Overview

 OVERVIEW:

The overall purpose of our project is to help students recognize media literacy as a valuable skill that supports thoughtful decision-making in daily life (Media Standard, Florida Standards) and to encourage students to see all media as "constructed texts that need to be actively read" (Pace, Handbook, p. 11). In our lessons, we seek to allow students to discover their critical and creative thinking abilities and to put them to practice.

To assist students in becoming critical thinkers who question popular culture, stereotypes, and power structures in media texts, our lessons engage students in actively learning the metalanguages and design tools that media producers use in constructing media for particular purposes and audiences (Pace, Handbook). Our lessons focus on the critical analysis of short film, particularly in relation to its purpose, audience, and genre; its design techniques, structures, and effects; and its dissemination of social and cultural values.

Lesson 1 teaches students how to identify and discuss elements of genre, using the appropriate metalanguages. In addition, Lesson 1 gives students practice predicting future developments in a film, while challenging them to provide evidence that supports their views of a film’s genre and purpose.

Lesson 2 provides instruction and activities that allow ninth graders to view, critique, and deconstruct film design elements in the film, "Sixth Sense, " using film metalanguage they learn in the lesson (Golden).

Lesson 3 introduces students to five important ways that the media teach (Cortes), and through activities and discussion, students learn the five points and how to apply them in critical film analysis and their daily lives. Through our week’s worth of lessons, students will gain knowledge and practice in using metalanguages that apply to genre, film production, and transmission of values and ideas in mass media, and they will learn to critically evaluate media and engage in creative media literacy events that will transform their lives.