Today’s students are immersed in mass media – from TV to My Space to YouTube to the Internet to cell phones and instant messaging.

That’s why Croton’s Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School teacher Johanna Mustacchi developed a curriculum to help students become informed consumers of mass media. Her work is currently showcased in the March issue of Educational Leadership, a publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, in a piece she wrote entitled “What’s Relevant for YouTubers?”

“Students need to develop a critical eye, and schools need to teach them how to become literate in the multimedia experiences that routinely bombard and sometimes exploit them,” Ms. Mustacchi writes.

This is exactly what she teaches her sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students at PVC. In sixth grade, the curriculum covers print media, focusing on the creation of a school newspaper; in seventh grade, students study video and produce commercials, news broadcasts, and more; and eighth graders focus in on the Internet, which includes both analyzing online information and building and maintaining websites.

Always the teacher, Ms. Mustacchi parlayed her experience writing the Educational Leadership article, contacting the magazine, and having her work edited into “teachable moments” by sharing the process with her students. Included in the story are several of Ms. Mustacchi’s photos of Croton students at work.