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English SOL InstituteElementary Media Literacy

Grades 4 & 5 Strand

Paula WhitePwhite@k12albemarle.org

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Media Literacy (Grades 4 & 5)

• Strand is integrated into content area lessons

• Critical thinking/viewing of media is emphasized

• Several attributes examined: authorship, format, audience, content, and purpose (audience and purpose only at grade 4)

Key Points in Media Literacy

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Media Literacy (Grades 4 & 5)

• Deconstruction is emphasized beginning in grade 5

• Students not just consumers but producers of media (beginning at grade 5)

Key Points in Media Literacy

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1. Authorship: Who constructed this message?

2. Format: How did the creators use special elements (sound, color, voice over etc.) to attract my attention?

3. Audience: Who will receive the message and how might different people interpret this message differently?

4. Content: What embedded content and underlying values, lifestyles and points of views are present in this message?

5. Purpose: Why is the message being sent? Entertain? Inform? Sell a product?

Deconstruction (Grade 5)

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• Studying Public Service Announcements provides historical context to images and products

• Smokey Bear is the longest running public service announcement campaign

• Smokey Bear PSA Historical Resources

•Why Study Public Service Announcements (PSA)?

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Smokey Bear History

The Power of Logos & Slogans

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http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Logopedia

The Power of Logos & Slogans• Have students identify popular advertising

logos and slogans• Which ones are recognizable? Why?• How has this logos/slogan changed over time?• Which ones are aimed at them?• Does the logo/slogan influence their decision to

purchase a product?• Who created the logo/slogan? When? Who is

the audience?• Research additional logos/slogans

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• Authorship• Purpose (grade 4)

• signature style of landscape photography

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/index.html

Ansel Adams

Media Literacy includes still graphics as well as video images

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In 1943, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's best-known photographer, documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/index.html

Born Free And Equal

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• Born Free and Equal "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment.”

“Through the pictures the reader will be introduced to perhaps twenty individuals…loyal American citizens who are anxious to get back into the stream of life and contribute to our victory.”

Ansel Adams’ Stated Purpose

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/index.html

Author and Purpose• What is the purpose of the

photo? What message is being conveyed?

• How could different audiences view this graphic/photo message differently?

• Find examples of other graphics/photographs from which audiences may draw a variety of meanings.

• http://www.loc.gov/pictures/

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Author and Purpose• Describe the setting and facial

expressions of the mother in Dorthea Lange’s 1932 photo titled, Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California .

• How could different audiences view this graphic/photo message differently? Why?

• Background information is available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

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• We are surrounded by more than 3,000 commercial messages a day in print, on radio and TV, through the mail, and over the Internet

• The primary purpose of an advertisement is to get attention

• Do an Internet search for TV advertisements aimed at young people

• Identify the need it creates. Why would students be attracted to it?

Video Advertisements

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ReadWriteThink Resources• Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising• Critical Media Literacy: TV Programs

PBS Kids• PBS Kids--Don’t Buy It (Advertising Tricks)• You Are Here-where kids learn to be smarter consumers

• The Ad Council

• Library of Congress Photos

Resources

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• Yes Magazine

• PSA Central

• Center for Media Literacy

• Frank Baker’s Media Literacy Clearinghouse

Resources

Contact Information

Paula WhitePwhite@k12albemarle.org

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Reference within this presentation to any specific commercial or non-commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise does not constitute or imply an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the Virginia Department of Education.

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