Unit 3/Week 1 Title: The Trouble with Television Suggested Time: 5 days (45 minutes per day) Common Core ELA Standards: RI.8.1, RI.8.2, RI.8.3, RI.8.4, RI.8.6; W.8.2, W.8.4, W.8.9; SL.8.1; L.8.1, L.8.2, L.8.4 Teacher Instructions Preparing for Teaching Read the Big Ideas and Key Understandings and the Synopsis. Please do not read this to the students. This is a description for teachers about the big ideas and key understanding that students should take away after completing this task. Big Ideas and Key Understandings The very nature of television and television viewing is a threat to our language, literacy, imagination and our ability to comprehend and deal with complex issues. Synopsis In “The Trouble With Television,” former broadcast journalist Robert MacNeil presents a persuasive case that television has a negative effect on American society. He cites statistical evidence about the average amount of hours spent watching television and the feeding of information in short bursts to support his argument that television viewing undermines Americans ability to think critically or handle complex issues in their lives.
Tier II/Academic Vocabulary These words require less time to learn (They are concrete or describe an object/event/ process/characteristic that is familiar to students) These words require more time to learn (They are abstract, have multiple meanings, are a part of a word family, or are likely to appear again in future texts) Meaning can be learned from context Concentration Instant gratification Diverts Span Allotted Statistical Medium Stimulation/Stimulus Constructive Coherence Dismissible Illiterate/Literate Humanity Skeptically Meaning needs to be provided Enhances Usurps Decivilizing Functionally Passively Pervading Causal assumptions Inalienable Trivial
quick and easy programming: nightly news programs show only fast paced snippets of news items and thirty-second commercials present the way to happiness through buying the right products. Finally, the author believes that the trivial nature of television is affecting the way we think and communicate, causing our communication to become trivial as well. He presents the argument that there is a “crisis of literacy”. According to him, “30 million adult Americans are ‘functionally illiterate’ and cannot read or write well enough to answer a want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.” He thinks that television is contributing to this problem. It is just this kind of influence that he concerns him. He states, “I think this society is being force fed with trivial fare, and I fear that the effects on our habits of mind…are only dimly perceived.” It is our unawareness of television’s influence that he believes is so damaging to our society. Additional Tasks Visit the Take the Challenge Website: Under the Lessons Link, find the middle school eighth grade lessons. Under English/Language Arts there are two lessons. Choose one of the following to complete: Lesson 1: Media and Me Journal: Sample student response: Addressing media violence in our society is a big challenge. What do you believe is possible? What can you do? In my opinion, media violence is a real problem for children. I think that young people are becoming so used to images of violence in media that they feel violence is an acceptable part of society. I believe we need to find a way to lessen the amount of violence that children view in movies, on television and especially in video games. Programmers need to be made accountable for the violence they use to hook children in.