Curriculum and Lessons
Article Links
Take Action: Only YOU Can Prevent Media Illiteracy
Media Literacy Resources: Navigating a Digital Society
Media Literacy in 2018: Top Five
Combating Apathy in an Era of “Fake News” and Standardized Testing
Ancient Texts, Modern Media Literacy
Beyoncé and Black History: Get in Formation
Literature: A Portal to Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning
Understanding Media: How Messages Work
A free, self-directed course from Poynter. The course is for anyone who wants to become a critical media consumer.
Commentary vs. Journalism: Are journalists biased?
Character Ed should link in lessons on Media Literacy and Digital Citizenship
New Year’s Resolution: Consume a Healthier News Diet
Encouraging Lightbulb Moments: ‘Single Stories’ and the Lack of Diversity in the Media
Making News Literacy a Trending Topic
Lesson Links
Diagnosing Propaganda Techniques in Campaign Ads: Civic Discourse and Media Literacy
Lesson: is it News or Opinion?
American Press Institute’s Introductory News Literacy Units
These are lightweight, general usage lesson plans for introducing students to how to read and understand news media and current events. While the Institute offers more specific and in-depth materials and ideas for promoting news literacy, these units provide a resource for the time-pressed teacher. Split into three units of one-to-two weeks each, the curriculum briefly overviews critical elements in news understanding and healthy processes for determining source information and bias. Individual lessons can be adapted and used to fit specific classroom needs.
CHECK
An infographic and accompanying lesson plan from The News Literacy Project give educators a way to apply news literacy to examples of information they or their students select.
Digital Collection of Short News Literacy Lessons
The News Literacy Project offers lesson plans to educators and others interested in news literacy on its Learn Channel.
Journalism Education Association — Understanding News Literacy
Developed by Megan Fromm for the Journalism Education Association and made possible through a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
Lesson: A Consumer’s Guide to Sourcing in News Reports
An e-learning lesson teaching teens how to evaluate sourcing in a news story with Paul Saltzman of the Chicago Sun-Times.
Searchlights and Sunglasses
A free digital book and learning tool from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton. For specific ideas on how to teach news literacy in your classroom, check out the “learning layer” activity called “How do you know what to believe?”
Weekly Lesson Feed and Other Classroom Materials
Prepared by the Center for News Literacy at Stonybrook University.
Check It Out on the Web
Students need to know how to find accurate information on the Internet. By giving them the goal of learning about online newspapers, they can research a topic (putting their school newspaper online) as well as use Internet research techniques.
Curriculum Set 1
Day 1
News Literacy Lesson – Day One
News Literacy PowerPoint – Day One
Key Word Note-taking Template
Day 2
News Literacy Lesson – Day Two
News Literacy PowerPoint – Day Two
Scavenger Hunt Bingo
Curriculum Set 2
The American Society of News Editors and the Journalism Education Association in partnership with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute offer free news literacy lessons for English/language arts, science, math and social studies teachers to use in secondary-school classrooms. Funding for the project was provided by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
ASNE and JEA worked with educators affiliated with the American Bar Association Division of Public Education, the National Council for the Social Studies, the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Teachers Association to develop the lesson plans.
A Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License allows teachers to adapt the lessons for educational purposes. Teachers can use the lessons as a springboard to incorporate news literacy skills into every academic discipline and help students learn critical-thinking skills for analyzing and judging the reliability of news and information in everyday problem-solving and real-life experiences.
English/Language Arts Model News Literacy Curriculum
Math Model News Literacy Curriculum
PowerPoints Grades 7/8
Buffalo Blizzard
PowerPoints Grades 9/10
Verifying Probability in the News
Statistics in the News Discussion-Warmup
Understanding the Distribution of a Set of Data
Using Variation to Evaluate Statistics
Using the Regression Line to Make Predictions
Science Model News Literacy Curriculum
PowerPoints
Grades 9-10 Water In The United States
Social Studies Model News Literacy Curriculum