Dozens of Engaging Ways to Make Media Literacy Meaningful to Teenagers

Half of being media literate is asking questions of every part you learn, watch and listen to, together with the Instances sources we’re suggesting all through this useful resource. All media has bias, as charts like this one or this one present, and we frequently remind college students to do as this lesson plan from PBS Information Hour Classroom suggests and evaluate how totally different media deal with the identical information story. However, because the mission of The Studying Community is to assist college students be taught with Instances supplies particularly, we’re focusing right here on our personal journalism.

Whereas The New York Instances, based in 1851, is widely known because the paper of document in america, no “first tough draft of historical past” is with out error, and typically the results of these errors could be momentous. For instance, this lesson plan focuses on how The Instances and different media reported on the Holocaust within the Thirties and ’40s — protection that Max Frankel, a former govt editor of The Instances, known as “the century’s bitterest journalistic failure.” This 2004 piece, written by a gaggle of Instances editors, analyzes problematic elements of the paper’s protection of information within the two years main up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. It doesn’t matter what necessary Twentieth- or Twenty first-century world or nationwide occasion your college students are learning, they may use TimesMachine or the Instances archives to analyze how the paper lined what unfolded, what the publication did nicely and the place it could have stumbled.

However we additionally encourage college students to assume critically about Instances protection as they learn immediately’s information. For instance, as they observe reporting on the second Trump administration, college students would possibly need to learn this Insider piece by which Instances editors deal with frequent reader questions on how the paper covers the president. To go additional, college students may additionally contemplate items by media critics from outdoors The Instances, reminiscent of Margaret Sullivan, who was as soon as the general public editor for The Instances and now writes for The Guardian and has a Substack e-newsletter targeted on the query “Can journalism save democracy?” Don’t neglect, too, that, through our Conversations With Journalists exercise, college students have the prospect to pose their very own questions to reporters immediately, as many did on this current dialogue with a White Home correspondent.

Generally, nevertheless, essentially the most attention-grabbing and accessible critiques come from Instances readers. In its commenting requirements, The Instances explains that it “welcomes sturdy opinions and criticism of our work.” College students can learn these by scanning the day by day Letters to the Editor column, or by trying out the 1000’s of feedback left on scores of articles and opinion items every day. What did they be taught? What would possibly they add in the event that they have been to be a part of the dialog? Practising these essential considering abilities as they learn The Instances will assist college students develop into extra savvy customers of all media — in addition to extra engaged residents.

Don’t simply devour media — make your personal.