Five Key Questions That Can Change the World

CML publishes classroom activity guide with 25 core lesson plans for K-12 media literacy.

"Where do I start?" is a cry often heard from teachers who would like to introduce media literacy in their classrooms, whether kindergarten or high school - but don't know where to begin.

Five Key Questions That Can Change the World is an innovative collection of 25 cornerstone lesson plans - five for each of CML's Five Key Questions of media literacy.

Developed by the Center for Media Literacy, it's a ready-to-go resource that will help you help your students build a firm foundation in the skills of media literacy! Features:

  • Easy-to-understand introduction for teachers on the Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions of media literacy.
  • Correlation with national educational standards in language arts and social studies as well as integration with health, math and the arts.
  • Scalable activites from kindergarten through high school.
  • Real-world, engaging learning for students.
  • Includes both analysis activitites and creative production projects.

Unlike other media literacy activity books, which typically are organized by genre (news, advertising, etc.) or topic (violence, gender, etc.), the inquiry-based lessons in Five Key Questions That Can Change the World help students build an internal checklist of questions to ask about any message in any media - television, movies, the Internet, radio, advertising, newspapers and magazines, even maps and money!

Five Key Questions That Can Change the World is Part II of CML's educational framework, the CML MediaLIt Kit, which identifies and describes the theory, practice and implementation of media literacy in preK-12 education.

"It is our dream that by the time they graduate from high school, all students will be able to apply the Five Key Questions almost without thinking...Practicing and mastering the Five Key Questions leads to an adult understanding of how media are created, what their purposes are, and how to accept or reject their messages."

Tessa Jolls, CML President


Accessing the MediaLit Kit Documents

Literacy for the 21st Century: An Orientation and Overview of Media Literacy Education (45 pages) and its companion Five Key Questions That Can Change the World (85 pages) are both available for download by individual teachers in a classroom. For system wide adoption or distribution, a licensing fee is requested.

Only the covers are 4-color; the remaining pages are black and white and can be printed single or double sided. (Double-sided is recommended) They are spaced for 3-hole punching.

Literacy for the 21st Century: An Orientation and Overview
Download: English | Español