Unit 7: Power through Media
Weeks 10-13 Calendar- Spring Semester (20 Days)
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Rationale
In our seventh unit students will learn about a facet of power which is extremely prevalent in their own lives: media. Students will begin the unit by completing a technology survey which will have them reflect on the role that technology and the media have on their own lives. From there, we will begin our novel for the unit, Feed by M.T. Anderson. This novel presents student with a dystopic look at what the future could be like when we rely on technology and consumerism to run our lives. From there students will dive into study of three major topics in the novel: media control, consumer habits, and environmental effects. Students will complete activities for each of these topics which will require them to consider how each topic works in the novel as well as in their daily lives. For the final project, students will combine their knowledge of social media impact and research done on environmental concerns to create a call to action. Students will be using social media with the hope of getting their community involved in a project to help the environment.
All activities and readings in this unit are designed to help guide students in their final Call to Action project. This assignment will require students to activate knowledge on digital literacies. "Media and digital literacies are rapidly being recognized as more important for language arts teachers to address, given the importance of students joining our online and digital 'participatory culture'" (Beach, Thein, Webb, Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, 38). It is important to reach students through a literacy that they are both comfortable with and will also be expected to be fluent in in the work world. Technology is an important facet of today's education system and it is crucial to help students' proficiency in digital literacies. Technology will also be invaluable in this assignment in its ability to help students work reach a wide audience. The goal of this assignment is help student voices reach and impact the larger community. By addressing current, environmental issues, students will also be participating in civic engagement. "Helping students acquire an institutional or civic perspective will aid them in understanding how their identities are constructed through membership" (Beach, Thein, Webb, Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, 64). This final unit assignment will help students engage with their community as active, responsible citizens.
All activities and readings in this unit are designed to help guide students in their final Call to Action project. This assignment will require students to activate knowledge on digital literacies. "Media and digital literacies are rapidly being recognized as more important for language arts teachers to address, given the importance of students joining our online and digital 'participatory culture'" (Beach, Thein, Webb, Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, 38). It is important to reach students through a literacy that they are both comfortable with and will also be expected to be fluent in in the work world. Technology is an important facet of today's education system and it is crucial to help students' proficiency in digital literacies. Technology will also be invaluable in this assignment in its ability to help students work reach a wide audience. The goal of this assignment is help student voices reach and impact the larger community. By addressing current, environmental issues, students will also be participating in civic engagement. "Helping students acquire an institutional or civic perspective will aid them in understanding how their identities are constructed through membership" (Beach, Thein, Webb, Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, 64). This final unit assignment will help students engage with their community as active, responsible citizens.
Goals
- Understand the role media plays in defining power
- Examine the impact of consumerism on environmental health
- Recognize the impact of advertisements and social media
- Interpret how an author's language influences perception of a text
Standards Addressed
- Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. (CCSS: RL.8.2)
- Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced. (CCSS: RI.8.8)
- Explain how authors use language to influence audience perceptions of events, people, and ideas/Explain how word choice and sentence structure are used to achieve specific effects (such as tone, voice, and mood (CCSS: L.8.4)
- Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest. (CCSS: SL.8.5)
Texts
Feed, by M.T. Anderson
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now. (Overview from Amazon.com)
Readings: "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman and "Households Abandoning Cable and Satellite for Streaming" by
Larry Magid
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now. (Overview from Amazon.com)
Readings: "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman and "Households Abandoning Cable and Satellite for Streaming" by
Larry Magid
Activities and Assessments
Technology Survey
Each student will be given and will then fill out a technology survey. I will compile the survey results on the board and we will discuss which statements students had the most disagreements with. I will then share the results of the NPR Survey and we will discuss how the survey results compare. Later in the unit, Students will be given a new copy of the technology survey and split into groups. Groups will fill out the survey questions as they think M.T. Anderson would respond. As a class, we will then discuss what the author is trying to communicate about technology through Feed. Students will reflect on class discussion with a short (250 word) blog response and comment on a classmate's response.
Students will be assessed on the completion of their technology survey and their collaborative completion of the author's answers. Students' blog responses will be assessed on their length, ability to answer the prompt, and knowledge drawn from the technology survey.
Media Power Houses Debate
Students will read the articles "What Liberal Media?" I will then present students on information on media corporate ownership, including Fox News, Disney/ABC, AOL/Time Warner, RupertMurdoch, Comcast, ect. Students will then read "Households Abandoning Cable and Satellite for Streaming". Students will write pros and cons for streaming vs. cable while reading these articles considering who they think should have power through media. We will then have a class debate regarding this topic.
This assignment will be assessed on student's participation in the class debate. Students must contribute insightful contributions to the discussion drawing on information from the two articles.
Teen Consumer Habits
Students will begin by answering the question "What do you spend money on? Who/what influences how you spend your money?" in their journals. Students will then examine popular teen magazines to try and define teen consumer norms. They will create a collage from magazine clippings showing pictures, words, or phrases used in ads which appeal to them. Students will hang their collages around the room and perform a gallery walk viewing their classmate's collages. While viewing the collages, students should consider similarities and differences between what appeals to themselves and to their classmates. As a class we will discuss commonalities and create a list of teen consumer habits.
Students will be assessed on their completion of the collage, with appropriate images, and participation in class discussion.
Environmental Issues Research
Students will chose an environmental issue that they are passionate about. Topics include, but aren't limited to, global warming, species extinction, land pollution, air pollution, or resource depletion. Students will then complete research on their chosen topic, defining the issue, and examining what is causing the damage and what is being done about it. Students should be looking specifically at the role using technology is playing in these environmental issues. Students should begin considering what they could do to help prevent their environmental issue.
Students will be assessed on the completion of their research by adequately defining the issue, its cause, and what people are doing about it.
Each student will be given and will then fill out a technology survey. I will compile the survey results on the board and we will discuss which statements students had the most disagreements with. I will then share the results of the NPR Survey and we will discuss how the survey results compare. Later in the unit, Students will be given a new copy of the technology survey and split into groups. Groups will fill out the survey questions as they think M.T. Anderson would respond. As a class, we will then discuss what the author is trying to communicate about technology through Feed. Students will reflect on class discussion with a short (250 word) blog response and comment on a classmate's response.
Students will be assessed on the completion of their technology survey and their collaborative completion of the author's answers. Students' blog responses will be assessed on their length, ability to answer the prompt, and knowledge drawn from the technology survey.
Media Power Houses Debate
Students will read the articles "What Liberal Media?" I will then present students on information on media corporate ownership, including Fox News, Disney/ABC, AOL/Time Warner, RupertMurdoch, Comcast, ect. Students will then read "Households Abandoning Cable and Satellite for Streaming". Students will write pros and cons for streaming vs. cable while reading these articles considering who they think should have power through media. We will then have a class debate regarding this topic.
This assignment will be assessed on student's participation in the class debate. Students must contribute insightful contributions to the discussion drawing on information from the two articles.
Teen Consumer Habits
Students will begin by answering the question "What do you spend money on? Who/what influences how you spend your money?" in their journals. Students will then examine popular teen magazines to try and define teen consumer norms. They will create a collage from magazine clippings showing pictures, words, or phrases used in ads which appeal to them. Students will hang their collages around the room and perform a gallery walk viewing their classmate's collages. While viewing the collages, students should consider similarities and differences between what appeals to themselves and to their classmates. As a class we will discuss commonalities and create a list of teen consumer habits.
Students will be assessed on their completion of the collage, with appropriate images, and participation in class discussion.
Environmental Issues Research
Students will chose an environmental issue that they are passionate about. Topics include, but aren't limited to, global warming, species extinction, land pollution, air pollution, or resource depletion. Students will then complete research on their chosen topic, defining the issue, and examining what is causing the damage and what is being done about it. Students should be looking specifically at the role using technology is playing in these environmental issues. Students should begin considering what they could do to help prevent their environmental issue.
Students will be assessed on the completion of their research by adequately defining the issue, its cause, and what people are doing about it.
Culminating Assignment and Assessment
Social Media Call to Action
For their final assignment, students will use social media to express an environmental issue. While studying social media, we will learn about different programs like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, ect and how they work to spread information to a large audience. Students will pick one of these social media sites to use as a medium to present an environmental issue to a large audience. Students will write a proposition on how a large number of people could work together to help improve their researched environmental issue. (Such as everyone could plant a tree or recycle their Sunday newspaper.) Students will express their goal through their chosen social media in attempt to get a large number of people to participate.
Students will be assessed on the effectiveness of their environmental goal through their chosen social media. Is their presentation effective in their social media? Is the community responsive to their call to action? Is their environmental goal appropriate for the environmental issue that they researched? Students will be awarded extra credit for proof that their community goal was actually carried out.
*This culminating activity will require students to use information learned in class discussion about social media, statistics used from the technology survey, and research collected on environmental issues. This activity is designed to show students how they can use technology in a positive way to achieve a large goal. This culminating assignment will provide students with one possible modality to use as part of their student choice culminating assessment at the end of the year.
For their final assignment, students will use social media to express an environmental issue. While studying social media, we will learn about different programs like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, ect and how they work to spread information to a large audience. Students will pick one of these social media sites to use as a medium to present an environmental issue to a large audience. Students will write a proposition on how a large number of people could work together to help improve their researched environmental issue. (Such as everyone could plant a tree or recycle their Sunday newspaper.) Students will express their goal through their chosen social media in attempt to get a large number of people to participate.
Students will be assessed on the effectiveness of their environmental goal through their chosen social media. Is their presentation effective in their social media? Is the community responsive to their call to action? Is their environmental goal appropriate for the environmental issue that they researched? Students will be awarded extra credit for proof that their community goal was actually carried out.
*This culminating activity will require students to use information learned in class discussion about social media, statistics used from the technology survey, and research collected on environmental issues. This activity is designed to show students how they can use technology in a positive way to achieve a large goal. This culminating assignment will provide students with one possible modality to use as part of their student choice culminating assessment at the end of the year.