Work With It
Three different resources for an Intermediate English classroom that I have used for effective delivery of Media Literacy are the book “The Help”, the computer application “Imovie”, and the website “easel.ly”.
Reading the book “The Help” is a great cross-curricular book because you are able to touch on subjects like Social Studies and History, as well as English. The story takes place in the 1960's and touches on the issues surrounding civil rights and discrimination. It is also about a young woman who wants to be a journalist and needs a breakthrough story to kick off her career. The book contains a lot of opportunity for media literacy activities and discussions and the book was made into a movie in 2011; so you are able to watch the movie with the class and discuss comparisons between the novel and movie. The teacher can have the students imagine they were living back in the 1960s and divide the class into two groups, the rich white American families or the African American slaves. They can debate the issues of civil rights, they can create posters for and against slavery, or they can role play scenes to help them connect to historical events in order to get a better understanding. Similarly to FMNI students, they could share connections to unjust and discriminatory societies.
Imovie is a computer application that allows the students to create a movie using a variety of photos, videos, text, and music. Students are able to use this application to create mini commercials, short videos, and presentations. Students are able to use this application to present work in an exciting and up-to-date technology format. It is an effective tool when teaching media literacy because there are so many variations to how it can be used and it is very user friendly.
easel.ly is a website with the mission statement “To inspire and enable anyone to represent an idea in a visual way.” This website is user friendly and has thousands of free info-graphic templates that allow students to create posters, presentations, and so much more. The templates can be manipulated in many different ways to present a lot of information and are presented in fun colours with many styles and formats to chose from. Students can submit their creations electronically or present them to a class using the Smart Board.
