Lesson Planning with Buckingham's Four Key Concepts

Ten More Lies They Tell You in High School

1. You will use algebra in your adult lives.
2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away.
3. Students must stay on campus for lunch.
4. The new textbooks will arrive any day now.
5. Colleges care about more than your SAT scores.
6. We are enforcing the dress code.
7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon.
8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals.
9. There is nothing wrong with summer school.
10. We want to hear what you have to say.

--Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson, 148.

When I was reading the section titled "Representation" in Buckingham's text, I was reminded of this segment from Speak. It shows how differently Melinda and the other students at Merryweather High feel about their school compared to the opinions of their administration, parents, or teachers. I like this idea of teaching students about realism, truth, bias, interpretations, and influences through an activity that involves two different looks at the same subject from different viewpoints. As Buckingham said, "Students can explore questions about accuracy and bias by being asked to produce contrasting representations of an institution or an area that they are familiar with, perhaps aiming at different audiences" (59).

On this topic, I thought that students could create a sort of advertisement poster for their school-- two versions for two different perspectives. For example, their poster aimed at students might showcase the extracurricular clubs, vending machines, gym facilities, pep rallies, prom memories, etc. By contrast, a poster made with an adult target audience in mind might highlight test scores, course offerings, calendar items, and opportunities for parent involvement. Just like Speak shows, students are going to notice and internalize different things than the adults and authority in their lives will. By asking students to think about their own school, they're working with a subject familiar to them while considering questions about representation. Also, as they arrange the images and text on their design layout, they will be making "linguistic choices," identifying the shared conventions and patterns of variation in media language, as Buckingham details on pages 55-57. We can ask our students to analyze and reflect upon why they made the choices they did: Why are some images larger than others? Why are the images arranged in this layout? What does the color and font suggest? etc.

We were asking questions like this not too long ago in one of my classes. To teach us about different directors' styles, my professor had us watch eight different music videos in class. (First of all, this is an awesome hook that totally draws in students' attention). We compared four music videos from one director and another four videos from a different director. Based upon this activity, I really understand why Buckingham emphasizes comparison activities so much; I think that without comparison, students may not fully understand difference and choice in media literacy.

I could see this activity working to teach a variety of subjects, whether it is 'style' or 'scenery' or 'dialogue' or 'props'-- the possibilities are endless. Comparison is so valuable I have seen it manifest in my other classes as well. Just a little while ago, my T.A. passed out short scripts to groups in our class and assigned each group a certain performance genre. We rehearsed our scenes briefly and then presented them to the class. By participating as performers and as viewers, all of us were better able to internalize the similarities and differences between these genres through side-by-side comparison.

Interestingly enough, one of these genres was "realism," which raises the issues that Buckingham proposes on page 58: Is it intended to be realistic? Why do some texts seem more realistic than others? The other genres we looked at were surrealism, epic theatre, etc. In fact, I was reminded of Brecht's epic theatre when Buckingham says that media language "involves making the familiar strange by looking in detail at how texts are composed and put together" (57). Comparison of design choices and genres helps students see what is 'strange' or what is 'familiar' to them. Based on these observations, students can begin to understand how media producers make choices that represent certain interpretations or target certain audiences. Students pick out which choices are "shared conventions" and which are "patterns of variation" from genres (57).

I was especially impressed with the learning activities revolving around The Simpsons from Buckingham's article. I couldn't believe that so many media literacy activities were created just to explore this one show. I love how Buckingham asks teachers to incorporate all four areas of focus in our lesson planning (production, language, representation  and audience), and Buckingham shows how realistic/possible this is through this extremely innovative example centered around The Simpsons. Once again, these learning activities teach students about genre, comparison, and conventions, but it goes further in teaching them about the industry, character, and debates involving positive and negative reviews of the TV show. I'm inspired to use these four key concepts as a sort of checklist in my lesson planning. It seems like activities that illuminate all four concepts are consequently well-rounded and likely to reach all learning types. For example, Buckingham's lesson engages dramatic learners through simulation but also gives analytic learners opportunities to scrutinize and evaluate the different production processes, values, and images presented by The Simpsons.

I would like to frequently employ videos and scripts in my classroom in these comparison contexts in order to teach media literacy. I'll have my students create two looks on the same subject to analyze audience and composition tactics. I'll have them perform or write scripts from differing genres in order to contemplate how media representation and production presents just one view of a complex subject. I'll have them research and reflect upon the industry processes and elicited responses (both positive and negative).