WHAT ROLE DOES MEDIA LITERACY PLAY IN A CONTENT AREA CLASSROOM?

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore to get an understanding of a social studies teacher’s approach to media literacy including factors that inform her teaching and the students’ understanding of her instructional practices. The participants of the study were one social studies’ teacher and six students from her U.S. History and Advanced Placement History courses. In order to collect data, interviews, observations, and analysis of classroom documents were used. In addition, three activities were conducted to get an understanding of students’ performances on media construction and media deconstruction skills. In-vivo coding was used to analyze the data. Based on the findings, the teacher’s instructional practices included the use of a variety of different sources including primary and secondary sources. She also practiced media deconstruction and media construction by enhancing historical thinking and media literacy skills. In addition, preparing students for real life and a democratic citizenship were some of the key factors that informed her instructional practices. The findings also revealed that the there is a need for a unified and consistent form of instruction as the students’ responses to the created activities did not follow a unified pattern. The implications of the study is that attention should be given to the integration of media literacy in the classrooms and training teachers to be able to transfer the knowledge and understanding of it. In addition, teachers should be trained on how to both focus on conveying the depth of the content and covering a variety of different subject matters. Finally, training and professional development is needed for pre-service and in-service teachers to provide effective modeling and space for them to teach history as interpretation