This paper discusses the relationship of reading and television and describes a "critical viewing skills" program ("Spudbuster") for combatting the effects of prolonged TV watching. The paper enumerates helpful suggestions for both parents and teachers to ensure that children's television watching is not excessive and that what…

This video workshop introduces teachers to ethnically diverse American writers and offers dynamic instructional strategies and resources to make works meaningful for students. It includes eight one-hour videos in which teachers model effective approaches--based on reader response, critical inquiry, cultural studies, and critical pedagogy--for…

If media literacy is to become part of the K-12 school experience, enabling transformation in both curriculum and teaching, then teachers need to become literate first. Teachers cannot teach what they have not learned, and learned to value, themselves. Although more American teachers are becoming knowledgeable about media literacy, much remains to…

This chapter will explore the "shadow curriculum" (a term used by those who question the assumption that direct selling to students who are compelled to attend school is questionable on several levels--ethical, moral, and democratic) and its connection to media literacy. The author first summarizes the kinds of marketing in schools that…