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I Hear America Reading

English Teacher's Companion

Overview
Here you will find sample assignments, links, and resources to help you better incorporate the study of different media into your curriculum.

Essential Media Connections

1. Listen Up! Messages from America's Youth: Since January, 1999, Listen Up!has engaged more than 1,000 youth from diverse backgrounds in the researching, writing, production, editing and distribution of their own media.  By creating these messages, Listen Up! producers are learning important life and communication skills.  They are portraying themselves and their peers in a positive light, on their own terms, and in their own voices. Listen Up! is part of the Merrow Report.
2. Media Literacy Online Project: Their goal is to provide a support service for teachers, and others, concerned with the influence of media in the lives of children and youth. They have created this comprehensive media literacy resource collection to facilitate that objective.
3. Pacific News Service: "We produce YO!(Youth Outlook),The Beat Within, Poetry Television, Silicon Valley Debug and Roaddawgz, writings and art reflecting California's youth cultures. We author magazine articles and reports and produce essays for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and NPR. We conceive and co-produce films, including the Academy Award-winning 'Breathing Lessons.'"
4. Media Matters: This website supplements the PBS program Media Matters. It provides additional resources that complement their show and support media education.
5. Douglas Rushkoff's Website: Rushkoff's book Coercion and his articles about the media and its techniques are essential reading for those studying the media; this is because the media uses his techniques in ways he never intended. He has subsequently devoted his energy to helping people learn to read the media.
6. The Newseum: The Newseum, the interactive museum of news, takes visitors behind the scenes to see and experience how and why news is made. Visitors can be reporters or television newscasters; relive the great news stories of all time through multimedia exhibits, artifacts and news memorabilia; and see today’s news as it happens on a block-long video news wall.
7. AdBusters: We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century. To this end, Adbusters Media Foundation publishes Adbusters magazine, operates this website and offers its creative services through PowerShift, our advocacy advertising agency.
   
8. Texas State Media Literacy Standards: This link will take you to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading Subchapter C. High School. If you scroll down to number 20 and 21 you will find their state standards for viewing and representing.
9. The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The foundation focuses on four main priorities: the Newseum, First Amendment freedoms, newsroom diversity and world press freedom.
10. "Literacy for the Information Age," by Renee Hobbs. This article provides an excellent overview of media literacy.
11. KQED Media Education Resources: KQED Media Education Resources: The San Francisco PBS station provides abundant resources for teaching students critical media skills.
12. Sherry Turkle's Website @ MIT: Life on the Screen and her articles about the Internet offer profound insights into the meaning of the Internet. Her website includes articles worth reading for those interested in the media and especially the Internet.
13. The MIT Media Laboratory: This is where they create the future. Fun, useful, and important resources on their "Noteworthy" page.
14. CNN Newsroom for Educators: This site offers resources and stories you can use in the classroom.
15. "Kids & Media @ The New Millennium" (Kaiser Family Foundation Report): Kids & Media @ The New Millennium is one of the most comprehensive national public studies ever conducted of young people's media use. The study, based on a nationally representative sample of more than 3,000 children ages 2 -18, shows how much time kids spend watching TV and movies, using computers, playing video games, listening to music, and reading. The report also looks at how much oversight parents exert over their children's media use, and addresses numerous other issues such as how kids use media, whether 'new' media is replacing traditional media, and whether use of new media varies by age, gender or race.
16. JustThink Foundation: Through our programs students and teachers are encouraged to think critically to gain a greater comprehension of and perspective on media and technology, so they can:

• Understand media messages
• Master media and technology tools
• Express their ideas effectively
• Engage positively with local and worldwide communities