Student Resources: 

• Graphic Organizer: Information Presentation Example and/or Graphic Organizer: Information Presentation Blank Graphic Organizer

Teacher Resources: 

• Answer Key for Graphic Organizer Example

Facilitation Notes 

• Teachers should choose which forms of media they want students to work with (newspapers, magazines, Internet news sites, or video clips) before beginning the class. Teachers can compile a list on an LMS or provide a printed student resource. Consider paywalls and advertisements as a possible barrier to students accessing online articles.
• Teachers may also want to create a list of political topics for students to focus on as local, state, or national topics all provide various options.
• Teachers may choose to have students look for one political event, person, or happening covered by the three distinctive styles: coverage, analysis, and commentary (more challenging), or keep the searches open to a wider range of options.
• There are supporting lessons on “A Historical Look at the Role of the Media” and “Being a Critical Consumer of Media” that can be used along with or independently from this lesson.

Engage 

• Ask students to think/record/share a time that they responded in a positive way to story shared by someone they did not know, possibly through TV or they read about or saw online. 

Scaffolding note: Students are likely to want to share the story itself. Focus on drawing out their reactions/responses. (Donating to a cause, volunteering time, reading more about a topic, asking family about their experiences, sharing or “liking” a post, emotional response, etc.) Keep the conversations within the safe community built in your classroom space.  

• Transition: Tell students you asked them to think about positive reactions to information that has been shared with them so they could be reminded they are impacted by the way people present information to them. They are likely able to recall a time in which they had a negative reaction as well. When information is provided to us, we often respond to it. Today’s lesson is a little different than this example because it is about the media. However, how the media presents information influences people are likely to respond as well. 

Explore

• Distribute the Student Resource: Basketball Example graphic organizer. This introduces students to the three styles: coverage, analysis, and commentary using a non-political example.
• Use the teacher answer guide to model the example and discuss each section together. This helps build confidence before independent application.

Transition: Let students know they will now analyze real news articles using the same framework, this time focused on political content.

• Instruct students to find examples of coverage, analysis, and commentary using pre-selected media and topics, and complete the graphic organizer.

Assess and Reflect

• Encourage class discussion using these reflection questions:
  • Which presentation style most responsibly fulfills the media’s role of helping citizens make informed political decisions? Why?
  • Which reporting style did you encounter most often during your research?
  • What are the possible unintended effects of each media style?
  • Can political information ever be presented without eliciting emotional reactions? Explain.
  • How did today’s examples show media forging consensus?
  • How did they show media encouraging division?
  • Is meaning lost when only facts are presented?
  • How can elaboration beyond facts introduce bias?
  • How might you have been influenced by these media styles in the past?
• Collect graphic organizers to review or assess as needed.

Extend

• Follow up with the “Being a Critical Consumer of Media” lesson.