Media Literacy Course Description

• Media literacy is a critical life skill for students and adults in today's media culture.  It is an expanded definition of literacy beyond reading and writing, to include how to read the messages conveyed though visual images (television and movies), music, advertising, and other forms of media. 

• Media education for students is important and necessary because their lives are saturated with media messages. As a group they represent a contingent that spends an estimated $155 billion and are heavily influenced, many times unknowingly, by the messages they receive from the media.  This is an opportunity to provide empowerment to students through education.            Currently 48 states, including Colorado, have developed state-wide standards for media literacy and communication.

• This course fulfills one of the elective requirements for seniors, who have to take two nine-week English courses their senior year and is counted for a writing or literature requirement.