Media+Lit+and+the+4RM

= 4RM - An Aha Moment = = = = = This week in my Media Literacy Part III course, I rediscovered the "Four Resources Model" (4RM) proposed by Allan Luke and Peter Freebody. I noticed how the the 4RM can be used to teach media literacy, guiding students through the deconstruction and analysis of media text. Luke and Freebody suggest that students need to be exposed to all four resources in order to become proficient readers of texts, traditional and media formats. In addition, they suggest that students must be explicitly taught how texts work and the skills needed to decode, comprehend, analyze and use texts effectively.

In his webcast for educators, Dr. Luke focuses on how society values certain text forms (websites, podcasts, essay, video, etc) and that we have to give students access to these texts and show how they work. In addition, he suggests that even young children are capable of critical literacy and just need to be given the tools to be successful. Dr. Luke also believes in the power of creating media texts. He states that "students fly when given opportunties to produce media".

[|Dr. Alan Luke - The New Literacies]

These beliefs can be incorporated into using media literacy and assistive technology to reach boys and struggling learners. Special education students benefit from the use of explicit instruction. Using the resources and questions in the 4RM, we can scaffold and structure the instruction to give students the tools to decode and analyze the text. By focusing on media texts, we will be able to incorporate different modalities of learning and expose students to rich texts. In addition, teachers can use the scaffolds in code breaking to develop students' decoding skills by incorporating the following questions when examining a media text:
 * What words are difficult or tricky? How did you work them out?
 * What smaller word can you find in this word to help you work it out?
 * How is this word used in this context?
 * What different reading strategies did you use to decode this text?

Yet, always keeping in mind to give equal teaching time to all of the four resources.



Below is a resource that links principles of media literacy instruction, the 4RM and sample questions.