"Cut the Bull!" with a Media Literacy Course and Global Readings
Posted on September 20, 2019
Our friends at the National Humanities Center are launching a course on helping students develop media literacy:
The National Humanities Center is excited to announce the launch of its Humanities in Class Fall 2019 series. These online courses provide educators with the opportunity to deeply engage with scholarly content while connecting with peers from around the country. The first course entitled Cut The Bull! How the Humanities Can Help Develop Critical Media Literacy, will focus on the evolution and ever-changing role of media while examining how its messages shape our citizenry and how this understanding can be effectively conveyed in a classroom setting. Over the course of five weeks, course participants will:
- Discuss the motives, audiences, and stakeholders influencing journalism
- Identify tools for verifying the legitimacy of online content
- Identify historical trends in media platforms and evaluate how those trends have shaped the role of citizenship
- Analyze the benefits and tensions of teaching digital literacy in a contemporary classroom
Literature that supports learning about media literacy on WWB includes:
- From Iran, A Year Among the Boat People, My People (in which the author counters media myths about Muslims)
- From Russia, Slaves of Moscow
- From Mexico, The Gringo Champion and Sleepless Homeland (which tacitly oppose media myths about Mexico and immigration)
- From China, Two or Three Things from the Past (See Teaching Idea 1) and An Interview with Yan Lianke (about censorship.)