Simple Guide to Analyzing Media with Key Questions from @MediaLiteracyEd

Innovative educators know media literacy is important. Common Sense Education explains that media literacy helps kids with the following:

• Learn to think critically. 
• Become a smart consumer of products and information. 
• Recognize point of view. 
• Create media responsibly. 
• Identify the role of media in our culture
• Understand the author's goal. 

What innovative educators may not know is how to get started with teaching students about media literacy.  

Key question resource grid

The National Association of Media Literacy Educators (NAMLE) has a useful key question grid resource to help teachers get started. The grid provides questions in three categories, each with subcategories.  

1. Audience and authorship
2. Messages and meaning
3. Representations and reality

Source: NAMLE Key Questions Chart

Tips to Consider

Media literate people learn to ask themselves questions in each category. Showing students the questions is where you start. Next have a discussion with your students using the questions to discuss media keeping these two tips in mind:

1. Questions may have many different answers. 
2. When sharing answers students should provide evidence sharing how they know what they know.  

Classroom Videos

Here are two powerful videos that would serve as great resources to launch this work with secondary students:

Your Turn

What do you think? How are you empowering your students to become media literate? Is this grid something you think would work in your classroom? If you've used this tool, how did it go? If you use something else, what do you use?