This kit provides teachers and other educators with the materials and guidance to help fourth grade students understand the reasons that the British colonists elected to declare their independence from King George III between the years 1763-1776. As a part of these lessons students will be encouraged to consider the intent and impact of media documents from a variety of points of view including those of the colonists, King George, patriots, loyalists, slaves and Native Americans.

Economics in U.S. History is comprised of seven lessons and is designed to introduce students to basic economic concepts through analyzing diverse perspectives on the subject. Students will be engaged in a dynamic, interactive, and constructivist process of exploring media representations of economic issues in U.S. history. Such issues include the free market, industrialization, and The Living Wage Campaign. The kit will teach students to identify the Ě_Ě_€ÝlanguageĚ_Ě_ĺ of construction of different media forms and to analyze and evaluate the meaning of mediated messages about economics. This kit was designed for 8th grade U.S. history, but the document-decoding approach can be adapted for and used from middle school through high school.

Introducing Africa is comprised of two lessons and is designed to raise studentsĚ_Ě_´ awareness about stereotypes of Africa; teach them information about the history, geography, economics and cultures of Africa; and to give them an appreciation for the diversity of the African continent. This kit will teach students to identify important details, make logical inferences, and draw informed conclusions from visual documents including photographs and money. The lesson was designed for third grade but can be used with older students.

Lessons teach core knowledge about the science of climate change, explore conflicting views, and integrate critical thinking skills. Students will apply knowledge of climate change to a rigorous analysis of media messages through asking and answering questions about accuracy, currency, credibility, sourcing, and bias. Lessons address basic climate science, the causes of climate change, scientific debate and disinformation, the consequences of global warming, the precautionary principle, carbon footprints, moral choices, and the history of global warming in media, science, and politics.

This curriculum kit helps to teach about the role of media in 28 U.S. elections ranging from 1800-2008. Over 160 media documents are included for decoding, including slides of posters, handbills and political cartoons; audio clips of songs and radio programs; and video clips of speeches, debates, comedy TV and political commercials. Students will learn how to analyze historical documents, the history of presidential campaigns, the crafting and marketing of campaign messages, and the impact of new technologies and new media on presidential campaigns.

This kit analyzes Newsweek coverage of the Vietnam War, Gulf War and the War in Afghanistan. Students will learn core information about the wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan, how media influences public opinion of current events, and how to ask key media literacy questions and identify bias in the news.

This kit covers stereotyping of Arab people, the Arab/Israeli conflict, the war in Iraq and militant Muslim movements. Students will learn core information and vocabulary about the historical and contemporary Middle East issues that challenge stereotypical, simplistic and uninformed thinking, and political and ethical issues involving the role of media in constructing knowledge, evaluating historical truths, and objectivity and subjectivity in journalism.

This kit explores the ways in which King and his legacy have been portrayed in various media forms. The first lesson follows a chronology of King's life through interactive decoding of rich media documents (comic books, billboards, songs, music videos, etc.). The following lessons use excerpts of Dr. King's speeches from 1963, 1967 and 1968 to examine his views on social change; explore the portrayal of King in magazine covers, advertisements, Web sites, film clips and monuments; and use letters to the editor about celebrating King to explore challenges to change.

his kit helps decode the messages of political posters created by Soviet regimes from Lenin and Stalin through Brezhnev and Gorbachev. Teachers lead students through the interactive process of applying their historical knowledge to the analysis of these documents using background and additional information and carefully selected probe questions. Students will learn core information and vocabulary about the history of the USSR, political and historical perspectives as communicated through visual media, visual literacy and media literacy skills, especially the ability to identify bias in art and propaganda.