Media Analysis

This worksheet helps students in Grades 5 and 6 strengthen critical thinking, media literacy, reading comprehension, and historical understanding by analyzing modern portrayals of the American Frontier and Wild West. Students read an informational passage explaining how movies, television, music, and video games often emphasize adventure and heroism while minimizing hardship, conflict, and historical complexity. They then compare this information to a modern media example of their choice.

Learning Goals

• Evaluating Historical Representation in Media (Grades 5-6) – Students analyze how accurately modern entertainment reflects frontier life.
• Critical Analysis & Text-to-World Connections – Learners connect historical information from the passage to contemporary media examples.
• Identifying Bias and Inaccuracy – The activity helps students recognize exaggeration, omissions, and selective storytelling.
• Understanding Frontier Life & Cultural Impact – Students reflect on how media shapes public understanding of the American West.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with upper-elementary social studies and ELA standards.
• Student Choice-Driven – Selecting their own media increases engagement and relevance.
• Promotes Media Literacy – Encourages thoughtful evaluation of entertainment as a source of information.
• Flexible Classroom Use – Works well for independent analysis, discussion-based lessons, assessments, or enrichment.
• Low-Prep Printable – Ready for classroom or homeschool use.

This Media Analysis worksheet helps students become thoughtful consumers of historical media by comparing popular portrayals with factual information. By evaluating accuracy, bias, and missing perspectives, learners strengthen analytical reasoning, media literacy, and historical understanding while connecting past realities to modern storytelling.

This worksheet is part of our American Frontier and Wild West Worksheets collection.