NCTE Media Literacy Award
2025 Award Recipient: Cassie J. Brownell
University of Toronto
Cassie J. Brownell is an associate professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Her research considers issues of social equity and educational justice from early to middle childhood, with an emphasis on literacies. A former early childhood and elementary educator, she is a past recipient of NCTE’s Early Childhood Education Assembly’s Early Literacy Teacher Educator of the Year Award, the Linda Reif Voices from the Middle Award, and two Research Initiative Grants from NCTE’s English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE). An NCTE member since 2012, she has regularly presented at the NCTE Annual Convention, and she has published in and reviewed for many NCTE journals, including English Journal and Language Arts. After receiving an honorable mention for the Alan C. Purves Award for her article published in Research in the Teaching of English, Dr. Brownell served on the selection committee.
Grounded by the belief that to serve children better, educators must better understand children as raced, classed, and gendered individuals, I take an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing children’s rhetorical communications from early childhood onward across sociopolitical, geographic, and digital contexts. Bridging literacies with social studies, I hope to forward possibilities for more justice-oriented approaches to teaching. Ultimately, I seek to forward my ultimate goal: to disrupt long-standing perceptions of children as naïve and apolitical, and to help adults recognize the necessity of attuning to children’s words (and worlds) in my home country of the United States, my new home of Canada, and worldwide.
2025 Media Literacy Award Committee
Korina Jocson, York University, Toronto, Canada
Carrie Perry, Prew Academy, Sarasota, FL
Teaira McMurtry, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL
Award Details
The NCTE Media Literacy Award will be presented at the NCTE Awards Session.
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.
NCTE membership is required for all applicants.
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.
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