Lesson Plan August 28, 2023
The News and You: Media Literacy Resources for Afterschool Education
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Grades:
About These Resources:
How can good journalism and media literacy skills empower people?
The News and You, a collection of activities containing modules for students in grades 2-6 and 7-12, is designed to support students in critically navigating the news. Students will move from learning the basics of what journalism is and reflection on their relationship with the news to actively engaging with and responding to underreported new stories. In the process, students will have the opportunity to practice identifying and interrupting bias, roleplay as journalists and editors, explore how news can illuminate systemic global issues, and amplify stories that matter to them through creative and journalistic projects.
Activities engage students in guided discussion, multimedia exploration, and hands-on learning. They have been designed with the dynamic, fast-paced environment out-of-school time educators navigate, but can also serve classroom teachers looking for exciting ways to explore journalism, media literacy, and global issues with their students. Each activity is aligned with select Common Core ELA and ISTE standards. They include step-by-step facilitation instructions, downloadable worksheets, multimedia resources, facilitations tips, and variations for different students and learning environments.
How to Access the Resources:
Explore the tabs above to find descriptions of the activities for each grade level. The complete activities and resources are hosted on Mizzen, a free app to help out-of-school time professionals deliver exciting learning opportunities that inspire, engage, and empower young learners. Register for free below!
After you register for an account, you can explore the Mizzen app to find the Pulitzer Center's collections and activities. Alternatively, you can return to this page and use the tabs for each collection to find direct links to each collection on Mizzen.
Module Description:
This module supports students in developing a healthy relationship to the news rooted in curiosity, critical thinking, empathy, and empowerment.
Students will learn what the news is and reflect on how they can use it in their lives. They will examine the idea of bias and learn how to challenge it, using some of the same skills journalists use. They will consider why some stories get more attention than others, and explore the importance of seeking out underreported stories in order to see a fuller picture of people, places, and issues. Finally, students will move from analyzing news stories to sharing their learning. In their final projects, students will use creative expression and journalistic information to draw attention to the issues that matter to them.
Throughout this module, facilitators have access to the option of requesting a free virtual visit with a Pulitzer Center journalist who can support students in digging deeper into any of these topics, getting their questions answered, and exploring careers in the journalism field.
Essential Questions:
- What is journalism?
- What is bias? How does it impact what stories we hear, and how we think about them?
- How can we call attention to stories that matter to us?
Module Activities for Grades 2–6:
1. The News and You: What is journalism, and why does it matter?
Students leverage prior knowledge to define the news, understand the role of journalists in covering news, and consider why journalism is important to their personal lives and their community through discussion, short readings, and worksheets.
2. What Is Bias?
Students learn about bias and use mind mapping strategies to unpack their biases. Through a series of small group and whole group discussions, students consider why we have bias and how biases can affect our attitudes and behaviors in response to people, places, events, or ideas. Finally, students challenge bias and stereotypes by exploring multiple news stories that help them see a fuller picture of a place.
3. Interrupting Bias with Curiosity
Students explore how they can use their curiosity to interrupt bias. They will put their curiosity to work in an activity exploring a multimedia news story while using three strategies: slowing down, asking questions, and checking assumptions.
4. Finding Underreported Stories
Students explore the idea of underreported stories and consider why some news stories don’t get as much attention as others. After considering what news stories in their own community are underreported, students propose at least one story they think should get more attention.
5. Putting the Puzzle Together: Illustrating News Stories
Students explore how news stories are like puzzle pieces that help us build knowledge to ultimately see the full picture of an issue. Students engage in a group read-aloud activity and listen for details that help them complete their own story puzzles with written information, feelings, and illustrations.
6. Responding to the News
Students reflect on how to find hope in news stories about global issues. Students will identify an underreported news story that interests them, and use visual art or found poetry to creatively call attention to the issues it raises.
7. Meet a Journalist: Preparing for and Hosting a Guest Speaker
Students prepare for and then host a guest speaker through the Pulitzer Center’s free virtual journalist visit program. The Pulitzer Center works with thousands of journalists, making the visit customizable: students can learn about career pathways, journalism skills, interrupting bias and misinformation, and/or content areas that the journalist covers.
Invite a Journalist to Join Your Classroom!
Educators and students can continue the conversation on media literacy by inviting a journalist to their classroom for a virtual visit. Journalists can discuss bias, news framing, underreported stories, taking informed action, and the importance of journalism more generally.
The Pulitzer Center offers free, virtual journalist visits to K–12 students and educators. Click here to learn more about our virtual visit program.
Module Description:
How can good journalism empower people? This module begins by asking students to identify what they believe the purpose of journalism to be, and guides them to think critically and creatively about their relationship with news.
Students will move from reflecting on the power and purpose of journalism to examining how bias can affect the news, and the way in which we process information ourselves. Students will learn about news framing and editorial judgment, putting themselves in the shoes of editors and journalists who decide which stories get told and how they are presented to the public. Finally, students will move from analyzing news stories to responding to underreported stories that matter to them through creative and journalistic projects.
Throughout this module, facilitators have access to the option of requesting a free virtual visit with a Pulitzer Center journalist who can support students in digging deeper into any of these topics, getting their questions answered, and exploring careers in the journalism field.
Essential Questions:
- What should journalism do?
- Why do some stories go underreported, and how can we seek them out?
- How can journalism and media literacy equip us to engage with global issues and with our communities?
Module Activities for Grades 2–6:
1. What Should Journalism Do?
Students define journalism, and the role it plays in our everyday lives. They will articulate their thoughts and feelings about the news. Finally, students will reflect on the purpose of journalism, and how being informed can empower people.
2. Interrupting Bias Through News
Students will explore what bias is, how it shows up in their lives, and how it can be harmful when left unchecked. They will then brainstorm ways to interrupt bias, and practice methods for doing so through an exploration of underreported news stories.
3. What’s Your Angle? News Framing and Bias
Students will explore how news framing influences the popular understanding of people, places, and ideas. They will practice identifying framing and bias in news headlines they encounter, and will write headlines that offer multiple interpretations of how news stories can be framed. Throughout this activity, students will reflect on the personal and social value of being aware of and working to interrupt bias in oneself and others.
4. What’s Your Agenda? Editorial Judgment and Underreported Stories
Students will explore what editorial judgment is, and why some stories receive a lot of attention in the news while others go underreported. This activity will place students in the position of editors who get to decide what stories are featured, and offers opportunities for the group to reflect on the implications of these decisions.
5. From Story to Solution
Students explore how journalism can reveal the root causes of the problems our communities face, and ultimately help us identify solutions to those problems. This activity is designed to be facilitated across two or more periods; it involves a creative or journalistic project that students may need variable amounts of time to complete.
6. Meeting a Journalist: Preparing for and Hosting a Guest Speaker
Students prepare for and then host a guest speaker through the Pulitzer Center’s free virtual journalist visit program. The Pulitzer Center works with thousands of journalists, making the visit customizable: students can learn about career pathways, journalism skills, interrupting bias and misinformation, and/or content areas that the journalist covers.
Invite a Journalist to Join Your Classroom!
Educators and students can continue the conversation on media literacy by inviting a journalist to their classroom for a virtual visit. Journalists can discuss bias, news framing, underreported stories, taking informed action, and the importance of journalism more generally.
The Pulitzer Center offers free, virtual journalist visits to K–12 students and educators. Click here to learn more about our virtual visit program.
Want to talk about media literacy, current events, and global issues with your students but looking for support with how to do that work in a healthy, inclusive, and engaging way? The Pulitzer Center has partnered with Mizzen to offer Pro Tips—short, actionable blogs that share facilitation tips for these activities—and professional development events.
Pro Tips
Talking about current events is an important way to keep your programming relevant to your students’ lives and connected to the wider world. It’s also an opportunity to provide a safe space for students to process their thoughts, feelings, and questions about difficult issues. At the same time, some conversations about current events have the power to evoke challenging emotions, interpersonal disagreement, and even trauma responses in students. This Pro Tip offers ideas for talking about current events with your students in a safe, healthy, and engaging way.
If your students find it challenging to navigate the media landscape, they’re not alone. A growing body of research suggests widespread challenges with media literacy skills. But media literacy must go beyond the question “What is true and what is false?” Instead, our focus should include open-ended questions: “What do terms like true and trustworthy mean?” “How can biases and motivations lead to misinformation?” This Pro Tip encourages reflection on why media literacy matters, and how teaching media literacy in an inquiry-driven way can deepen its value.
Professional Development Opportunity
Out-of-school time and classroom educators are invited to join the Pulitzer Center’s K-12 Education team and Mizzen by Mott for an interactive virtual workshop introducing The News and You collection of media literacy activities, and how to teach it well. Participants will discuss media literacy goals and principles, explore resources to share with their students, and experience an activity from the Pulitzer Center’s new media literacy collection themselves. This event takes place Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 6:00pm EDT.