Activity for Teaching Critical Analysis of News
I very much enjoyed the evening news viewing log and analysis activity assigned by Swiss, so that inspired my own lesson tailored for a high school classroom.
During class students will watch an evening newscast from a local station. Before viewing, students will have been assigned a group and a story focus. For example, one group will be in charge of recording everything they notice about the weather stories, another group will only record information about sports coverage, etc. In addition to the various stories, at least one group will be in charge of watching for opening remarks, teasers, ads, and closing remarks. After gathering data individually, students will meet with their focus group to discuss what they saw and collaboratively create one very detailed viewing log for their assigned news segment. Groups will then respond to a list of critical analysis questions aimed at getting them to examine the content relevancy (or lack thereof), rhetorical devices used to engage viewers, persuasive devices used to guide viewers’ thinking, etc. Finally, students will make evaluative judgments about the effectiveness of the segments they saw. To share the responses to the critical analysis questions and conclusions with the class, each group will create a voice thread. One person from the group will be in charge of summarizing the segment, others for reporting answers to the critical analysis questions, and others for reporting conclusions. Time in class will be spent on student’s individually watching/listening to each other’s voice threads and commenting on the findings using the technology.
A final step would be to ask students to create their own news segment. In doing so, groups would be charged with again considering content, rhetorical strategies, and persuasive devices. This time students would need to use these strategies well in their own news segment to demonstrate their understanding of them. Students would first agree on a story to report that is relevant and meaningful to their lives. Next, students would storyboard the segment explicitly including content and techniques. Then students would film their segment and edit it before presenting the final product and a reflection on the process to the class. Clearly, if students actually create a segment using technology, many mini lessons, especially on film terms, camera techniques, and editing would be a part of the overall unit plan, unless students had the background knowledge from a previous lesson. However, whenever possible, I think that in asking students to go the extra step to create instead of stopping at analysis, we receive a truly authentic assessment of student understanding of content.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Steph--
ReplyDeleteI really like the assignment you created after watching the 1/2 hour news broadcast (I agree with what you wrote, by the way, about not much of value being presented). I think splitting the class into groups is a smart thing to do--when I've tried to do critical viewing assignments in the past, students often have felt overwhelmed because there is so much to consider. Focusing on only one type of story is a good way to combat this. I also like the idea of a voice thread. I'm not familiar with this term, but it sounds like a good way to share the burden. Thanks!