Mission
International schools and universities are seizing new opportunities to promote writing skills, fact-finding and media literacy.
Scholastic journalism matters
Student news media help motivate students to write quickly and clearly while gaining peer recognition. They also help students hone epistemological skills and discipline. While rapid writing, fact-finding and research skills are pillars for building a career in journalism, they are also powerful assets for college-bound students in all fields. Now more than ever, students must learn to distinguish fact from fabrication. Participating in scholastic news media is the most effective way to develop solid media literacy skills.
Student news media also offers opportunities for leadership, team spirit and recognition for student reporters and editors, and for the entire school community.
Fact finding
Students now have instantaneous access to more and better information than any other generation. At the same time, they can very easily become mired in the deepening mud of fake news, social-media manipulation and conspiracy theories. Teaching fact-finding, research and epistemology has become an urgent challenge for high schools and universities.
“Media literacy is basically a 21st Century civics class. That is, where you used to learn about how a bill becomes a law, now I think you really have to learn in high school how to be a critical consumer of media – and also an intentional producer of media, because we all now produce media with a tweet, with a post on Facebook, etcetera.”
Speaking out
Cammi is a junior at Community High and loves sport, music and writing. She is the captain of the Skyline women's golf and basketball teams and is a counselor for scholastic news media.
Forrest Lewis is a senior at Arcata High School. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Arcata High School Pepperbox, a completely student-run, student-funded publication.
Quijada is the executive director of Media Literacy Project. With more than a decade of experience as a media literacy trainer, and 20 years as a community organizer.
Chris Jennings is a Youngstown resident and teaches English and journalism at Canfield High School in Canfield, Ohio. Chris has advised two award-winning student news organizations, The Rampage at Mineral Ridge High School and The Cardinal at Canfield High School.
Reading List
Fact vs. Fiction provides educators with tools and resources to help students discern fact from fiction in the information they access not only at school, but on the devices they carry in their pockets and backpacks. — Amazon.com
Amazon link
According to a 2016 Pew Research report, we are now living in a world where 62% of people report that they get their "news" from social media. With the lessons and activities in this book, students will be challenged to look at the media they encounter daily (including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and more) to learn to deepen and extend their media literacy and critical thinking skills. Now more than ever, teachers need the instruction in Fighting Fake News! to teach students how to locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate information. — Amazon.com
Amazon link
This book is one of the first of its kind to address the implications of fake news for the K–12 classroom. It explores what fake news is, why students are susceptible to believing it, and how they can learn to identify it. Leading civic education scholars use a psychoanalytic lens to unpack why fake news is effective and to show educators how they can teach their students to be critical consumers of the political media they encounter. The authors also link these ideas to the broader task of civic education and critical engagement in the democratic process. — Amazon.com
Amazon link
This volume is a one-stop scholarly yet practical/approachable reference book for educators, trainers, journalists, media activists, policymakers, foundations, nongovernment organizations, students, and others with a vested interest in quality journalism. It sheds light on the emerging field of comparative journalism education worldwide by building on past research and offering conceptual, theoretical, empirical, and practical insights into where the field has been, where it currently stands, and where it seems to be heading. —Amazon.com
In this book, Bernhard Poerksen draws up a new rationale for constructivist thinking and charts out directions for the imaginative examination of personal certainties and the certainties of others, of ideologies great and small. The focus of the debate is on the author's thesis that our understanding of journalism and, in particular, the education and training of journalists, would profit substantially from constructivist insights. These insights instigate, the claim is, an original kind of scepticism. —Amazon.com
This work is for teachers who either are or will be teaching high school journalism and people who are interested in preserving the programs. The first part of this work is a look at the state of high school journalism in America in 2014. For teachers who want to argue for support in terms of newer technology, working with local professionals, additional certification or other issues, this section provides that information. The book also discusses the basics of high school journalism, how outstanding programs have survived, teaching the 4Cs, how teachers can best use available workshops and incorporate more professional assistance in their classroom.
