Resources

Common Sense in the Classroom: A Media Literacy Guide

This toolkit includes six media literacy lesson plans designed for students in grades 4 through 8. The guide combines media literacy concepts with activities that encourage students to ask questions and think about the influence of media in their lives. The activities include:

• Lesson 1: Media Literacy 101 introduces students to the concepts of Media Literacy.
• Lesson 2: What Do I Like? encourages students to think about their own media choices.
• Lesson 3: What Do I Think? asks students to identify the messages within specific media clip.
• Lesson 4: Let's Take It Apart! gives students the tools to think critically about media by analyzing a media example.
• Lesson 5: You're the Production Crew is an opportunity for students to learn about media production by brainstorming their own reality TV show in small groups.
• Lesson 6: Sharing My Opinion allows students to use all the things they have learned in writing a review of a piece of media, which they can post on the Common Sense Media website.

The guide also includes different ideas on how to integrate media literacy into core academic subject areas, from history to math.