Workshop 2
Goals :
Time : 90 minutes
Workshop 2 Outline :
- To critically examine and question sources of information.
- To doubt the credibility of our sources of information, leading us to re-examine what we think we know about things.
- To raise awareness about the media's role in shaping our perceptions.
- To discuss issues surrounding the media (its objectivity, whose interests it serves, etc).
Time : 90 minutes
Workshop 2 Outline :
- Introduction Game - What do we see?
- Interpretations
- Sources of Information
- Summary Activity - Media
What do we see ?
Goals : exploring the notion that things can be seen differently by different people.
Materials : Old/Young Woman or Vase/Two men pictures
Time : 10 minutes
Activity :
Goals : exploring the notion that things can be seen differently by different people.
Materials : Old/Young Woman or Vase/Two men pictures
Time : 10 minutes
Activity :
- The students are divided into groups of 4-5 ; each group is given two drawings : one drawing can be seen as either an old lady or a young woman : the other can be seen as either a vase or two men in sombreros sitting on the ground. Students are asked to describe what they see.
- Back to the large group : teacher inquires whether there were differences in the way people saw the drawings and allows the students to realize that we don't always see things in the same way - literally. There are different ways to look at things, and it depends which angle we look at it from.
Interpretations
Goals : exploring the way events can be interpreted differently by different people and why.
Materials : the Cliff drawing
Time : 20 minutes
Activity :
Goals : exploring the way events can be interpreted differently by different people and why.
Materials : the Cliff drawing
Time : 20 minutes
Activity :
- The teacher asks the students to return to the small groups, and hands out a copy of The Cliff drawing to each group. Students are requested to write down what is happening in the drawing and compare notes in the small groups.
- Back to the large group, each group shares its descriptions and engages in discussion. Are the accounts similar ? What could be some possible reasons for the differences? (i.e. the location of the student in the classroom, his or her pre-conceptions, feelings, beliefs,etc.)
Sources of Information
Goals : Critically examining and questioning our sources of information regarding the ME conflict and in general. Doubting our sources of information in order to re-examine what we think we know about things.
Time : 30 minutes
Activity :
- What kind of family does s/he want ?
- What kind of world does s/he want to live in ?
- What are your sources of information ?
- What are your sources of information ?
Goals : Critically examining and questioning our sources of information regarding the ME conflict and in general. Doubting our sources of information in order to re-examine what we think we know about things.
Time : 30 minutes
Activity :
- Students are divided into couples. They have 5 minutes each to guess about the other student :
- What kind of family does s/he want ?
- What kind of world does s/he want to live in ?
- The students write how many guesses it took to guess the answer to each question correctly
- Back to large group, teacher asks several couples to share their experiences. The teacher asks :
- What are your sources of information ?
- The teacher writes the answers on a sheet of paper (examples: personal accounts, facebook, gossip, school, yearbook, etc)
- The teacher asks :
- What are your sources of information ?
- The teacher tapes an A4 page with the word "Influences' on one end of the classroom, and on the other end tapes a page with the words "Doesn't Influence".
- The teacher reads out the list of information sources that the students have named. For each source, the students are requested to stand up and locate themselves within the classroom according to how much the source influences them. For example, the source "Newspaper." If I am very influenced by the newspaper, I will stand close to the "Influences" sign. If I never even read the paper, I will stand near the "Doesn't influence" sign. And if I sometimes read and am somewhat influenced by the newspaper, I will stand in the middle.
- After all the sources have been read out, the teacher and students reflect on the most influential and least influential sources.
- The teacher asks: Where does each of these sources of information receive its information ?
The teacher writes the students' answers next to each source. This serves to reflect that the information we receive is often second, third, or fourth-hand and not direct.
Comparing Sources
Goals: To show that different news sources present information on the same topic in different ways
Time: 15 Minutes
Activity:
- Which appears to be the most reliable?
- How do you know?
Goals: To show that different news sources present information on the same topic in different ways
Time: 15 Minutes
Activity:
- Students will read three articles on immigration in the United States.
- One article is from the NY Times entitled "Migrants Flow in South Texas, as Do Rumors."
- The second article is from Buzzfeed entitled "Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Transported to Shelters Across the U.S."
- The third is an article from The Onion entitled "Proposed Legislation Offers Citizenship to Immigrants Who Can Play Piano So Good It Makes Everyone Cry."
- Afterwards, students will be asked to discuss how each news source portrayed the issue of immigration.
- The teacher should ask :
- Which appears to be the most reliable?
- How do you know?
Media
Aims : summary of what raised so far ; analyzing the interests and subjectivity of the media.
Time : 10 minutes
Activity :
- Who is the media?
- Whose interests does it serve?
- Is it objective ?
Aims : summary of what raised so far ; analyzing the interests and subjectivity of the media.
Time : 10 minutes
Activity :
- Teacher summarizes briefly - We have explored together how things can be seen differently, and how things can be interpreted differently by different people.
Then we gave some thought to our sources of information and to our sources' sources of information.
We explored which sources influence us more than others, and we have seen that the media has quite a strong influence on most of us (supposing this is what actually happened in the group).
Now let's have a closer look at this media, which influences us so much.
- Who is the media?
- Whose interests does it serve?
- Is it objective ?
- The teacher writes the students answers on flipcharts, to be kept for later reference.