Book Review: Teaching students to decode the world: Media literacy and critical thinking across the curriculum (Chris Sperry & Cyndy Scheibe)

Abstract

This is a review of the book titled "Teaching Students to Decode the World: Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum," written by the founders of Project Look Sharp, an organization that has been working for many years to integrate media literacy into the educational process in the United States. The book aims to provide information on how media literacy can be utilized as a method across various subjects, particularly seeking to bring a different perspective to educational applications. The ideas presented in the book should be considered innovative approaches in the context of educational practice. The book conveys a contemporary approach to media literacy education. Considering the impact of new media on the daily lives of new generations, employing media literacy as a method across different subjects can be highly effective. Evaluating media content from various sources as a media literate individual can thus be facilitated more consciously. The importance of the constructivist media decoding (CMD) process and inquiry-based interpretation is emphasized in this book, and applications related to this process are shared. With its alignment with novel educational approaches, this book can be regarded as a valuable resource in the educational process.