Andrew Holyfield

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Prerequisites:  Students will NEED TECHNOLOGY for this class!  Yes, Huck is allowing Tech in this class as we learn to safely navigate & investigate media.

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Homework:  Please plan to spend at least 2 hours / week on reading and writing for this class.

 

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   The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.   

Alice Walker

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 While Print Media might be dying in America, Journalism has never been more important!   In this class, we explore the many ways of writing about things that matter to us.

 

When we study Media Literacy, we are really practicing Critical Thinking. 

 

We're always wondering about the objective of what we're reading.   Has critical information been left out?   Are the statistics accurate and what do they mean?   What would the opposing view say? 

 

In this class we will be watching excerpts from several TED talks surrounding the topics of the importance of understanding the many facets of each issue, why it's important to understand these facets and be able to express ourselves to others, and how to understand if your Point Of View is being represented or ignored..  But most importantly, we will be watching talks of how young people can find their authentic voice and support themselves and other people in their individual journey.  

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Journalism today comprises more than just Print Media.   While we'll be reading about the disappearance of Print Media, we'll also be looking about the rise of other forms of media, and how to ensure we are not being manipulated.

 

Our reading, journals, collages, letters to representatives in our legislature and our community work will be driven by the goal of helping our students to help themselves, and other students, to represent themselves powerfully.  In fact, our final project of the Fall session will be to produce our very own ZINE, a personalized small edition magazine.  The content of this is the students choice.  They will ultimately give us information that is fake - and how they have determined this.  Information that is accurate - and how they have determined this.  Information that is BIASED, and how they determined this, and whether they think biased information is OK, when it is presented as biased.  Students determine the best way to make their points, and if the ZINE format is not their favorite and they prefer film, that's OK!  This Fall Capstone project will incorporate everything we've learned this session in a student centered project.

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The objective of this series of classes is to help each student become their own version of a leader using Media, in whatever is their preferred form.

 

FALL

Unit 1 - Media Literacy: Navigating Digital Information 

From News to Propaganda, in this unit we learn how frequently we are inundated with information, and learn how to tell the difference between information that is intended to inform versus information that is designed to persuade or even instigate. How can we start to become our own Fact Checker?   What is news and what is propaganda?  How has Marketing been changed to look like News?  We start here to build our own base skills about how to look at information and ask questions before we believe what we are hearing and seeing.

• What info types are out there?  

  • Activities on quickly understanding print, video and images to determine if they are News, Opinion, Infotainment, Marketing, Propaganda or Fake News.

  • Case Study:  Brexit;   Let’s categorize these pieces of information into the different possibilities.  When is it difficult to know the category?

    • https://www.newseumed.org/news-or-noise-map

    • Individual copies of Google doc for everyone to do in class work on 3 pieces of information

    • Discuss

• Becoming our own Fact Checker

  • WHO is behind this information?

  • WHY are they sharing this information?

  • WHAT is the evidence for their claims?

  • WHAT do OTHER sources say about the organization and their claims?

• Lateral Reading

  • As opposed to Vertical Reading, we must learn to read horizontally, like a fact checker does.  You have to LEAVE a site to UNDERSTAND a site

  • When and How to read laterally

  • SHARE your research.

• Deciding Who To Trust

  • Daily KOS vs Daily Wire

    • In class activity:   What is their perspective?  How do you know?

    • How fast could you tell now that you know how to read laterally?

  • Snopes and other fact checkers

  • Using Wikipedia

  • What?  Does anyone really do this?   YES!   How you can use Wikipedia safely.​

• Evaluating Evidence

  • Navigating Digital Info

    • Lack of evidence, Good evidence, Bad evidence, Evidence that doesn’t prove your point

  • Evaluating Photos and Images

  • Data & Infographics

• Checking Other Sources

  • Click Restraint

  • Social Media

 

Unit 2 -

Case Study - The Stanford History Group:  Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning 

When thousands of students respond to dozens of tasks there are endless variations in how well information is understood. Overall, young people’s ability to reason about the information on the Internet can be summed up in one word: bleak.  “Digital natives” may be able to flit between Facebook and Twitter while simultaneously uploading a selfie to Instagram and texting a friend. But when it comes to evaluating information that flows through social media channels, they are easily duped.  Let’s Fix That.

1) Argument Analysis: Students compare and evaluate two posts from a newspaper’s comment section. 

2) News on Social Media: Students identify the blue checkmark that distinguishes a verified Facebook account from a fake one. 

3) Argument: Students consider the relative strength of evidence that two users present in a Social Media exchange.

4) Evaluating Evidence: Students decide whether to trust a photograph posted on a photo-sharing website. 

5) Comparing Articles: Students determine whether a news story or a sponsored post is more reliable.

 

Unit 3 - Your Own Project. 

Using the skills you have acquired, you will start your first ZINE on a subject of your choice.   You’ll show fake information, validated information, and explain how you know what is factual, what is opinion (sharing multiple opinions), what is advertising, what is fake news, and if there is any propaganda on this subject.

 

Winter:

Unit 3 - Youtube, TikTok and AI Algorithms.   What is going on? 

How is AI being used to filter and define the information you get to see.  How is free speech related to AI?  What is the Rabbit Hole of Social Media News?

What is the history & future of Journalism?

Youtube is an American company, but TikTok is not.   What does that say about the information that will become available on these platforms?

Case Study:   Old News:  Arab Spring

Case Study:   New News:  TBD based on student interest.

Book:  Losing the News - what will change when print news is no longer available?

 

Unit 4 - Creating Infographics  

Interpreting Infographics and Creating them for your own project

 

Unit 5 - Your Own Project.  

Students will be creating a Digital Zine using the skills they have now learned on a project of their own choice.   

 

Spring:

Unit 6 - Journalism of the Future 

 

Unit 7 - Get Published 

• PRINT

  • HARO (Help A Reporter Out)

  • Signal, etc

• SOCIAL

• Online:  YOUTUBE

 

Unit 8 -Writing an Informative Piece AND getting it published 

 

Unit 9 - Writing an Opinion Piece AND getting it published 

 

Unit 10 - Your Last Zine….