Developing critical media literacy: a case study of an upper elementary classroom

Abstract

Forty years after Marshall Mcluhan first spoke of the global village, critical media literacy education is still considered a 'grassroots' initiative. Worldwide, and here in Alberta, teachers interested in critical media literacy have implemented their own programs to help children understand, interpret, create and question the continuous stream of multi-media messages that saturate their day to day lives. In Alberta, the Program of Studies, which all teachers must follow, contains numerous references to 'media texts' but does not provide much elucidation on how to find, use, create or critique them. These references suggest using an alternate media text to 'do something ' rather than to study the media text as 'a something' in its own right. Although the trend towards a more critical media literacy focus in junior and senior high English classes has emerged over the past several years, critical media literacy is almost unheard of in the elementary classroom.