Students increase their media literacy skills by critically examining and revising junk mail.

In this minilesson, students practice identifying and purposefully using vocabulary in persuasive writing that is intended to have an emotional impact on the reader.

Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.

A well-done set of units that helps teachers teach the importance of media literacy to their students. Click on Secondary School Introduction to see a video of teachers in the classroom instructing students in ways of using and evaluating media. Return the the the Media Education Lab page to access PDF files and videos for six secondary school units.

Pop culture and the classroom collide in this lesson when students go behind the scenes to analyze a television series for characterization to use in an original television show proposal.

With the ever-changing online and social media landscape for accessing news, students need tools to sift through the good, the bad, and the ugly and develop skills to determine credibility, recognize bias, and fact check. Teachers need high quality materials to support the teaching of media literacy. This content package is intended for educators to easily find lessons, eBooks, videos, websites, articles, units of study, graphics, and other resources to support the teaching of media literacy and to help students “navigate the news.”

This is a full unit of study from iCivics, featuring multiple lesson plans with presentations, downloadable documents, and more. This unit is designed to teach students about media influence on politics and society. Students learn how the media and interest groups influence discussions that take place in the "public sphere" and ultimately influence the government. They also identify and apply the seven types of propaganda to see how messages are designed to influence us individually. The unit challenges students to take a critical look at all these sources of constructed messages through simulations, vocabulary-building activities, and real world applications.

This is a full unit of study from iCivics, featuring multiple lesson plans with presentations, downloadable documents, and more. For your convenience, we've assembled a library of our Media Moment Mini-Lessons. These mini-lessons combine civic content and news literacy skills. Designed for the high school classroom, each mini-lesson includes a content reading, a news literacy highlight, and a one-page news literacy activity. Use the readings together or separately to target multiple learning objectives throughout the year! Each lesson can also be found in the units below.

Newspapers in Education and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists publish simple, inventive lesson plans and ideas for classes in editorial cartooning, caption writing, and news analysis. Lessons include "cartoon blanks" that can be used as caption-writing activities, along with useful talking points and between-the-lines commentaries.

This is a full unit of study from iCivics, featuring multiple lesson plans with presentations, downloadable documents, and more. The universe of information we live in is a complicated web of messages with a mind-blowing array of sources, biases, and agendas. Help your students develop the mad news literacy skills they need with the resources in our hot-off-the-press News Literacy unit. Designed for the high school classroom, this unit teaches students to recognize high-standards journalism so they can make informed judgments about the information coming at them. Students get practical skills to help them identify and deal with misinformation, bias, opinion, and more.

This collection, which includes videos, blog articles, student handouts, lesson plans, and tip sheets for families, helps students identify, analyze, and investigate the news and information they get from online sources. Media literacy is an essential skill for all students across a range of subjects, from Science to Social Studies to English Language Arts. The collection is also useful for a behind-the-scenes look at journalism and how information is researched, shaped, and reported. Check out the resources in the collection topics.

This collection, which includes videos, blog articles, student handouts, lesson plans, and tip sheets for families, helps students identify, analyze, and investigate the news and information they get from online sources. Media literacy is an essential skill for all students across a range of subjects, from Science to Social Studies to English Language Arts. The collection is also useful for a behind-the-scenes look at journalism and how information is researched, shaped, and reported. Check out the resources in the collection topics.

Through an integrated approach from PBS, students examine the messages conveyed in print advertisements. Using parody, students are asked to alter the message of an ad to present a different or opposite point of view. Lesson may be more suitable for middle school students. Links available to related literature resources and other lesson plans at the PBS Affluenza site.

This website is a guide to the way the new media-blogs, RSS, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators, and video repositories-are changing the way we take in the news of our world. Click on the underlined words to hyperlink to the sites being discussed.

Examine the reasons alcohol advertisers target young people, and interpret the "real" messages in alcohol advertising. Learn basic facts about alcohol abuse to create a factual poster about alcohol.

Students take a look at the persuasive techniques used in political cartoons, then answer questions to reinforce the concept. [3:39]

Using electronic and print resources, this tutorial explores media bias and how political candidates are portrayed in the news. [2:42]

[Free Registration/Login Required] Provides a multi-unit curriculum kit on presidential campaigns that incorporates media literacy. Downloads include teacher guides, student handouts, media documents, visual and audio materials, and more.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Multi-unit curriculum kit on the history of the Soviet Union told in five episodes using Soviet posters as source material. Coverage includes the birth of the Soviet Union, Stalin, the Great Patriotic War (World War II), the cold war, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Downloads include teacher guides, student handouts, historical documents, slideshows, and more.