Media Literacy Rationale

The Burnsville district’s current curriculum for media literacy is the Minnesota state standards. Over this summer, curriculum scope and sequence work is being done to match what the district is doing to the standards to see if we are meeting them and, if we are not, how we can go about changing. I have a copy of the K-12 English/Language Arts standards at home. The media literacy sub-strand for Grades 9-12 states that, “the student will critically analyze information found in electronic and print media, and will use a variety of these sources to learn about a topic and represent ideas.” There are ten benchmarks within this standard. My district currently has an advertising unit in 9th Grade, and a Media Literacy course requirement at the high school level. We also have a research unit in 8th Grade where we discuss reliability of websites, plagiarism, and finding various sources of information.

The local community’s attitude towards the value of media studies, in my belief, is split between thinking that it is necessary and thinking it is an “extra”. Burnsville is a suburb with an aging population, a conservative base, but also with many new immigrant families. Voter-approved levies have barely passed (within 100 votes) in the last two elections. I can see some parts of the community not readily agreeing to the idea of media literacy being important. However, I can also see younger segments of the population understanding that it is necessary for students to know how to navigate the vast amount of information that is available.

Media literacy is a crucial aspect of the language arts curriculum, as well as other areas of learning. As stated in the Kaiser video, Key Findings on Kids and Media, children today spend, on average, 6.5 hours a day, seven days a week, working with various forms of media, often using more than one form at a time. This is more time than students spend in class at school! Our students are subjected to thousands of messages a day, sometimes by choice, often not. With the sheer number of hours spent with media, and the vast amount of often conflicting messages our students are getting, it is ridiculous to not teach them how to view media effectively. I want my students to know how to sort valid information from whatever media they’re using, and how to avoid invalid messages. I want them to understand how the media shapes their lives in terms of attitudes, beliefs, purchases, and their community.

A comprehensive media literacy curriculum, starting in early elementary school, can help students do all of these things. It can create students who don’t simply view a YouTube rant; they view and analyze its message, source, and audience. It can create students who use the various sources of media for their own ideas, using web design, film, and video techniques to spread their own messages. It can also create adults who will join tomorrow’s workforce ready to work with the new technologies that are going to be a part of their jobs.

I would like this course to show me how to use the current online media outlets (wikis, podcasts, blogs) because I haven’t had much experience with them. I can then use my new skills next year to show my students how to use them and begin the process of creating the vision stated earlier.