If you’re not furious, you’re not paying attention.
Developing Critical Literacies: A Four Week Unit
Unit Contents:
- Prefatory Statement
- Class Specification
- Significant Assumptions
- Objectuves or Minnesota State Standards Met
- Possible Whole Class Activites
- Possible Small Group Activites
- Possible Individual Activites
- Ongoing Activites
- Student Resources
- Unit Launch
- Organization of the Unit
- Assessment of the Unit
- Documentation and Teacher Resources
Prefatory Statement:
My unit will be on critical analysis of messages. I believe that it is increasingly important to study the messages that the public receives from their politicians, their corporations, and their media. As the true meanings in messages are increasingly muddled and muddied, it sometimes takes a keen eye and ear to catch the truth behind a statement. Sometimes finding the truth requires research. Being a citizen of a democratic nation comes with the responsibility of being an informed and active citizen. My students, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or class will have to be informed and active citizens. It is my mission to make the methods of persuasion and doublespeak so lucid that the students will recognize them. It was not until I was introduced to such topics that I began to find abundant examples of those trying to clog the channels of communication*. Therefore this unit is to prepare the generations to inform themselves; it will give them the mental illumination to walk through foggy statements and elusive meanings to arrive at the truth, or at least something closer to it.
To accomplish these tasks we will look at three main topics in a three week progression. Topics include: Evaluating Sources, Kinds of Lying, and Elements of Persuasion. Throughout all of these topics the students will be asked to discuss in small and large groups not only the topics, but how they arise in their daily lives. Discussion can range from pop machines in the schools to politics in their cities, states, nations and world.
Students will be doing research, reading in their daily lives, and participating in media coercion. Students, therefore, should know the importance and technique of evaluating sources. Without these skills the students may be easily misled. Hopefully the unit starter will help point this out. With the increased usage of the internet comes a need to be increasingly careful about what you believe. Not everything on the internet is true as the webquest will point out.
There are many tools that people will use to mislead the public. I will ask the class to consider truth to be what the speaker intends to be understood**. This shift from thinking of truth as something the speaker does to something that the receiver experiences is an important distinction and has ethical ramifications. Everyone must be acutely aware of the messages they are receiving and ought to have the skills to know what is really being stated. With knowledge of the techniques of exploitation, comes the ability to exploit others. Therefore, students should be asked to explore how they may avoid misleading others. The ethics of coercion and exploitation is paramount to this unit.
The media asks us to do things every day. Buy this and do that and what is more is that we are often not even aware of, what we are being asked to do, who is asking us, or even that we are being asked! People can fall into believing a message that is baseless. However, after exploring the elements of persuasion, students will be much more apt to know when something just doesn’t feel right.
Students will have the opportunity to explore these topics in discussion. They will be given the task to find examples in their daily lives and share some of the examples with the class.
In short, I believe that with a heightened awareness of language comes an ability to navigate truth.
Class Specification:
I believe that parts of this unit would be appropriate for any age level. However, I will target high school Juniors and Seniors. The Unit is not only appropriate for all ethnicities, it is a necessity. A teacher with younger students may have to adjust the language and depth of some of the lessons as they can be challenging.
Significant Assumptions:
I think that my students will learn through discussion and practice. I believe that students will learn best if I help them teach themselves. I will ask my students to struggle through language. They will experiment with words and study how others have manipulated language. My students will learn by doing.
Students of this lesson should be come with the ability to participate in small and large group discussions. Discussion is a key part of this unit; if the students don’t know how to do it they should be taught. I expect that the students will be interested in the unit because it plays such an important part in their lives. I assume that my students participate in the media and will be able to find examples of coercion in their lives.
Objectives or Minnesota State Standards Met:
Selections from the 2004/2005 MN. Academic Standards in Language Arts, grades 9-12 (Link to MN. Academic Standards for Language Arts):- The student will demonstrate understanding and communicate effectively through listening and speaking.
- Distinguish between speaker’s opinion and verifiable facts and analyze the credibility of the presentation.
- Understand the effects of media on society and culture.
- Identify and understand essential elements, skills and implications of persuasion, argumentation, and debate as essential oral skills.
- The student will critically analyze information found in electronic and print media, and will use a variety of these sources to learn about a topic and represent ideas.
- Evaluate the accuracy and credibility of information found on Internet sites.
- Evaluate the logic of reasoning in both print and non-print selections.
- Evaluate the source’s point of view, intended audience and authority.
- Determine whether the evidence in a selection is appropriate, adequate and accurate.
- Evaluate the content and effect of persuasive techniques used in print and broadcast media.
- Make informed evaluations about television, radio, film productions, newspapers and magazines with regard to quality of production, accuracy of information, bias, purpose, message and audience.
- Critically analyze the messages and points of view employed in different media, including advertising, news programs, web sites, and documentaries.
- Formulate critical, evaluative questions relevant to a print or non-print selection.
- Critically analyze and evaluate the strategies employed in news broadcasts, documentaries, and web sites related to clarity, accuracy, effectiveness, bias and relevance of facts.
- Demonstrate an understanding of ethics in mass communication and describe the characteristics of ethical and unethical behavior.
Possible Whole Class Activities:
Participation in the following is 30% of unit grade:
- Discussions
- Sharing of found examples
- Evaluation of examples supplied by others
- Minilessons
Possible Small Group Activities:
- Webquest
- Peer review and editing of paper
- In discussion, ask the students to form small groups to discuss the topics first, and then bring the topic to the whole group
- Collection and presentation of selected personal and group examples
Possible Individual Activities:
- Paper (30% of unit grade)
- Journal (30% of unit grade)
- Journal evaluation (10% of unit grade)
- Collection and presentation of personal examples
Ongoing Activites:
- Paper
- Students will be working on an I search paper throughout this unit. The paper will, of course, be on a topic of their choice. Students must follow procedures to evaluate their sources on several criteria to be set by the instructor that may include such items as: Bias, Authority, Timeliness, and use of Loaded Language. These items will be identified and used by the student in the Webquest. Paper assignment attached.
- Journal
- Students will be keeping a journal in which they will document instances where they feel that they are being misled. It will be hard for them at first but by the end of week two they will be fine. Students should have at least 5 examples a week. Examples can range from illegitimate sources, to advertisements, to half truths, to a peer’s actual lie, to a lie of their own. At the beginning of the third week, the students will be asked to reflect on their journals both in writing and discussion.
Student Resources:
- Access to the internet
- Access to visual media: movies, sitcoms, television shows, etc.
- Access to print media: magazines, newspaper, billboards, etc.
- Access to Bollinger's article, "Truth is a Linguistic Question"
- Writing utensils and paper
Unit launch:
Have students read an article that is blatantly untrue. This article may be written by the teacher and should cover a topic important to the students. Perhaps the article could be about a pop band breaking up. For great examples of false articles, teachers could go to The Onion, available at www.theonion.com some advertising and articles on "The Onion" are intended for a mature audience). Make sure the article has good examples of perhaps the following: logical fallacies, loaded language, and poor documentation of sources. Have students read the article and get their responses. Hopefully they bought it, but it doesn’t really matter for the outcome will be the same. In a class discussion, tell the students that the article is completely false and tease out from the students some things that were wrong with the article, and why they were misled by it (if they were).
Organization of Unit:
(D) means that the class should be based, at least partly, on discussion of how the topic at hand affects their daily lives.
- Week One: Evaluating Sources
- Monday- (D) Starter / Importance of Evaluating Sources
- Tuesday- Importance of Evaluating Sources / Journal Start (Microsoft Word Document of Journal Assignment Available Here)
- Wednesday- Evaluating Print and Internet Sources (Lesson Plan Available Here)
- Thursday- Lab Day / Webquest / Paper Start (Webquest Available Here - Microsoft Word Document of Paper Assignment Available Here)
- Friday- Lab Day (Finding and evaluating sources for paper/conferencing)
- Week Two: Kinds of Lying
- Monday- (D) Grammatical / and ethics (Bolinger)
- Tuesday- (D) Linguistic / naming / and ethics (Bolinger)
- Wednesday- (D) Logical Fallacies (i.e. Circular logic) / and ethics (Downes)
- Thursday- Finding examples(Lesson Plan Available Here)
- Friday- Working on presentation / Conferencing
- Week Three: Elements of Persuasion
- Monday- Presentations of examples found to group, selections to class
- Tuesday- Introduction to Elements of Persuasion (Lesson Plan Available Here)
- Wednesday- Ethos / Pathos / Logos (Crewell)
- Thursday- (D) Ethos / Pathos / Logos / and ethics
- Friday- Finding and working with examples / Conferencing / Start Journal Evaluations (Microsoft Word Document of Journal Evaluation Available Here)
- Week Four: Review, Journal Experience, Paper
- Monday- Journal Evaluation Due / Presentations
- Tuesday- (D) Wrap Up Previous Discussions / Discuss Journal Experience
- Wednesday- (D) Journal Experience Continued / Peer Evaluations of Paper
- Thursday- Peer Evaluations of Paper / Conferencing
- Friday- Peer Evaluations of Paper / Conferencing wrap up and Lab Day
- Week Five: Wrap Up
- Monday- (D) Last Thoughts on Unit / Paper Due
Assessment of Unit:
- 30% - Participation in group work and class discussion
- 30% - I search paper (Document of Paper Assignment Available)
- 30% - Journal (Document of Journal Assignment Available)
- 10% - Journal evaluation (Document of Journal Evaluation Available)
- 100% - Toatal
Documentation and Teacher Resources
Available Lesson Plans, Overheads, and Handouts Here: Available Lesson Plans, Overheads, and Handouts
Microsoft Word Document of this Unit Available Here: Microsoft Word Document of this Unit
Barnicle, Alan. “Al Barnicle : Language Arts and Literature.” Webpage. 13 December 2004. http://www.d.umn.edu/~barn0290/portfolio/unit.html. This website contains the unit itself with links to lessons and the webquest.
Bolinger, Dwight. "Truth Is a Linguistic Question". Linguistic for Teachers. Linda Miller Cleary and Michael D. Linn. New York: McGraw Hill, 1993: 542-554. This article contains information important for week two’s exploration of truth. Many of the topics covered in the article can be gleamed from the handout with lying examples.
Cooper, Pamela and Sherwyn Morreale ed. Creating Competent Communicators. Activites for Teaching Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy in Grades 7-12. Scottsdale: Holcomb Hathaway, 2003: 75-78. This book contains three sections: listening, speaking, and medial literacy. Each section comes with an introduction and collection of lessons for use in the 7-12 classrooms. I drew my Journal assignment and evaluation from the activity entitled “My Daily Media” which appears on page 75.
Crewell, Dustin, Melissa Draper, and Colin Mitchell. “The Art of Rhetoric: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos.” Webpage. 13 December 2004. http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/webclass/web/project1/group4/. This webpage is an excellent resource for definitions and examples of pathos, ethos, and logos. It has links to websites that are use pathos, ethos, and logos.
Downes, Stephen. “Stephen’s Guide to the Logical Fallacies.” Webpage. 13 December 2004.
*“Clearing the channels of communication” is a term used by Dwight Bolinger. It is used in his essay “Truth is a linguistic question” which sparked my interest in how people lie and speak the truth in the same breath.
**Bolinger