Lesson Plan
When I am asked to present "something" on "media" to a group of high school students or young adults in a classroom or non-classroom setting on short notice, I do it using a five-step process:
If I have enough time and it's young adults, my favorite film is Grand Canyon. The helicopter is a wonderful dialogue-starter and lends itself well to the experience of social learning through textual analysis, personal responses and cultural criticism.
If I have an hour or less for age groups 12 through young adults, I have used a strand extracted from the television show The Practice on gangs or the homeless (each episode has three or four seven-minute stories running through it). When participants are invited to assume the point of view of the characters, dialogue is almost spontaneous and always enriching. Theme "filters" that consider representations of race, gender, class and age also serve as points of entry into a text. So when time is short, being prepared makes saying "yes" to invitations to present on or about media education simple and satisfying.
Every August when the broadcast and cable networks begin promoting their new prime time series or re-launching successful programming in January, I begin scanning TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, the Boston Globe and the New York Times for commentaries. I watch the promos on TV. I want to know what seems "good" from a media education perspective to begin taping from day one. My particular "sensors" look for what is being touted for teens, women, or what may be controversial (like 1998's Nothing Sacred, which provided excellent material for group viewing and media learning, especially with the accompanying controversy). I select five or six programs, tape them and watch them faithfully (usually on the weekends when there is more time).
JAG, for instance, has grown from an awkward military-legal drama to a full- fledged advertisement for the Navy and rationale for US military activity almost anywhere (and to think David James Elliot is Canadian)! The Magnificent Seven (just canceled again) is a horse opera for the 90's. And it's really fun to talk about because there's almost nothing to it except a bunch of guys beating up other guys and the normal viewer can guess the dialogue before it 's even spoken, never mind the plot. The advertising is almost all aimed at women. What fun for media learning in both non-structured and classroom settings.
Once Jerry Falwell outed the poor Teletubbie, I became a fan. I even bought the purple doll. It sits in a prominent place in the Media Studies Center in solidarity with other popular culture artifacts with their various stigmas. With little effort and a blank tape always in the VCR when I am watching TV, the taping yielded CNN reviews and other news coverage on the Teletubbies that were then used for creative media teaching during a class on media and religion. Last year I somehow missed the Dawson's Creek hype the first time around, but the network graciously reran the first run of episodes over the summer, so I was able to catch up. By studying the four main characters, a workshop guide asking high school students to compare modern philosophies, slogans, and themes in popular culture was developed and used with selected clips. Can 14 - 18-year-olds deal with philosophy and entertainment media? A resounding Yes!
My advice is, if you don't have time to tape and view several programs, be faithful to at least one popular show (from the top 25) every week. This will always provide the media teacher with current material that is relevant and portable!
Rose Pacatte, fsp, is the Director for the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Boston, MA, USA. She has an MA in Education in Media Studies from the Institute of Education, University of London. In this piece, she reflects on quickie lessons and finding grist for the mill.