Innovative English/language arts news literacy lessons debut

The American Society of News Editors and the Journalism Education Association in partnership with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute offer free news literacy lessons for English/language arts, science, math and social studies teachers to use in secondary-school classrooms. The lessons are available at WhyNewsMatters.org, SchoolJournalism.org and jea.org. Funding for the project was provided by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

The News Literacy Corner will highlight each of these subject areas. This week, English/language arts is covered.

The English/language arts lessons were developed by three educators to help middle school and high school teachers incorporate news literacy within the English/language arts classroom. These lessons are aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License allows teachers to adapt the lessons for educational purposes.

“As much as we English teachers want our students to love novels and other literary forms, the truth is that the majority of what they will read after graduating is informational text,” said Laura Mayer, a high school instructional coach who helped develop the lessons. “If we can coach our students to seek and consume the news in multiple forms, and if we can empower them to analyze and evaluate the sources and content of this information, we are preparing them to be college and career ready, poised to compete with globally competent peers all over the world.”

There are nine lessons, and each focuses on a different aspect of news literacy. They are also divided into different grade levels. Materials for each lesson are provided.

“News literacy brings relevancy into the ELA classroom by utilizing timely topics, challenging students to sharpen their critical thinking skills in detecting subject bias and point of view while engaging in conversations about current events,” said Olga Kokino, an English/language arts teacher who helped develop the lessons. “They acquire more experience in analyzing how the media package their stories to get a particular effect or viewpoint across by deconstructing the components that make the story and deciphering the nuances of language. They become more thoughtful, intelligent consumers of media.”

The seventh- and eighth-grade lessons, developed by English teacher Hosea Williams, are titled “News Literacy & Literary Analysis,” “Using Syllogism, Deductive Reasoning, and Argument Evaluation to Analyze a News Media Article,” and “Visual News Literacy During the King Years.”

Williams said he wanted provide teachers with challenging lessons that help students think critically.

“Getting kids to understand local, state, national, even international news, it’s just going to be beneficial as they look at reading other texts.”

The ninth- and 10th-grade lessons, developed by Kokino, are titled “News Literacy & Career Exploration,” “Ebola Facts & Fallacies,” and “News Media & the Argumentative Essay.”

“Students sharpen their communicative skills of reading, listening, writing and responding while also developing higher order thinking skills,” Kokino said. “The news literacy angle provides the tools for students to become more logical, original thinkers and critical consumers of media, paving the way for them to become more active learners and informed citizens participating in a democratic society.”

The 11th- and 12th-grade lessons, developed by Mayer, are titled “Curating a Complete News Story,” “Text-Mapping the News” and “Literary Journalism as Genre.”

“News media is current; it’s relevant; it’s easily accessible in the palm of the hand,” said Mayer. “It’s a sure ‘sell’ to students. If teachers harness the power of such text by incorporating these lessons in their classrooms, they may have an easier time implementing the CCSS requirement to build knowledge through content-rich, informational text. These lessons can be modified or used again with new texts, so they actually serve as a template for teachers to create their own informational text lessons.”

Click here to download the lessons.

To learn more about teaching news literacy and receive information about available resources, join the News and Information Professional Learning Community.