Media Construction of the Middle East: A Digital Media Literacy Curriculum
Cover | Overview, Objectives, and Pedagogy | How to Use These Materials | Resource List

Familiarize Yourself with the Structure of the Lessons
Review the Materials
Print and Copy PDF Documents
Access the Media Documents
Additional Resources

Familiarize Yourself with the Structure of the Lessons
The first page of each Teacher Guide includes lesson objectives, vocabulary, type of media, materials needed, approximate time needed for the lesson, and lesson steps. An alphabetical list of key vocabulary and concepts that appear in the lesson is also provided. Teachers should review or reinforce key terms where appropriate. The second page of each lesson begins with an Introduction to the Lesson, which is intended to be communicated to the class before presenting the document. This information typically gives an historical context to the document and provides essential knowledge for decoding. Introduction to the Lesson is followed by a prompt for the teacher to handout or project the document or documents. The lessons that include print documents (i.e. excerpts from textbooks, timelines, maps) will have Student Handouts of the documents. For lessons that have audiovisual documents, the teacher must access the documents online or by requesting a CD/DVD package from Project Look Sharp. Many lessons also include Student Worksheets with probe questions for reading the documents. Lessons without Student Worksheets will include probe questions for the teacher to use when leading the decoding. These questions will be accompanied by a Teacher Answer Sheet that includes suggested answers and the evidence from the document to substantiate those answers. Further Questions are typically open-ended without suggested answers and evidence, and they can lead to broader concepts and discussions not specific to the information in that document. These questions often link to the Additional Information provided at the end of most lessons. Each lesson concludes with a references list. Some lessons also include Connections to lessons in Project Look Sharp’s other curriculum kits, Media Construction of War and Media Construction of Presidential Campaigns. Information about ordering these curriculum kits is available at www.projectlooksharp.org.

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Review the Materials
Although we expect that teachers will use and adapt individual lessons to meet their classroom needs, we suggest that teachers review entire units. The series of lessons for each unit build on each other and reinforce critical skills and knowledge. It is important that teachers preview all print and AV materials before class and to review the Teacher Guide for each lesson before leading decoding activities.

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Print and Copy PDF Documents
This digital curriculum provides teachers with documents in PDF (Portable Document Format) form. Teachers must print and photocopy Student Handouts and Student Worksheets (included in each Teacher Guide) for students before class begins. Teachers should also have a hard copy of the Teacher Guide for each lesson they will be teaching to use during class.

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Access the Media Documents
The audiovisual materials are available both on the Project Look Sharp Web site (as PDF slideshows and QuickTime video clips) and on CD & DVD (as PowerPoint files and full-screen video clips) that may be ordered at no cost from Project Look Sharp. Review all media documents before using and secure appropriate technology for effectively presenting in class. Most of the lessons require a digital projector or large monitor and computer for classroom decoding. A darkened room, a good screen and appropriate student seating will help facilitate successful collective reading of the documents.

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Additional Resources
For an annotated list of over 100 Web links to educational resources related to the Middle East cross-referenced to 17 different topics, go to the resource list.