During the summer of 2010, African-American children the Russell Byers Charter School in Philadelphia had identified the problem of flash mobs as one of great interest to them. Every child remembered hearing about the news from their family and relatives earlier in the summer, when social networking tools enabled large groups of young African-Americans to gather for informal fun that turned violent. This was the topic they wanted to dig into.
The teacher, John Landis, selected news stories from print and television to help build students’ knowledge of the issue. They read news stories from Philadelphia and Washington DC about flash mobs being used for a variety of purposes, including political advocacy, informal play, and violence. Using Red Lasso, an online TV news search engine, they had selected and watched local TV news stories on the events from earlier in the summer. At the same time, the teacher introduced children to key ideas about the structure of a news story and the reporting process. As they read and discussed these articles and TV news segments, they asked a lot of questions. This inspired them to want to learn more—about the news issue itself and about the way news is constructed and how it represents reality. By learning to use a simple programming tool, Scratch, they made simple interactive videogames about the news event and used the games to stimulate conversation about the how the news is constructed and why news is so important in society.
In the context of a natural process of questioning, children learned about how sources are identified. They learned about how quotes are chosen. They learned about what an assignment editor does and how video editing works. They learned about news values like timeliness, proximity and conflict. They read and deconstructed articles to discover how different points of view were included in the story: from the teens involved, the police, and bystanders. Students visited the offices of the Philadelphia Inquirer to talk to editors about the newsmaking process.
Many SPOT.US readers are interested in digital and media literacy, and this story offers a perfect example of one approach to news and digital literacy with younger students. Younger students are often ignored by news and media literacy educators who are more comfortable working with teens and young adults. We will interview local Philadelphia print and TV reporters who covered the flash mobs and teachers who may (or may not) be comfortable teaching about local violence as a topic of inquiry, as well as the teacher and students who participated.
