In order to learn critical analysis of the news I would show about 15 minutes of the news broadcast during class and instruct the class to take notes on what they see. They should write down what story is the longest and shortest, as well as what the content of the different stories are. I would then split up the students into small groups and have them discuss what they just saw. I would pass out a list of discussion questions that are as follows:
1) What stories were the longest? Shortest? Why?
2) How many of the stories were news as opposed to entertainment stories?
3) How much time is spent on weather and sports compared to hard news stories?
4) What were the most interesting sections to you? What were the least interesting?
5) What do you notice about the role gender plays in the news stories as well as within the newscasters themselves? What about the role race plays?
Then I’d bring the class back together and go over the answers as a group. I would then introduce the concept of news bias and brainstorm with the class the reasons why the news anchors would want to report more on sports, weather, and entertainment stories than hard news stories. I could then point out (using question 4) how their interests shape what the newscasters chose to report on.
Hi Megan,
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a fun assignment. I wish I had done a little more critical analysis in high school and even college. It is always a good thing to break things down on a meta level - especially the 24/7 "entertainment" news we are all bombarded with.
- Joe
Megan-
ReplyDeleteThis assignment looks to be useful for a wide array of students- but how will you address the needs of diverse learners with this assignment? I think that (as a language arts teacher myself) I often forget to address the needs of ELLs and special ed students, and because this lesson talks a lot about language and bias, it really recommends itself well to an ELL focused lesson.