Critical blogging

What is Media Literacy?
Let Temple University's Media Education Lab break it down for you.

Many of us use films and news articles in order to share content on environmental awareness with our students. You can enrich any activity that uses media content by asking students to think critically about the media product you're introducing.

Here at Temple University, The Media Education Lab offers these basic critical thinking questions, which can be incorporated anytime you bring media content to your students:

The Five Key Questions of Media Literacy

1. Who created this message and what is the purpose?
2. What creative techniques are used to attract and hold attention?
3. How might different people understand this message differently?
4. What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in this message?
5.What is omitted from the message?

Since our students have been creating their own media content all program long, you could also ask them to think critically about their own work, or ask how it compares to similar messages produced by traditional mass media.

Other resources:

Media Literacy expert Frank K. Baker has collected enough resources on his Media Literacy Clearing House to fill a lifetime worth of lesson plans. You can find plans arranged by medium (magazines, motion pictures, photography, radio, web 2.0) or topic (gender issues, stereotypes, science).