Media Education in the K-9 English Language Arts Curriculum

Media literacy within the Alberta English Language Arts K-9 curriculum is based on General Outcome 2 of the Western Canadian Protocol framework for English Language Arts:

Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, literary and media texts.

The following excerpts from English Language Arts (K-9) (2000) details how media education has been integrated into the Alberta curriculum:

Students use a variety of strategies and cueing systems as they interact with oral, print and other media texts. They preview, ask questions and set purposes. Students attend to the ideas being presented, make and confirm predictions and inferences, and monitor their understanding. As they interact with texts, students respond by reflecting, creating, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating. Successful learners adapt these strategies as they construct meaning from a variety of oral, print and other media texts.

Making meaning of oral, print and other media texts is fundamental to English Language Arts. Through these texts, students experience a variety of situations, people and cultures, and learn about themselves. Oral, print and other media texts allow for multiple interpretations. Students can respond personally to texts, by relating them to their prior knowledge, to their feelings and experiences, and to other texts. Through personal response, students explore and form values and beliefs. They respond critically to texts, by making interpretations and evaluating ideas, forms and techniques.

Students enhance their comprehension of and response to oral, print and other media texts through learning experiences in all the general outcomes. Exploratory talk and writing, for example, strengthen student understanding and evaluation of texts. Their appreciation of literary texts provides students with a range of topics and encourages them to experiment with a variety of forms in their own communication. Responding to oral, print and other media texts provides students with new insights.

On the sidebar you will find outcome charts containing media-related learning outcomes from the English Language Arts curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the Media Awareness Network site. As many of our lessons can be adapted to suit different grade levels, specific lessons may be listed for more than one grade. Teachers should also note that individual lessons often satisfy a number of learning outcomes.