Making Meaning Through Media: Scaffolding Academic and Critical Media Literacy With Texts About Schooling

Abstract

This study investigated how an interdisciplinary first‐year seminar focused on representations of schooling in popular culture supported the acquisition of an academic version of critical media literacy. The authors explore how tapping into students’ funds of knowledge, constructing carefully scaffolded assignments, and offering targeted, personalized feedback allowed the instructors to support students as they acquired academic and critical media literacy through recursive acts of meaning making. Findings suggest that implementing these practices may help students perform close counterreadings of media texts and compose evidence‐based arguments that examine the clear and hidden lessons that these texts teach.

Popular Culture Remixes as an Opening for Critical Dialogue with ELA Teacher Candidates

“…Given the long history of literacy scholars working to understand, circumvent, and, in many cases, resist representations of teaching and school(ing) in popular culture (Brown, 2015; Fisher et al, 2008; Kelly & Brower, 2017)—particularly in the context of preservice teacher identity development (Kaşkaya et al, 2011)—it is especially relevant to extend this consideration to how these representations are currently manifesting on YouTube. Such an approach proves necessary with videos circulating at a frequency hitherto unseen and through compartmentalizing means that effectively distance representations from those who might contend otherwise.…”

Critical Media Literacy for Elementary Students in an After-School Programme

“…Children's increased exposure to media and technology necessitates an understanding of how it aff ects their thinking about political, economic, historical, and social contexts (Kellner & Share, 2007;Kelly & Brower, 2017). A critical media literacy approach encourages students and teachers to learn using new modes of communication and popular culture so they can critically read media texts and build understanding of the political, cultural, economic, historical, and social contexts of the messages (Flores-Koulish & Smith-D'Arezzo, 2016;Kellner & Share, 2007;Tobin, 2000).…”