LIT | Getting Started

So you’ve signed up for Get Media LIT — welcome! But what now? Read on for a step-by-step walkthrough on how to use your new library of comics-based lesson plans to maximum effect in your classroom.

CONTENTS

• Introduction
• How It Works
• Walkthrough
• Need Help?

INTRODUCTION

Get Media LIT is the comics-based classroom tool that uses visual storytelling to impart social-emotional learning, literacy, and digital citizenship to students aged 12 and up. Through our diverse team of young superheroes known as The UnCommons, students learn that to be a hero, all you need to be is yourself.

Get Media LIT fosters greater self-awareness, social responsibility, and agency while strengthening readership and vocabulary in as little as 10 minutes of use every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 

HOW IT WORKS

The app contains a library of comics featuring The UnCommons in vignettes of their everyday lives as superheroes, faced with decisions ranging from the mundane to the world-altering.

Each comic is part of a lesson comprised of questions and classroom activities that students can complete as a class, in small groups, or individually. Each lesson has been designed by educators to meet different Common Core Standards as well as CASEL objectives.

Each lesson falls under one of three categories: Learn, Inquire, and Transform. “Learn” lessons introduce students to a new concept or idea. “Inquire” lessons engage students in critical thinking or analysis. Finally, “Transform” lessons prompt students to apply their knowledge in the classroom and beyond.

Teachers can guide their students through our curated lesson playlists, or mix and match lessons to create unique playlists for a tailored classroom experience.

WALKTHROUGH

Log in to your Get Media LIT dashboard to get started. From there you can access the whole LIT library, including featured lesson plans and playlists.

Let’s walk through one together. Select the lesson titled “Vision.”

In this lesson, the comic follows Iris, the leader of The UnCommons, on a walk where she comes across troubling messages about her body. Students will synthesize narrative and visual information to answer questions about how the media messages can make us feel.

The very first page states the comic’s learning focus and the full list of questions and activities students will complete based on their reading of “Vision.”

To present the lesson to your class, click on the green Start Lesson button on the right-hand sidebar.

The right-hand sidebar also allows you to view the Common Core Standards met by the current lesson, add the current lesson to your Favorites for safekeeping, or share it with your colleagues. The sidebar always features The UnCommons character associated with the current lesson.

Connect to your projector to display the comic to the whole class. In this lesson, Iris sees that she can’t walk down a single street without multiple advertisements for products implicitly criticizing her appearance. Thankfully, she has a strong sense of self and her identity.

Using the blue arrows on the left and right of the comic, navigate from the comic on through the questions and activities from the initial Overview, at your class’s own pace.

NEED HELP?

If you find yourself with additional questions, look to the bottom right-hand corner of any LIT page for the Help tool. You can find this tutorial again linked at the top of your dashboard screen.

Thank you for using Get Media LIT to help your students become the heroes they always could be!