Virginia SOL 9.C.4.D
The Standard
Examine how values and viewpoints are included or excluded and how the media can influence beliefs, behaviors, and interpretations.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Examining Media Messages
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students examine media messages to find the perspectives and values being presented. They identify voices left out and explain how specific media choices may shape beliefs, actions, or understanding.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students identify represented and missing perspectives using details from images, words, sources, and layout. They explain how those choices could shape a specific audience’s opinions or actions.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat a message as neutral because it includes facts. They may confuse a missing viewpoint with false information or describe audience effects without citing specific evidence.
How to Assess It
- Show a sneaker advertisement and ask: Whose viewpoint is shown, whose is missing, and how might one image or phrase affect buyers?
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups a printed advertisement to mark loaded words, visual cues, represented values, and voices that are absent.
Ask students to write: How would this news post change if told by a person whose viewpoint is missing?
Play Media Detective by awarding points for finding evidence of audience targeting, omitted perspectives, emotional appeals, and implied values.
Compare two social media posts about the same school policy, then discuss how each could affect student or parent reactions.
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Related Standards
- 12.C.4.D
Explain and analyze how values and viewpoints are included or excluded and how media influences beliefs, interpretations, and behaviors.
- 10.C.4.C
Examine and analyze how media messages are constructed based on varying opinions, values, and viewpoints.
- 8.C.4.A
Examine how the media can influence beliefs, behaviors, and interpretations by using persuasive techniques (e.g., name calling, innuendo, glittering generalitie...
- 9.C.4.C
Evaluate the credibility, word choice, viewpoints, and bias in media presentations.
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