Non-fiction Reading Skills and Media Literacy.

I am not sure why this didn't come to mind last week in class, but when I was cruising through Channel One and Youth Radio, it hit me that I struggle to help my students become media literature every Wednesday. When I began teaching, I had some wonderful mentors in the English department at my previous school. They knew YEARS before the PSAE (Prairie State Achievement Examination: a combo of the ACT and a second day of testing by which all Illinois schools are measured) that non-fiction reading skills were essential to the future success of their students. Furthermore, it is as Leah Price argues in "You Are What You Read," well "You Are What You Read." And what my colleugues knew is that if we did not provide students with information about current national and world events, that they would not be wise citizens during high school, and certainly not after. They needed to be media literature in that they needed to be knowledgeable about the world, and thus understanding of the events that are occurring in it. In an attempt (a successful one, I believe) they ordered and had delivered, weekly current events magazines that were written at the reading level of our students. At the time it was Teen Newsweek. I saw the success of this process, and even after leaving my first teaching job after four years, I brought this concept to my current job, and each week, I still have these magazines delivered. These are now published by Weekly Reader, and the magazine is titled Current Events.

Recent issue: Current Events

This is a recent issue of the magazine that my students tackled in December. My co-teacher and I have continued the belief that I was taught in my early years of teaching. The idea that if we teach them non-fiction skills, then they will have the ability to become media literate. Also, if we expose them to current events, they may (hopefully) continue to pay attention to these after they have left us. Since we do have the students for two years, we find that we can wrestle our way through those two years and they seem to (so far) keep up with current events. We have had students come back to us weekly and ask if we have extra copies from the week's magazine, which is a great feeling.

If you take a look at the magazine (follow link above), you can see that the magazine does a great job of drawing students in. We focus every week on the cover story, but the students are always eager to look at and read other areas of the magazine. They love the political cartoons each week, which always leads into a great discussion about current political issues. The debate section is always interesting and relevant to them, and there is always a funny/shocking "snippit" on something (This issue's was "K-9 Cutie") that they look for.

We have used this magazine to teach annotating, highlighting, note-taking, paraphrasing, summarizing, and vocabulary, as well as used it as a model for writing (thesis, detail, etc.). It has been hugely successful with our students. It is short enough that it keeps their attention, and interesting enough that they are willing to keep coming back for more.

There is also a website, and while this has shades of Channel One and Youth Radio, it is not the same, or as effective. First, the focus is not fully on students, but rather on the teachers as well. There are great resources available for teachers to access and use that coincide with the magazines. There is also information/resources on the many other magazines that Weekly Reader publishes. The section that is most like Channel One and Youth Radio, in that its focus is on young readers is "Kids and Teens." There students can find current news stories, as well as contents that they can enter, blogs and other digital content they may enjoy, a health section, and an area where they can voice their opinions on previous issues of the magazine. This is a great resource and site, but it in not dedicated to 'tweens and teens in the way that Channel One and Youth Radio are.

The bottom line is, that students must be media literate. They also must possess the non-fiction reading skills so that they can be media literate. Yes, there are places like Channel One and Youth Radio, where young people can go and get information on current events. But at some point, they are going to have to rely on their non-fiction literacy. I guess they could go to Channel One forever, but is that really realistic?

Price, Leah. "You Are What You Read." New York Times (December 23, 2007).

"Weekly Reader." Weekly Reader: Curriculum-Rich Resources for Teachers. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. .