keep these records for a few weeks. Have them make charts to compare which types of media they used the most and which media types had the most advertisements. Ask what effect, if any, the advertisements had on them.
-
1
