As we move forward in an age of generative Artificial Intelligence, it's more important than ever to ensure students develop positive habits that keep them informed, safe, and responsible when interacting with technology. Beginning with Washington State education standards, our Digital Literacy team curated learning materials for teachers K-12 to integrate into their curriculum. The linked resource provides classroom teachers with standards-aligned resources for teaching digital agency by grade level. Linked resources are a specially curated list of free lessons available to anyone. We have also suggested a content area connection for each lesson to foster integration across the content areas rather than a stand-alone focus on digital agency.   

This collection of lessons represent adapted and remixed instructional content for teaching media literacy and specifically civic online reasoning through distance learning. These lessons take students through the steps necessary to source online content, verify evidence presented, and corroborate claims with other sources.

The original lesson plans are the work of Stanford History Education Group, licensed under CC 4.0. Please refer to the full text lesson plans at Stanford History Education Group’s, Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum for specifics regarding background, research findings, and additional curriculum for teaching media literacy in the twenty-first century.

This social media literacy unit introduces students to foundational skills in analyzing images and social media posts. It also reenforces critical thinking questions that can be applied to various forms of media. This unit was taught to 9th grade students but is easily adaptible to a range of secondary classrooms. It was also taught in conjunction with another unit focused on social media platforms and content.

This unit engages students in a variety of activities that analyze and reflect on the role of social media in our everyday lives. This includes options for collaborative group work, reading nonfiction articles, a design challenge and presentations to communicate ideas. The unit also includes a formal writing assessment option that aligns with the Common Core State Writing Standards. Activities can be adapted or combined in a variety of ways to support student reflection and analysis. These lessons were piloted in 9th grade English classes but are suitable or a range of secondary students. 

These two self-paced resources were created using Sway (a combination slide deck / infographic / comic format) for older middle school/younger high school students. They explain the concepts of claims and evidence in a media literacy context. 

These three self-paced resources were created using Sway (a combination slide deck / infographic / comic format) for older middle school/younger high school students. They explain the concepts of perspectives and bias in a media literacy context and with a specific approach: 1) that everyone has perspectives, but not all perspectives are biased and 2) that in some circumstances it's OK to get information from sources created by people with a strong perspective on the topic. 

This series of three lessons was designed for older middle school/younger high school students. The goal is to build a foundation of shared understanding and vocabulary before embarking on media literacy activities. The lessons introduce the concepts of "ways of knowing," "trusted experts," and "settled facts," which are useful things to agree on before discussing the reliability of an information source or the truthfulness of a media message. 

A team of teachers at Centennial Elementary School in Olympia, WA, developed book boxes to share across the school each month centered on identifying feelings and developing empathy for others. Each month one or two picture book titles are paired with a Word of the Month. The media literacy teacher team developed materials, including a presentation slideshow, a video read-aloud, and discussion questions. The principal and teachers share the books with students, facilitating discussions for students to identify their own feelings and develop a toolbox for regulating emotions. Students use a Likert scale, developed by Jennifer LaGarde and Darren Hudgins, to identify emotional responses and develop vocabulary to describe and deal with their feelings. Titles and SEL connections are shared with families through the school newsletter.Centennial Media Literacy Teacher Team:Heather Slater, teacher-librarianJennifer KnightLuci StaffordAdam PearceShannon Ritter, principal

This guide walks you through the resources available from the News Literacy Project, including the Checkology virtual classroom, which is mainly for grades 6-12. Students can move at their own pace through a wide variety of lessons that mostly focus on journalism and news literacy, but also cover misinformation, conspiracy theories, and other relevant topics.The lessons include videos of journalists and other experts, plus visually engaging interactive activities. Other resources are also described. 

This lesson invites students to use multiple forms of media, including their own Instagram accounts, to explore their on-line identities.  The lesson culminates in a personal, visual essay.  In the essay, students will use their own images as evidence. Then, students will reason about that evidence to compare what they see on their Instagram posts to their “real world” self. Using information from resources explored in class, students will include a discussion of “authenticity” and properly weave in quotes from those resources.

This unit is designed to accompany the study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Resources encourage students to recognize a variety of propaganda techniques and to connect those techniques to media that they can find in their everyday lives. Resources also help students to understand the historical uses of propaganda by governments and political parties to influence public opinion. Resources can be used independently of the novel.

The SW Washington Media Literacy Project is a Washington State OSPI-funded grant to prototype the use of media literacy facilitators and Communities of Practice to promote media literacy instruction in K12 schools. This site documents the work and process of the project and includes resources and guidance to allow other schools or districts to replicate this model of professional learning and support.

This toolkit was designed by Faith Rogow (InsightersEducation.com) and commissioned by the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Media Literacy & Digital Citizenship Program in 2023. It includes an introductory document and two slide decks with suggested scripts. It is intended to provide media literacy leaders with talking points and links to resources that can help people understand how media literacy education can help students and what it looks like in practice. 

This interactive lesson helps students understand how companies use algorithms to sort job applicants. It also encourages students to reflect on how digital data mining also can contribute to the hiring process. Students examine resumes and digital data to consider the ways in which our data may open or close opportunities in an increasingly digitized hiring market.

An infographic on a 'early in the school year completion' approach to Digital Citizenship and Media Literacy Curriculum.

This 30-minute activity leads middle school or high school students to come up with reasons why even perfectly smart people are fooled by misinformation. It starts by having them consider relatively innocuous satirical headlines from The Onion that people have believed were real, then moves on to more serious and potentially consequential headlines as a way of emphasizing the importance of acquiring and using Media Literacy skills. 

This document aims to provide support and guidance in developing and implementing a district-wide year-long professional development cohort to support media literacy education integration. This plan includes advice for developing objectives and outcomes for the project, implementing appropriate professional development to support teams in their work, and providing reflection opportunities at the end of the year. The ultimate goal is to encorage and support integration of media literacy concepts in all buildings and classrooms.