Hurricane Katrina Media Literacy

Bringing Hurricane Katrina Into the Classroom: Media Literacy Lessons

For educators who want to help students analyze, understand, and cope with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the AMLA offers this basic set of media literacy activities and suggestions. A 14-page document containing all the contents below is also downloadable as a PDF (184K)

These media literacy activities were prepared by Dr. Faith Rogow with input from the AMLA Board of Directors.

Lessons and Activities:

1. Basic Analysis

2. Making Comparisons

3. Editorial Decision Making

4. Looking at Language

5. The Practice of Journalism

6. Taking Action

"I wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you for A Media Literacy Teachers Guide on Hurricane Katrina Coverage. Not only was it remarkably timely - it was thorough and right on target for my classes. I will continue to use this resource and look forward to more of the same. Well done!"

-Ann Hamel, teacher, Quest AcademyCONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
It is Labor Day September 2005 - back-to-school season in most of the United States. But this past week, instead of tuning in to typical education stories, we witnessed the devastation created by Hurricane Katrina. For educators who want to help students analyze, understand, and cope with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the AMLA offers this basic set of media literacy activities and suggestions. It is not a comprehensive compendium, but rather, a starting place.

WHY BRING HURRICANE KATRINA INTO THE CLASSROOM?
Many of us alternated between outrage and tears as we watched the disaster relief services we had assumed our government would provide simply fail to materialize. Appallingly, citizens died because it took more than five days for some of them to receive water, food, and medication. It was impossible not to notice that most of the people in need of help were black and/or poor.
The response to Katrina has raised important questions about race, racism, socioeconomic class, and poverty in the United States. In addition, the situation has raised complex questions about security, environmental impact, funding priorities, and deployment of National Guard troops outside of the U.S. No doubt Hurricane Katrina will provoke dialogue around policy, budget, community, and responsibility for a long time to come.

MEDIA LITERACY TEACHING TIPS
Quality media literacy education requires knowledge about who creates media messages and why, and such analysis is always part of good media literacy practice.

Education may include, but is not identical to, criticism; being an educator is not the same as being a watchdog or a critic.
Quality media literacy education focuses on giving students the skills they need to access, analyze, and make media for themselves.

It is nearly impossible to teach students to think for themselves while also assuming that they should or will agree with what you think, so media literacy education is non-partisan.

The goal of media literacy education isn't to help students find bias. All human communication is biased, so nothing is gained if you stop when you realize there is a bias. Instead, media literacy education helps students learn to identify what the bias is and how that perspective might impact people's interpretation of what they see, hear, and read.

To assess your own game plan, as you prepare your lesson(s) ask yourself the following questions:

1. Am I trying to tell the students what the message is, or am I giving students the skills to determine what they think the message(s) might be?
2. Have I let students know that I am open to accepting their interpretation, as long as it is well substantiated, or have I conveyed the message that my interpretation is the only correct view?
3. At the end of this lesson, are students likely to be more analytical or more cynical?
   

For more strategies on how to integrate media literacy into teaching, visit the website of AMLA organizational member, Project Look Sharp.

GRADE LEVEL
The suggestions here are designed primarily for high school students, but most could also be adapted for use in middle schools and college classrooms.

SUBJECT AREAS
Civics
Government
Journalism
Economics
Critical Thinking
Global Studies
Media Studies
Sociology
Current Events
Multicultural Education
Social Studies
Health
Political Science

QUICK LINKS

To find downloadable media to analyze:
The Media Literacy Clearinghouse, run by AMLA founding board member Frank Baker, has gathered an incredible array of resources for the study of media about Katrina, including news photos.

newslink.org - Links to newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations all over the world, sorted by media type and location.

Newseum.org Features today's front pages of 46 newspapers from around the world, as well as archived pages from coverage of Katrina.

For comments from news editors about how they made their decisions, check the website of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists that often provides online resources for exploring issues of ethics and excellence in journalism.

Transcription of WWL Radio interview with New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, in which he pleads for reinforcements.

Background for assessing the credibility of assertions that Katrina's devastation of New Orleans was or was not predictable:

2004 article from National Geographic

Transcript from 2002 report from the PBS series "NOW"

"No one can say they didn't see this coming" opinion piece by journalist Sydney Blumenthal in Salon

For questions about race and racism in the response to Katrina:

"What's Bush Got to Do With It?", a blog by AMLA Media Literate Media Award winner Van Jones

Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on a Privileged Son offers "A God with whom I am Not Familiar" and "Of Disasters, Natural and Otherwise"

Commentary by journalist, essayist, and journalism professor, Leon Earl Wynter

For examinations of journalistic practice:

"Katrina's Aftermath" from the Los Angeles Times

"The Unasked Questions" from onthemedia.org