History-Media Projects

Excerpt from Classroom Publishing: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Student Literacy:

“In our History-Media class the content is always multi-disciplinary. We examine the periods of American history through the lens of the media. One of our main goals is for students to learn to discover slant and bias in publications. Students also use current journalism styles to produce newspapers and television shows about different periods of American history.”

Many students at Appleton East High School in Appleton, Wisconsin, elect to fulfill their 11th-grade American Literature and U.S. History requirements by taking the History-Media class. This course has an 18-year history of its own and is currently taught by Michael Bergen and two colleagues. The students learn about American history through media: pamphlets, newspapers, and other written sources, as well as newscasts and Hollywood movies. At the same time they learn how information is shaped by the media. The course has been successful, according to Michael, when students see that to understand history or current events, they have to take an active, critical role. They need to figure out how an author of a newspaper article, an editor of a newspaper, or a movie director may be shaping their values and beliefs. He teaches his students to detect the slant in historical sources that purport to be totally “neutral” and unbiased.

A major part of Bergen’s History-Media class is student production of media. Students produce newspapers and television newscasts which deal with different periods of American history. One newspaper is called the Columbus Clarion-Republican and is written from an abolitionist point of view. The Clarion, for instance, contains stories describing the hardships of slavery. The tone of articles about the underground railroad approves of its mission and notes the bravery of the conductors.
Another newspaper is called The Richmond Chronicle, and it is written as if it were published in Richmond, Virginia, in January 1866. This southern newspaper is written from the point of view of slave owners. One of the articles in this newspaper criticizes Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Other stories portray slavery as a benign institution that was better for the slaves than life in Africa. Instead of a positive or open-minded article about John Brown, one piece begins: “John Brown was hanged today in Charleston for his many abolitionist murders.” Students learn from their hands-on experience in journalism how world events are shaped by the language and images of the media.

Bergen sees some problems arising in student publishing. “Classroom publishing fits into my philosophy of education: it involves critical thinking, writing, and cooperative learning. But classroom publishing needs to be made more accessible to teachers by making more computers available and by devising less complicated software. Without this support, teachers can end up doing too much work themselves.

“Another problem that faces teachers is that as publishing becomes more common in classes K–12, it can lose some of its novelty and possibly lose some of its effectiveness with the kids. Teachers need to prevent this blunting effect by expanding their publishing curriculum, by getting new ideas.”


*Copyright © 1992 by Laurie King & Dennis Stovall. Published by Blue Heron Publishing, Inc. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.