Teaching Cultivation Theory

While I’ve talked about it on my Twitter, I don’t think I’ve talked about the restructure I’m currently doing with the teaching of the A Level content.  In the first two years, I’ve followed an AS then A Level content, partly because I wanted to allow students to take the AS if necessary but partly because that seemed to work nicely for interleaving content.

However, my first lot through the A Level were very confused about what was on which paper… and I’m not sure that my second group have been clear either.  I also felt I wasn’t clearly introducing the key concepts in the way that I’ve historically done on MS1.  Now that I’m a bit more confident with content and I’m not having to create everything from scratch, it seemed a good time to shake up the organisation and delivery of the course.

So I am now delivering all of component 1 in year 12, then starting component three pre-summer, finishing up in October of year 13 and then in to component 2.  I’ve also gone through the sections one by one, starting with Media Language, then Representation, then Industry and now finally, Audience.  It allows me to teach the theory and then the content.  It means we are revisiting the set texts several times rather than the theories, which I think is a better way around.  The jury is out but my current year 12 are responding well to it.

Cultivation Theory is a funny one on some level.  I’ve already touched on it in the representation section when discussing newspapers (my ONLY issue with this new structure is that newspapers is in every single section and oh my goodness do we seem to be spending a lot of time on it…)

However, in this time of accusations against the BBC and Simple Politics of being left leaning, or right leaning, or pro-leave or remain, I think it’s worth considering the psychology of confirmation bias also as it is related.

Here’s the way I’m going to explore Cultivation Theory with my year 12s tomorrow.  Please use, but also, please let me know if you do, if it was helpful and how you adapted it if you did.

I also recommend Essential Media Theory.

Looking for other A Level resources?

A Level and Zoella – what’s changed?
Eduqas Media A Level Revision Guide Resource
Gauntlett and Zoella
Wall posters
A way in to teaching gender representation at A Level
Media language exam question

Or use the tags.

A Level and Zoella – what’s changed?

It’s been two years since I first taught Zoella.  This year, I’m taking a break from teaching it to the new year 12 group as I’ve restructured the way I teach it.  Year one, I started with Magazines and Newspapers which was way too much print in a row.

Year two, I started with Zoella as I thought it was the most interesting way in.

Year three, I’m scrapping teaching any component 2 content in year 12 and focusing on the key concepts and component 1.  It remains to be seen if that was the right decision but I’m always keen to see how moving content around works.  I view C1 as being like MS1 and C2 as being like MS4 and so it makes sense to push the ‘depth’ content into year 13.  Plus I also suspect this might make it clearer to students as to what is in which exam – something I felt I was constantly explaining last year.

Anyway, my year 13s have just finished studying Attitude and so I felt it was time to revisit Zoella.  She’s had a bit of a rebrand and helpfully, her new blog arrived early last week – just in time to put together this little resource.  I’m currently really interested in the role of influencers and the way they use affiliate links.  I think there are questions to be raised about the transparency of blogging and the ways in which influencers advertise (and of course around regulation).  I’ll admit that I’ve fallen into a tattle.life black hole on a few occasions too – it’s an interesting place to find oppositional readings.

There is a lot to be said for the new website.  It is clear that Sugg is really trying to forget her old approach.  Gone is the one woman band; enter the webzine with a girl gang around her.

It’s worthy of a proper explore but this went down well as a starting point.

Pokéball revision

Just a little resource based on an idea that just came to me – I’m keen to get my GCSE students to gather all their information up and present it in a wide variety of ways, in the hope that it sticks.

With that in mind, my 11s will be turning all the information that they know into a pokéball.  As ever, once they’ve added all they know, I’ll be getting them to supplement with information from the text book and the factsheet, giving them a really detailed resource to revise from.

Here is the pokéball with associated questions.

Looking for other GCSE revision resources?  Look no further!

Eduqas GCSE Media Revision Challenge
Two GCSE Crime Drama resources for Eduqas Media
Preparing for the C1 Mock

Eduqas GCSE Media Revision Challenge

I can’t claim that I came up with this idea entirely alone – I saw a similar grid shared on Twitter for English – I may come back later to credit that person.

However, it has taken me a bit of time to put together my own version that I will be sharing with my GCSE students on Monday, it seemed worth sharing it more widely so that more people can benefit.  The glossary referenced is the back pages of the specification and the representation toolkit is a resource that I’ve gathered from somewhere else – but there are plenty of other similar texts out there for you to use.

If you covered different Music Artists or the Sitcom genre, you’ll need to make some adaptations.

Here it is!

Looking for more GCSE resources?

Unseen analysis

Two GCSE Crime Drama resources for Eduqas Media

Luther mock exam question

Lesson 1 – Intro to Crime Drama

GCSE Eduqas Media Ads assessment

Taylor Swift and Social Media

Preparing for the C1 Mock

GCSE Media Music Industry Assessment – Eduqas Media

Music Video research task

Eduqas GCSE Media Component 1, Section B: – Newspapers Assessment and Marksheet

Unseen analysis

I’m starting on revision with both GCSE and A Level this week.  My A Level group have another few lessons on The Returned with my co-teacher but I have covered the set texts – with some areas that will need revisiting and building on from year 12.

Year 11 could possibly do with a bit more time on some of the industries – radio is an area I particularly feel like we could revisit… and it’s been so very long since we studied advertising and magazines.  However, again, I think I’ll revisit those through the revision process.

Tomorrow, I’m going to take the same piece of film marketing and get the two classes to see what they can do with it – with slightly different prompts.

The resource can be found here. The first page is the A Level version, the second the GCSE one.  We’ll then be looking at writing responses that hit the mark criteria, and self assessing as in this post.

The image used in this powerpoint is used for educational purposes under fair use.  

Two GCSE Crime Drama resources for Eduqas Media

Two resources that I’ve created this week that seem to have gone down well.

The first is a revision clock – the idea is that the students have the sheet on slide 1 printed on A3 and then have five minutes to complete each section, in as detailed and beautiful a way as they can.  I’m looking forward to seeing what my students have made after half term.

The second is not particularly beautiful but is getting students to think about how to respond to the analytical questions and the skills they need to answer well.  The ‘how far’ question threw them a bit in the mock this year and I’m keen for this to be an exam skill that they nail.

Looking for other GCSE Crime Drama resources?

Lesson 1 – Intro to Crime Drama

Luther mock exam question

Luther mock exam question

Happy New Year!

My gift to you, teachers of Media, is this.

It’s a two part analysis question plus mark scheme for Luther.  I was able to teach the students enough in the three lessons before sitting it for them to feel confident enough in tackling it – we had very little time from the end of the NEA to the beginning of the mock season, so the questions needed to be taught to.  Obviously no the best way to approach a mock – but as they had to prepare thoroughly for the Music section, I felt it offered a fair balance.

Looking for other GCSE resources?

Lesson 1 – Intro to Crime Drama

Ads assessment

Music Industry Assessment

 

Lesson 1 – Intro to Crime Drama

Year 11 are starting on Crime Drama this week, with a week until the mock, it’s going to be a whistle stop tour to prepare for the question I’ve written (which I will share after they’ve sat it!)

Here’s the first lesson, with a Five Quick Questions and a return to the key question at the end.

Soap box moment.  This term, hey?  Packed with so many things.  This week was our Sixth Form open evening.  It’s a great evening – I love talking about my subject.  However, I  am interested to see that the Cambridge Technical is seeming more popular for my potential KS5 students next year.  After a few months of teaching it, I can see the appeal.  Unit 1 feels very similar to a slimmed down MS4 to me, with a focus on the film industry and three key texts – in our case, Paddington 2, I, Daniel Blake and Guardians of the Galaxy. We will be starting on scriptwriting next and it generally feels like a good step into the industry.

We have also had more students on the Creative iMedia rather than the GCSE in the last two years at KS4.  It does concern me that the A Level and GCSE are not as appealing as they once were.  While there are some things that I relish with the reform, I honestly believe we should have more students taking Media and questioning all that surrounds them.  I guess time will tell – overall, we have growing numbers in the subject, just less on the GCSE and A Level.  I’m aware of schools that are faring less well – with the subject being cut or replaced with other subjects… and I think this is a real shame.  Media as a subject offers so much, including soft skills of project management, debating and critical exploration of texts.

GCSE Eduqas Media Ads assessment

After discovering a different way of assessment at my school last year, involving ticking appropriate parts of the markscheme and sharing this with the students, with WWW and EBI columns, I started rolling this out in all GCSE assessments… however, this was after the first assessment on adverts had been completed.  I also think I’ve probably got a clearer grasp of what is needed on the assessments than I did when I started out with year 10 last year.

This year, I’ve updated the previous assessment to for my colleague to deliver with his class and here’s the assessment, with the marksheet here.

Taylor Swift and Social Media

I thought I had shared this before, but it would seem not!

This lesson is part of the Music Industry Unit for GCSE.  I’ve shared other resources for this, including an – Assessment, Music Video research task and a PLC.  This lesson gets students to look at screengrabs from Swift’s various social media and to consider how she is both ordinary and extraordinary.

This lesson went down well with students and there was some excellent work produced as a result of it.

The lesson and associated resources can be found here.