NCTE Media Literacy Award
2023 Award Recipient: Jon Wargo
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Jon Michael Wargo is an associate professor of educational studies in the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A literacy researcher and teacher educator, his scholarship reconceptualizes the role of media and technology as it comes to intersect with children’s and youths’ critical literacy learning. Leveraging young peoples’ innovation and ingenuity as signs and sights for consequential literacy learning, his teaching and research focus on understanding and sustaining the heterogeneity of human sensemaking in the contexts of social change.
An award-winning researcher and nationally recognized scholar, Wargo won early career achievement awards from the Literacy Research Association and the Children’s Literature Assembly in 2021. In 2020, he was named an NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. His work has appeared in several top-tier peer-reviewed journals, including Research in the Teaching of English; Learning, Media and Technology; Mind, Culture, and Activity; Anthropology and Education Quarterly; English Education; New Media and Society; and the Journal of Literacy Research. He has received distinguished article awards from the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Educational Research Association Queer Studies Special Interest Group.
A former kindergarten teacher and Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) facilitator, Wargo earned a PhD in curriculum, instruction, and teacher education from Michigan State University and a BA in English and gender studies from Indiana University, Bloomington. Before joining the Marsal Family School of Education, Wargo was an assistant professor at Boston College and Wayne State University.
“In a time of sustained censorship, wherein teaching a text that fosters justice and humanization may get you dismissed, literacy is, and remains, a power tool to imagine otherwise. As a professional community of literacy educators, let us use the space of the English language arts classroom to counter everyday injustices and experiment with a future that is not yet considered or expected.”
2023 Media Literacy Award Committee
Cruz Medina, chair, Santa Clara University, NM
Ryan Rish, University at Buffalo (SUNY), NY
Korina Jocson, York University, Toronto, Canada
Award Details
The NCTE Media Literacy Award will be presented at the NCTE Awards Session. The award winner will be notified by the end of August.
Application Deadline: June 15
A resolution passed by the members at the 2003 San Francisco Convention on Composing with Non-Print Media, made the creation of this award especially important. The resolution recommended the encouragement of preservice, inservice, and staff development programs that focus on new literacies, multi-media composition, and a broadened concept of literacy. The award showcases NCTE members who have developed innovative approaches for integrating media analysis and composition into their instruction. You can learn more about recent critical media literacy work by reviewing NCTE’s Task Force Report and the Squire Office’s Policy Brief.
All recipients must be an NCTE member at the time the award is accepted.
Current NCTE Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients of this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.
Award:
NCTE leaders honor the recipient at the NCTE Awards Session.
Where do I submit my work?
The portfolio should be submitted by filling out the application form below.
Please contact NCTEAwards@ncte.org with any questions.
Applying for the Award
The Media Literacy Award will be presented to an individual, team, or department that has implemented and refined exemplary media literacy practices in their school environment. The Award Selection Process will be based on a portfolio review by a selection committee. Only one award will be given each year.
The portfolio should be submitted electronically.
The key elements of the portfolio should demonstrate:
- Analysis, evaluation, and creation of media
- Reflective processes used by instructor(s) and participants
- Growth of media literacy instruction in the course/department
The portfolio must address the following criteria:
Evidence of sustained implementation of media literacy principles (recognized as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages) over time.
STATEMENT
- How have media literacy principles been reinforced over time during the course of study?
- What assignments, readings, strategies are used to show that media literacy is fundamental to the course?
EVIDENCE
Includes, but is not limited to:
- Assignments, lessons, and/or project descriptors
- Curriculum maps or unit plans
- Resource lists
- Examples of student work
- Grading rubrics and assessment standards
Describe the development of the course or unit and how it fits within the curriculum, providing evidence of innovation and imagination within the program. What is the context within which the work takes place: a course, a unit, a department?
STATEMENT
Questions to consider:
- Is this a lesson? A series of lessons? A unit?
- Is media literacy used in a variety of contexts and lessons?
- What issues have arisen while implementing media literacy?
- What obstacles have been overcome?
- How have the units/lessons/projects evolved over time?
EVIDENCE
Includes, but is not limited to:
- Revisions of units and lessons
- Student and teacher reflective instruments
- Assignments, lessons, and/or project descriptors
- Curriculum maps or unit plans
- Resource lists
- Examples of student work
- Grading rubrics and assessment standards
Evidence of collaboration in the media literacy classroom, within or outside the school.
STATEMENT
Questions to consider:
- How does this unit/lesson/project transcend the classroom?
- Do students work collaboratively? Do they reflect on the collaborative process in a formal manner?
- Does collaboration enhance the project/lesson/unit in specific ways that more traditional solo activity might not?
- Do students work with others outside the classroom?
- Do they work across academic disciplines? Across grade levels?
EVIDENCE
May include, but is not limited to:
- Revisions of units and lessons
- Student and teacher reflective instruments
- Assignments, lessons, and/or project descriptors
- Curriculum maps or unit plans
- Resource lists
- Examples of student work
- Grading rubrics and assessment standards
Evaluation of a portfolio of exemplary work, including high- or low-tech media compositions, syllabi, and course assignments to be submitted electronically, if possible.
STATEMENT
Questions to consider:
- What work is most representative of the focus on media literacy in my courses?
- How have assessments and teacher responses helped students create effective media literacy products?
- How has the practice of media literacy evolved over time in my course, and what artifacts best represent that?
- What best represents the ways we analyzed, evaluated, and created media?
- How have the projects/lessons/units evolved over time?
- What instruments and results show the reflection that goes into the developing of the course?
EVIDENCE
May include, but is not limited to:
- Revisions of units and lessons
- Student and teacher reflective instruments
- Assignments, project descriptors, resource lists, curriculum maps, and lesson or unit planning
- Student projects, examples of student work in all formats
- Grading rubrics and assessment standards
- Products of student work
NCTE Media Literacy Award Application 2024
Deadline for submissions is June 15, 2024.