A report for the British Library concluded that despite access to information provided by contemporary technology, there had been no increase in the information literacy of students. Major publications from the National Middle School Association, including "This We Believe" and "From Rhetoric to Reality," recognize that the mass media is a powerful presence in the life of students and that the curriculum should respond to this fact. One simple way library media specialists can recognize and respond to media in the lives of students is to survey their media tastes, habits, and preferences. The author discusses techniques in teaching and exploring media and meaning in middle school. He presents activities that utilize sequences from film that run no longer than eight minutes. The questions, answers, discussion, and activities students engage in as a result of seeing short clips, are considerably longer as they experience the process of richer reading of media texts.