This section comprises a curricular overview (below), as well as information about professional development for media education, and about media education associations in Prince Edward Island in the sidebar.
Also included in the sidebar are curriculum outcome charts from Prince Edward Island's English Language Arts, Social Studies and Communication and Information Technology curricula. These charts include links to supporting MNet resources and lessons.
Last updated July 2005
Curricular Overview
Media literacy in Prince Edward Island is integrated throughout the curricula at the elementary and secondary levels - especially in the English Language Arts curriculum.
The Prince Edward Island Department of Education follows the English Language Arts framework developed under the auspices of the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation (APEF), a curriculum consortium formed in 1995.
Media literacy figures prominently in the APEF English Language Arts curriculum. The curriculum builds on the concept that literacy means moving beyond competency in the written word, to the ability to use and understand visual and technological means of communication. Its goal is to create critical media consumers who can, and will, bring critical analysis to their use of the media.
In the APEF English Language Arts Curriculum Guides, the "Role of Media Literacy" is described separately from the roles of Drama, Literature, Critical Literacy, Visual Literacy and Information Literacy.
According to the guide for Grades 7-9:
Media literacy deals with the culture and lifestyle of students. They enjoy thinking and talking about what is going on in the media. For teachers, it is an opportunity to have students examine how they are influencing and being influenced by popular culture.
The guide also states:
How teachers choose to integrate media literacy into the English language arts program will be determined by what the students are reading and writing. On some occasions students might be involved in comparing (the print version of a story to the film version; ad images to the product being sold), examining (the use of images in music videos and newspapers, sexism in advertising), writing (an article in a magazine, a letter to an editor), producing (a pamphlet on an issue, a radio ad), and creating (a video, a school radio show, announcements for the school PA). Media literacy is a form of critical thinking that is cross-curricular. It is more about good questions than correct answers.
The guide for Grades 10-12 builds on those ideas and includes statements such as:
For teachers media literacy is an opportunity to examine the reliability, accuracy and motives of these sources;
and
Media study allows students to investigate issues of power and control. Mass media information is being consolidated into the hands of a few people. There are relatively few decision makers or gatekeepers to decide what and who gets heard.
In addition to the media outcomes in the English Language Arts curriculum, most secondary schools in Prince Edward Island offer an elective media course at the Grade 11 level. Individual junior high schools are also free to create a media course if they wish.
Media literacy also figures prominently in the APEF Social Studies framework.
