Media: the counter-narrative

The narrative: "News: everything you need to know".
The counter narrative: "...and everything you don't".

We started with the Seinfeld episode "The Outing" in which a journalist publishes an article saying that the comedian is gay, which of course flips his life upside down.

We then read texts describing how people get hounded by the media, so we played "phototag": take as many candid photos of your classmates as possible while trying not to get photographed yourself.  These were posted on our private FB group which allowed students to comment on the photos using the grammar and vocabulary.  This was quite successful and they wrote some pretty cool sentences.

The next activity was theoretically good, but for some reason, it didn't seem to work quite as I hoped: they had to interview each other with the following caveats:

• Interviewer's aim: to find out as much personal information as possible about their partner
• Interviewee's aim: to reveal as little personal information as possible and only talk about their academic career.

The students didn't seem to get the game though and cheerfully told each other all about their girlfreinds/boyfriends and pets.  Maybe my instructions wree wrong.

Now they have to write a summary of the interview along with 2 invented "facts" and post it.  They then have to go onlinbe and correct what was written about them.