Tech+Enhanced+Learning+Episode

**Tech Enhanced Learning Episode** Tech enhanced portions of lesson can be found in PURPLE or LINKED BELOW. ENJOY! Technology enhances this lesson by allowing the teacher more time to instruct while simultaneously creating a more interactive and sensory oriented environment for the students.

The American Media: Unpacking Subtle Bias Target Group: This lesson could be given to any age group above sixth grade. This lesson, as it stands, targets a media or English class of mixed grade high school students in the latter part of the school year.  Bloom Levels: Analysis and Application

Learning Target: Students will understand the implications of voice and bias in the media. Students will apply this knowledge to their own experience with the media. Students will begin to explore neutral view writing.

Evidence of Learning: Students will identify media bias in internet articles verbally in groups and then with the class. Students will reflect on what they found in journal form. Students will apply their knowledge of bias to write a neutral article of a current event taking place in either their life or the life of the school.

Anticipatory Set: The students enter the class, sit at their seats and begin journaling on this prompt: “Discuss an event at school or an occurrence in your own life where you have very strong opinions.” Encouraging words: The Administration, significant others, your best friend, the person at school who you despise, Mr. Winkelmann’s curriculum. (NOTE: Encouraging words are words I will include in every journal prompt I use in class to help the students generate ideas) The Killers [|"Mr. Brightside"] plays in the background while they write. Justification: Mr. Brightside is an emotional song about a man struggling with jealousy because the girl he wants is spending her time with someone else. Many students can relate to this heartwrenching story so ideally it will illicit stronger responses in their papers. Transition into lesson: Ask a few students who feel comfortable to share the main theme of their writing for that day and why they feel passionate about it.

Communication of Target: “You just finished journaling about a story that, ideally, evoked some emotion and passion from you. Today we will be exploring our wonderful American media, specifically, the art of journalism. Who can tell me the difference between journaling, what you just finished doing, and journalism.” Ask for questions, affirming accurate journaling descriptions while looking specifically for one of the following words in the students’ responses concerning journalism: Neutral, bias, impartial, not taking sides, and other synonyms. Upon receiving one of these desired words (or not) I continue with/redirect to: “Exactly/I was looking for unbiased. Journalism, historically has been defined as “The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.” That was the first definition in the New American Heritage Dictionary.

Check for Understanding: Show me with your hand, on a scale of one to five, how accurate you believe that definition to be concerning how the media currently presents information; one being “that definition is way off” and five being “spot on”. (Quickly verbally assess where class stands on definition, and if they lean one way or another, ask a few students why they feel the class is leaning that way).

Input: Hand out current article (in this case, quick BBC blurb about South Asian Youth). Ask students to quickly read article, note the lack of biased language. [|BRING UP ARTICLE ON SMARTBOARD.] Justification: Will use smartboard to underline and identify student ideas, helping entire class follow along. Abrupt Stop: Ask students why this is important. Expect blank stares. Invite students to join you in the search for hidden messages.

Input: Discuss intentional bias versus unintentional messages. “Intentional bias used to be found in editorials and propaganda papers that proudly wore the badge of their bias. Now, news organizations claim to be unbiased, and yet have very fundamental slants and opinions present in the facts they present and the stories they choose to cover. More on hidden intentional bias in the news at (current time in fifteen minutes). I want to quickly discuss a thread that we will carry for the rest of our time in this class, unintentional messages. Often, simply covering a topic conveys messages to the reader that are not anticipated.”

Modeling: Write HEADLINE on SMARTBOARD : "Students at Seattle University are stupid, study suggests." Model analysis of headline: “Are students at Seattle U stupid? Don’t answer that. Do you see how just the title of an article can change the way someone views students at Seattle U. Now, if you read the article, and it stated that SU students were surveyed and only one in five could name the second president of the United States, you would note that they were just uninformed, not stupid. Often, journalists cover stories because they think they are interesting and will draw readership and don’t intend to convey the underlying messages of their story… Or they do. But, assuming our definition of journalism is true and journalists just want to report stories with as little bias as possible…

Guided Practice: Have students read article again, underlining possible biases. Have students discuss what they found in small groups for 3 minutes. Bring them back to a class discussion.  UNDERLINE WORDS in ARTICLE ON SMARTBOARD. Justification: By underlining things in the article in a word document on the Smartboard it saves the teacher the time and effort of having to write the article on the white board and erase/fix the marks made by the underlining.  Input: And now for tonight’s top story: Blatant bias in the media! These are the exact same article except for the headlines. What is different or telling about the headlines? Specifically, what kind of tone does the language create? Write headlines on whiteboard. Give students time to think.

Movement: Vote with your feet! Who likes chocolate… vanilla? Mixed together (point to center)?  USE SMARTBOARD WORD OR PPT (for better visual effects) document with Chocolate, Vanilla and mixed together on different sides (with pictures!)

Input: Take your seats please. Now what if I were a news organization and stated that studies say chocolate increases your lifespan while vanilla could give you a urinary tract infection. Or conversely what if I said that vanilla cured cancer and chocolate caused it? Or that chocolate alone was poisonous and vanilla caused your teeth to fall out but together they create the perfect, muscle building ice cream. MMmm. There was some truth to some of those, and others were complete fabrications but you get the point.

Independent Practice: I would like you to now take a look at these two articles (hand out MSNBC and Fox congressional articles). You have the majority of the remainder of class to identify the method of bias used by both news organizations and the intention of their article. If you would like to work in a group of two or three, you are welcome to, but please use quiet tones. A few of you will present your findings at the end of class. If you have any questions, please raise your hand and I will do my best to help you without giving you the answer.

Closure: Reconvene. Have a few students discuss what they found. Ask students to recap class from the beginning to end. Ask the students why this lesson was important (again)? Give students homework assignment: Take your journal page from today home and rewrite it from a neutral perspective, carefully considering both sides of the issue. Max length: three double spaced pages. Min: Two double-spaced pages. This will be due (in three days) and I highly encourage you to attend my office hours (in two days) if you are having problems with your bias. If your journal was too personal, write an unbiased report on a controversial topic in this school or local community.