Media+Arts


 * Media Literacy and Media Arts Outreach at the Russell Byers Charter School**

//**Background.**// Media literacy education is the study of the pedagogy and practice of teaching about mass media, digital media and popular culture, with emphasis on the development of critical thinking skills and media composition skills, including use of technology tools for self-expression, communication and advocacy. The field is interdisciplinary, attracting scholars and practitioners in English education, communication/media studies, cultural studies, and other fields. It is a small but robust community, with a national membership group (the National Association for Media Literacy Education with Temple faculty Sherri Hope Culver serving as President of the organization), new open-access peer-review journal (Journal of Media Literacy Education, co-edited by Renee Hobbs and Amy Jensen) and over two dozen dissertations written on the topic in the past four years. So Temple is staking a big claim in media literacy education.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for Arts Education Policy Review about media literacy and arts education in the State of Pennsylvania, which provides a fuller overview of the challenges of bringing media literacy to K-12 schools in the state. Another overview of the state of the field can be found in an article published in the National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook, reviewing the state of media literacy education in K-12 education in the U.S.

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 * What's Happening Here and Now.** At the School of Communications and Theater, the Media Education Lab offers [|POWERFUL VOICES FOR KIDS], a media literacy and digital media program for children in Grade K - 6 at the Russell Byers Charter School in Philadelphia, with opportunity for students to engage in a number of media arts as well as fine, applied and performing arts opportunities, including scriptwriting, dramatic performance, graphic design, music composition, web design, animation, and more. The program includes a summer program, teacher education, curriculum development and research. Students made 140 short videos during the summer of 2009 and over 100 parents and family members attended the program's culminating event. We also provide a staff development program for elementary educators and provide a mentor teacher in the school during the 2009-2010 school year. We are exploring assessment strategies for understanding how media literacy and digital media support learning in the content areas of language arts.

We also host public forums called MEDIA SMART SEMINARS, usually two or three times per semester. These are public events that are designed to attract K-12 practitioners, high school students, and interested adults to discuss issues related to media literacy and media literacy education. Our most recent event featured Kent Rees, VP of the Independent Film Channel (IFC) who helped us understand how to critically analyze on-air promotions, those commercials you see for TV shows.