Media Literacy

Three reasons why we should teach media literacy are teaching students to read between the lines when dealing with online information is important to insuring that they know the difference between bias and credible information, by not integrating technology in the classroom it makes it harder on students to be expected to know how to approach certain assignments-research papers and as educators internet based searches can be compared to reading a book by turning the page instead of by selecting a hyperlink to another page, we should think of media literacy as being no different than literacy in general but the most important thing I learned is teaching media literacy or integrating newer technologies in the classroom is not part of the normal curriculum in schools, which for the sake of our students, it should be.

How I would implement media literacy in the classroom would be in form of having students critique magazine covers and then create their own magazine cover using the elements of art and principals of design. This would allow them to pinpoint what works and what does not work in composition and see why this framework is so important. As practice students could look at other art magazine covers to get an idea of what to aim towards and what to avoid. The assignment would be to create a work that is going to be on the cover of Art Monthly, a special feature into the life of the artist, aka them. Their work should be the size of a magazine and may be horizontal or vertical layout. This can translate as a physical cutting and pasting project or an online cropping of digital images.

This magazine cover has both good and bad elements. They used the logo and style of the artist's work to blend the styles and not take away from the piece presented. The text copies the color of the woman's face adding unity between the writing and the artwork. However, the fact that the woman is looking away from the text draws attention to the bottom left corner of the page and there is nothing to bring your eye back to the words, so the flow is off. Perhaps if the words and the image were flipped it may have led to you to want to read the text that seems like an afterthought. The point of a magazine is to sell it, nothing except the work makes you want to pick it up and read it.









Examples of Art Magazine Covers
Lesson Plan Example