The Power of Critical Media Literacy to Enable Middle Grade Students to Understand Poverty

Abstract

This research sought to understand how the use of critical media literacy enables middle-grade students to understand poverty as a real and present issue. The study was conducted in one seventh-grade classroom in which the students viewed poverty from the perspective of children similar in age to them. The realities of poverty were presented to the students through the "Invisible Children" film. Afterward, the students wrote reflections on the experience. Findings show that critical media literacy enabled the participants to develop a heightened awareness and to empathize with children of poverty so that the feeling dimension of learning became evident.