by Eryn Decoste, Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Prior to lesson implementation teacher should watch  Critical Literacy.

Purpose: To have students understand that the world around them can be read as a media text, and therefore interpreted as such; and to encourage critical literacy in that reading/interpretation. Students will bring in various media texts from their community and/or their home and perform a genre exercise by sorting the media texts by genre or function.

Set Up

1. The teacher should review the definition of a media text and remind students that a media text is anything that has been reproduced with an audience in mind. The teacher should challenge students to think beyond the traditional advertisement when defining a ‘media text’.
2. Over the course of a few days ask students to bring in various media texts. Examples from my class included: empty coffee cups, ads, TTC tickets, all types of packaging (cereal boxes, wrappings from plastic pop bottles, gum packs, granola boxes etc.) phone books, magazines, flyers, cans of coke, magazines, bags, lotion, etc.
3. Review the term, genre, and provide examples of how items can be organized by genre, i.e. in video/DVD stores.

Implementation

1. Divide students into two groups. The grouping may change depending on the number of students and number of items. My 4U (Grade 12, University) class has 26 students and they brought media texts in over the course of three days the goal was 3 media texts per student. We ended up with four yoga mats almost full of items.
2. Group #1 had 10 minutes only to sort and identify the media texts according to genre. They also had to create the name of their genres.
3. At the end of the 10 minutes they presented their work to the remaining students Group 2 and provided a rationale for their groupings. Group 2 has been directed to listen to Group 1’s rationale because their task is to finish (if needed) and/or modify the groupings.

* Having students explain their thinking process through a rationale addresses the metacognitive aspect of the revised Ontario curriculum.

4. Group 2 now had 10 minutes to finish sorting any leftover media texts, or perform any alterations to Group 1’s work. They too must provide a rationale for their work even if no modifications were made (although this did not happen).
5. Group 2 presented their rationale and explain why they made the changes to Group 1’s work.
6. After this process we had a class discussion about the purposes of packaging and advertising and what commentary can be made about society based on the media texts we collected.

Observations

The students were asked to bring in an assortment of media texts ranging from TTC tickets and transfers, to food packaging, to junk mail flyers, to T-shirts. After the initial sorting and during the explanation process, each group sorted based on different criteria. For example, some groupings were based on the function an item served, for example ‘packaging’ if it kept or held food. Other media texts were sorted according to a sense of theme, for example all plastics were grouped together, or all receipts were grouped together under ‘consumerism’.  During the sorting process students were reminded that the categories they chose to create was entirely up to them; they were only required to provide a rationale explaining the groupings or genre categories after they sorted the media texts.

It is recommended that this lesson be done in the midst or at the end of a media unit because students will be able to apply their learning to the task. The discussions among students in groups, between the two groups, and within our whole class, were richer because of the positioning of the activity. Had I performed this task at the start of the unit, I do not feel they would have had as rich a learning experience, or as effective an opportunity to apply their learning and effectively rationalize their choices.

During the task students were engaged and actively applying media language and terms to the sorting process. For example, students wondered if they should sort according to target audience, according to purpose of packaging, or to the degree of advertising potential/intent per package. Group 1 was interested to hear and challenge Group 2’s modification of 1’s initial sorting.

Extension Activities

In order to support the critical literacy and metacognitive aspects of the revised Ontario curriculum, teachers can implement writing tasks through reflective journals or learning logs.

Students can select an item or items from the pile and deconstruct the item using a critical literacy lens. They can examine what values, perspectives or voices are omitted, and provide reasons as to why this might be the case.

They can write out the rationale their group articulated during the sorting process. Additionally they can assess how this task helped them apply their knowledge, and what they learned from having the opportunity to make modifications and/or what they learned from listening to the perspectives of their peers.