1. Clarification of what it means to be "media literate" and what it takes to teach media literacy
   
2. Alignment of media literacy and arts content
   
3. Focus on literacy vs. media
   
4. Applications in the elementary school context
   
5. Next Steps
   
6. Implementation of classroom lessons that incorporate Media Literacy Concepts and Questions, Visual and Performing Arts standards, and English Language Development (ELD) standards
   
7. Methodology
   
8. Elements of Replicable Model
   
9. Tools
   

What does it mean to be "media literate?" What does it take to teach media literacy? Solid theory informs the implementation of a media literacy and arts program such as Project SMARTArt, but implementation also advances and informs the theory developed to date. Project SMARTArt provided a rich laboratory through which to explore and test ideas and practice.

As a starting point, Project SMARTArt was based on the idea that if you are "media literate," you have mastered process skills that enable you to effectively deconstruct and construct media messages. As CML's MediaLit Kit™ notes, these process skills are defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms. The implied outcome of having such skills is that a media literate person is equipped to make more informed choices, and is able to live consciously in a media-oriented society.

A basic insight that informed the design of Project SMARTArt is that deconstruction could be addressed through an inquiry process, based on solid concepts for analysis, while construction could be addressed through the arts, giving voice to individual points of view.

The challenge in Project SMARTArt was how to provide these skills in a short period of time, and how to teach young people — even kindergartners! — these skills in an engaging way.

On a practical level, teachers need a workable method for teaching process skills. This is particularly challenging since the present education system focuses on content knowledge instead of process skills. Before they are equipped to teach "how to access, analyze, evaluate and create," teachers must first understand and apply these process skills themselves.

The Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions provide a methodology for the analysis of media, and they are a "short-cut" to teaching the process skills of "access, analyze and evaluate." While teachers need to understand both the Five Core Concepts and the Five Key Questions, students respond more to being taught the questions, and thus learn the concepts indirectly. By focusing on the process of inquiry through the Five Key Questions, students could begin to learn how to deconstruct or "take apart" any media text, not just mass media. In fact, as the project progressed, it became apparent that "media" itself could be defined to include virtually any communication channel, including bodies dancing or gesturing.

Furthermore, using the Five Key Questions gives students a consistent process or entry point through which to analyze media. As students practice using these questions, applying them to all types of media, they become very proficient in analysis and empowered as effective users and managers of information.

Alignment of Media Literacy and Arts Content
A primary goal of Project SMARTArt was to explore ways that media literacy and the arts might inform one another as disciplines. On one level, this relationship can be described as a cycle of analysis and expression, where students engage both their heads and their hearts. Initially it was posited that media literacy content would drive student analysis of media, and that the arts would provide a vehicle for expression through the creation of media. However, the distinctions between these two purposes were not so clear cut. On a deeper level, the very processes engaged in media literacy (accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating) are directly paralleled in the study of the arts.

Access: Participation in the arts allows students to access and process information, as well as demonstrate knowledge, using various learning modalities. As different art forms engage different learning styles, more students are given opportunities to be successful in the educational system. In this way, the arts provide access to learning — which might otherwise be difficult in the traditional academic environment — for many students.

Analysis: Quality arts education includes the component of Artistic Perception, which "refers to processing, analyzing, and responding to sensory information through the use of the language and skills unique to" the arts (1). As students develop skills in artistic perception, they are expected to specifically articulate "the what" in communicating "the why" (for example: "the slow, steady beat of the bass drum conveyed a feeling of loneliness"). The ability to articulate "the what" to communicate "the why" is a central principle in the teaching of media literacy.

Evaluation: Aesthetic Valuing, also a key component of arts education, requires that students "critically assess and derive meaning from the work of an (arts) discipline, including their own." (1) This emphasis on making individual judgments about what they observe (and what they create) in the arts empowers young people to draw their own conclusions and make their own choices. Applied in the broader context, this skill set directly services the conviction that a media literate person is equipped to make more informed choices, and is able to live consciously in a media-oriented society.

Creation: Through Creative Expression, "students apply processes and skills in compositing, arranging and performing a work and use a variety of means to communicate meaning and intent (1)…" This component of arts education engages students in the process of creating works, providing them opportunities to explore, learn, practice and refine their own abilities to communicate a specific point of view or message.

As earlier referenced, Project SMARTArt defined "media" to include any channel of communication, and thereby identified all art as "media." With this expanded view, works of art themselves became source material for application and adaptation of the Five Key Questions of media literacy.

Focus on Literacy vs. Media

By design, Project SMARTArt was focused more on "literacy" than on "media," emphasizing critical thinking and creative expression. Lessons explored the way ideas are communicated: how to recognize, interpret and convey messages. Students analyzed (deconstructed) traditional art and non-traditional media forms and created (constructed) stories, choreographies, musical scores and visual arts projects that put forward their own point of view. Direct links to Language Arts and English Language Development standards were made, allowing a continuous focus on and reinforcement of basic literacy skills.

Although the animation shorts developed by students in this project could be considered a classic media arts assignment, the types of artifacts typically produced throughout Project SMARTArt were very low-tech. In fact, no others required the use of a computer for execution.

Application in the Elementary School Context

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation Report (Fall, 2003), nearly all children aged 0-Six (99%) live in a home with a TV set, half (50%) have three or more TV's, and one-third (36%) have a TV in their bedroom. More than one in four (27%) have a VCR or DVD in their bedroom, while one in ten have a video game player, and 7% have a computer.

Children aged 8-18 live media-saturated lives, spending an average of nearly 6-1/2 hours a day with media, according to another Kaiser Family Foundation Study (March 2005) called "Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds."

These statistics demonstrate that children need help to critically navigate the media in their lives, and to develop skills to effectively represent themselves. The fact that linkages to standards for elementary school children were made demonstrates that media literacy concepts definitely belong in elementary schools.

The Five Key Questions represent some sophisticated concepts, and so the development of Key Questions to Guide Young Children was an effort on CML's part to break down the questions to more manageable ideas. Teachers used these questions to take complex ideas and make them more concrete for young children.

Next Steps

As with any pioneering effort, Project SMARTArt uncovered the "next steps" needed to advance the combined work of media literacy and the arts. Among these steps are to:

• Formulate questions for guiding the "construction" process, informed by the Five Core Concepts and paralleling the Five Key Questions of media literacy.
  
• Identify questions for "re-construction" of media. With media today being re-used, re-mixed, and re-formulated using other media, key questions for guiding reconstruction are also needed. These questions must address intellectual property issues that relate to creation, use and distribution of media content, as well as be informed by the Five Core Concepts and parallel the Five Key Questions of media literacy.
  
• Determine how the creation of media relates to a student-involved assessment process. Student-produced artifacts provide opportunities for critical thinking, self-expression, and demonstration of content mastery in all subject areas.
  
• Developf rubrics and other assessment methods to enable students to learn how to set criteria for evaluating their creations and the creations of their peers.
  
• Conduct research to correlate the Key Questions to Guide Young Children with appropriate stages of child development, so that it becomes clear how to best match the teaching of the Key Questions with children's cognitive development and capacity.
  
• Establish and sustain a K-12 learning community for further work and research, through continued professional development, a common framework and vocabulary, and sharing lesson plans, activities and classroom practices.

(1) Visual and Performing Arts Framework for California Public Schools.

About the authors:

Tessa Jolls is President and CEO of the Center for Media Literacy, where she has served for the past six years in designing, implementing and promoting media literacy programs within K-12 education. She consults nationally with school districts, health organizations and publishers on media literacy education.

Denise Grande, Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Music Center of Los Angeles County / Education Division, has more than 15 years experience in arts education programming and implementation. Working in partnership with specific school districts, she currently coordinates and contributes to projects that strategically advance the goal of district-wide, K-12 arts education for students.

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