This Thematic Unit has been created to help students explore the media’s role in social justice from Reconstruction to the present. Students will determine how the ways in which information gets transmitted can affect the messages being sent. They will discuss how the media shapes their personal experiences and how newspaper, television, and film coverage have positively and negatively impacted different groups of people. Students will gain the ability to interpret media in order to determine the validity, objectivity, or bias of the information presented, enabling them to make informed decisions based on critical analysis.
By teaching our students to question, interpret, scrutinize, and analyze different forms of media, we plan to give them the tools to become well-informed citizens. In addtion, students will understand how and why the role of the media has changed over time. The teachers will draw from their individual disciplines – Social Science, English, Math, and Science – to introduce our students to different types and uses of media.
Students will become stronger in each discipline through critical appraisal and analysis of primary sources and secondary media, engagement in writing simulations, creation of raps, historical newscasts, and a host of other related activities. They will use hands on research and primary sources to become more familiar with positive and negative aspects of the media. Students will be exposed to different teaching modalities to maintain interest and enthusiasm for the subject over a four-week period. Students will refine critical thinking skills, writing skills, and analytical skills.
Overall Goals:
- To introduce students to different types of media
- To teach students about subjectivity and objectivity
Learning Goals:
- Improve literacy in all four disciplines (English, Social Science, Math, and Science).
- Analyze and interpret data
- Write well-founded arguments
- Better understand subjectivity and objectivity
- Better understand the advantages and limitations of different types of media
- Determine how the media affects them as individuals, their community, and the world
- Compare and contrast how the roles of the media have changed
- Gain appropriate 11th grade level California standards in English, Math, Science, and Social Science.
Demographics:
Students are in the 11th grade in a fictional high school in San Francisco. The class makeup is as follows:
- 40% African American
- 23% Asian/Pacific Islander
- 20% Latino
- 17% Caucasian
COMMUNITY DEMOGRAPHICS:
The school is located South of Market near Bessie Carmichael Elementary School. This is San Francisco's District 6, which has been targeted as a redevelpoment and revitalization zone by the San Francisco Redevelopment Association. San Francisco Police report a 10.7% drop in crime in this area from 2001 to 2002. Several economic and community revitalization projects are under way, including an extensive park and recreation project that will serve the schools in this area. South of Market's average household income is approximately $24,500 per year. Since the dot-com boom of the 90's, this area has been experiencing a period of gentrification. In addition, South of Market hosts a large immigrant population, especially in the case of Filipinos.
SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS:
70% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. 70% of the children’s mothers graduated form high school, 5% attended college.
GENDER:
52% female, 48% male. Special resources and support available to LGBT students.