Core Concepts and Guiding Questions
When teaching students about critical media literacy, teachers can provide key guiding questions. As students explore the Internet and visit different web pages, we should encourage them to critically engage in the deconstruction and construction of web pages. This handout provides a practical example of some of the questions students can ask themselves when visiting new websites. In the classroom, teachers can use this handout as a base to helps students understand what they are reading and/or uploading onto the Internet, and help them “read between the lines”.
The core concepts outlined in this category include:
- All media messages are constructed.
- Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.
- Different people experience the same media message differently
- Media have embedded values and points of view.
- Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.
Keeping these core concepts in mind, students can then look at the key questions and guiding questions to deconstruct the website content to evaluate its authorship, format, audience, content and purpose.
These core concepts also come into play when students are creating or uploading content onto the Internet. Students can look at the key questions and guiding questions to reflect on their own values, intentions, and messages of the content. Please click on the category “Practical Applications” to browse more resources, and applications for use in your classroom, all of which follow the core concepts!
Bibliography:
Center For Media Literacy. (n.d.) CML MediaLit Kit. Retrieved from http://www.medialit.org/cml-medialit-kit.