Anton Mett
-The Art and Science of English in Advertising: a media literacy unit-
Prefatory Statement:
-Overview:
This unit will cover advertisements in American media. It will cover the kinds of advertisements done for different media types (newspaper, magazine, internet, radio, and television). The unit will also include the different strategies used when advertising and why they are used. After a week of instruction, the students will do a web quest where they will have to examine and critique 1-3 advertisements and share their results with the class. They will also have a test on the information they learned in an essay format.
-Rationale:
This unit should be useful to any high school class for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, advertisements are a genre that students are very familiar with. According to the Star Tribune's front page October 13 th , the average child is yearly exposed to 10,000 food and beverage advertisements alone. This kind of exposure allows for a great deal of material for comparisons and a good foundation to build on.
Secondly, advertisements offer a very compact and complete literary object. Because of their function, ads have to get your attention and their message out quickly. This means that we view multiple ads in one period and still have plenty of time to re-view, discuss, analyze, and even debate their merits. With short stories and even poems, this can be very difficult if not impossible. This allows us to practice the process of analysis many times rather than having the one large outcome we usually come to at the end of a novel.
Thirdly, the short time frame means that students should be able to stay on task and keep their attention on the topic. This is especially important for students who get easily distracted, or for those who have difficulty keeping up with a complex plot line.
The forth reason is that advertisements are so prevalent in our students lives. Most students spend 3 to 6 hours in front of the television, and when they are later adults, most of their reading will consist of newspapers and magazines. All of these forms of media are littered with advertisements, so it is important that they have an understanding of why and how they are being manipulated.
The final reason is that it is important to understand how advertisers target their audience. Students will be given the opportunity to examine social issues as portrayed by advertisements. Students will be more aware of social injustice when they look at how people from different groups are presented in the media. Advertisements are an especially important venue for social injustice as they are much more concerned with making money than being politically correct. This means that they encourage spending on temporary, unnecessary things instead of responsible spending. The media is telling us to keep up with the Johnson's, and the Johnson's aren't even real. This is can be very harmful to people who are not aware of the manipulation they are going through.
Class Specification:
This unit is only as appropriate as the advertisements we choose to look at. Ads with beer guzzling, bikini wearing super-models are not appropriate for middle school students, period. While I wouldn't personally want high school students exposed to these types of ads, if they watch prime time television, they probably are familiar with them already, so they might as well understand how these ads are attempting to manipulate the public. I personally think that a class discussion where the students are taught to be critical of such ads would be beneficial, but if a class doesn't seem mature enough to handle such a discussion, I would recommend avoiding these kinds of ads altogether.
Also, some of the theories may be difficult for middle school students to understand fully, so I would recommend teaching this unit to high school students.
Significant Assumptions:
I am assuming that most of the students in the class have had significant exposure to media outside of class. I'm also assuming that students will be interested in learning about this style of communication. If these assumptions are wrong, I think the unit will still be useful, but perhaps not as enjoyable for the class, which is a shame as I believe students tend to learn better when they enjoy the subject matter.
Objectives:
-Students will have an understanding of how English language skills connect to the advertising industry.
-Students will know how audience plays an important part when writing.
-Students will know strengths and weaknesses of different types of media.
-Students will be aware of how they are affected by advertisements.
-Students will know the components of an effective advertisement.
-Students will be able to identify common advertising strategies.
-Students will know how, why, and when to code switch (change writing style depending on purpose and the intended audience).
State standards met:
D. Literature: The student will:
4. Evaluate the impact of an author's decisions regarding word choice, point of view, style, and literary elements.
A. Speaking and listening:
1. Distinguish between speaker's opinion and verifiable facts and analyze the credibility of the presentation.
5. Understand the effects of media on society and culture.
6. Identify and understand essential elements, skills and implications of persuasion, argumentation, and debate as essential oral skills.
B. Media Literacy
The student will critically analyze information found in electronic and print media, and will use a variety of these sources to learn about a topic and represent ideas.
Possible whole class activities:
Fishbowl panel discussions regarding the merits of commercials we view.
Class can debate whether the portrayal of people in the media is fair or accurate.
Possible small-group activities:
Writing an ad for local (or fictional) business or products.
Write a review of a product, then an ad of the same product. Discuss the
differences of writing style.
Possible individual activities:
Paper: What the world would be like if commercials were all true?
Paper: Describe a time when you bought something you later regretted. What
made you want to buy it in the first place? Why was it a disappointment?
Ongoing activities:
Each day (for five days of the first six days) we will go over some of the basics on how to advertise in different mediums. I will try to present many of the same categories so the students will have a good basis for comparison and an understanding of what is going on in each kind of advertisement. Points I will focus on is the audience targeted (special interest magazines and time slots on tv and radio for example), audience locale, (from local with radio and newspaper, to national with television and internet), and senses appealed to (visual, auditory, interactive, etc). They will write these down in their notebook so that they will be able to compare and contrast the different types of media at a moments notice.
Student resources:
Students will need access to computers, magazines, newspapers, notebooks and writing utensils.
Supporting material for teachers:
Websites:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~amett
http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/persuasive.html
http://www.marketingpower.com/live/content.php?Item_ID=993&Category_ID=&Src=
http://www.entrenet.com/%7Egroedmed/namedu/adtech.htm
http://adcracker.com/creativeideas/
http://www.9iron.org/top_10.htm
http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/advertising.htm
Teachers will also need a television with a vcr. Tapes of commercials are necessary. You can just get them off of prime time television if necessary, but sometimes they have specials like "best 100 commercials" which would be helpful, and PBS has a show called "Mental Engineering" which critiques commercials. It is usually interesting and would be a very good example of how you would like the students to critique ads themselves.
Sequence of Events:
Day 1:
Introduction to topic of advertising and commonly used advertising techniques.
Day 2:
Focus on newspaper advertisements.
In small groups, write both a review and an ad on the same product. Take some notes on the differences between the two.
Day 3:
Focus on magazine advertisements.
Split the class into four groups. Two groups will debate the accurateness of people portrayed in an advertisement, two groups will debate the fairness of the same portrayal.
Day 4:
Focus on radio advertisements.
In small groups, think of five products that could be effectively advertised on a local radio station. Write up an ad for one of these products and explain why you chose the one that you did.
Day 5:
Focus on television commercials.
As a class, have a fishbowl discussion on the effectiveness and fairness of a few commercials, much like the panel discussions on "Mental Engineering."
Day 6:
Focus on Internet advertisements.
Individually write about a time when you bought something you later wished you hadn't. Why did you buy it in the first place? Why was it later a disappointment? Make sure to mention how the advertisement(s) were effective, but not necessarily true.
Day 7:
Assign web quest, should be able to get through tasks 1, 2 & 3.
Day 8:
Ask students to write down examples of essay questions they would like to see on the test, including a brief answer of what they would consider an acceptable answer. Then allow time to work on web quest, should complete tasks 4& 5.
Day 9:
Work day. Conference with teacher about progress if needed. Should get a good start on tasks 7 and/or 8.
Day 10:
Students take the essay test that they helped design.
Day 11 and 12:
Present web quest results to the class. Should take about 3-5 minutes each to explain the advertisement, the methods used, and how they would change it to be more effective.
Day One: Introduction to the art and science of advertising.
Objectives:
-Students will have an understanding of how English language skills connect to the advertising industry.
-Students will know how audience plays an important part when writing.
-Students will be aware of how they are affected by advertisements.
-Students will know the components of an effective advertisement.
-Students will be able to identify common advertising strategies.
Methods:
-Class activity (5 min) - take a survey of the class, ask the students which products they like best between the options given.
Shoes: Nike, Rebock, Adidas, Airwalk, or K-Swiss.
Candy: Snickers, M & M's, Mars, Hershey's Bar, or Charleston Chew.
Soda: Mountain Dew, Sprite, Sierra Mist, 7-Up, or Squirt.
Cars: Volkswagen, Ford, Saturn, Kia, or Dae Woe.
-Class discussion (5 min) - ask why there are many more votes for some products over others. Explain that they have a great deal more exposure to the products at the beginning of the lists than they do with the latter ones because of the amount of money they spend on advertising.
-Lecture (10 min) - Explain the function advertising serves. Cover how media companies make money by advertising, why corporations need to advertise their products, and why the public is willing to pay attention to them.
-Lecture (10 min) - Explain how an ad needs to function as a small persuasive speech. This means it needs to grab attention, show a need, and provide a means of satisfaction.
-Small group activity (5 min) - Give each group a slip of paper with a definition of a technique that is used in advertising, and ask them to explain to the class how it is used in marketing. Techniques may include: avant garde, bandwagon, facts and figures, glittering generalities, hidden fears, magic ingredients, patriotism, plain folks, snob appeal, testimonial, and wit and humor.
-Group presentations (15 min) - Groups will explain their findings and the class should take notes.
Assignment: In groups they should explain the technique they were given and come up with at least one example of how it's used in practice. They will need to turn these in at the end of the hour and present their findings to the class.
Assessment: There should be a brief description consisting of two or three complete sentences and an example. Class participation will also count for credit.
Day Two: Newspaper Advertising
Objectives:
-Students will be able to identify essential elements of persuasion.
-Students will know how and when to switch between different writing styles, persuasive versus informative.
Methods:
-Lecture (5 min) - Why use newspaper advertising over other forms of media? Local, focused attentive audience, inexpensive, timely, and can be offered in correlation to relevant news (i.e. store's grand opening may be news in a small town).
-Group activity (5 min) - Give each group a newspaper clipping of a movie critique and a movie advertisement. They should be able find at least three ways in which they differ and be prepared to share them with the class during discussion.
-Lecture (20 min) - Go over differences between persuasive writing and informative writing. Frequently ask if anyone has examples of what is being identified in lecture; when there are examples, share them with the class. Points may be that reviews try to be unbiased, have no call to action, tend to give more details about the movie, and are very wordy. Advertisements focus more on who is in the movie, are more visual, are overwhelmingly positive, and only have a few words.
-Individual activity (20 min) - Write an ad and a review for the same product (may be fictional or real as long as it is appropriate)
Assignment: They need to write up a brief product review and an advertisement. The product should be appropriate for school. There should be differences between the styles of ad and the review in accordance with what we discussed in class.
Assessment: The ad will be assessed on the use of persuasive words, images, and have a call to action. Reviews should be 3-4 paragraphs in length, should have examples of at least 2 positive and 2 negative aspects to the product, have a product description and a rating of how useful it is.
Day Five: Television Advertising
Objectives:
-Students should be aware of how television commercials comment on our society and analyze if they are accurate or fair.
-Students should be able to evaluate the impact of an author's use of word choice, casting, and setting.
Methods:
-Lecture (15 min) - Why advertise on television? As a medium, it offers multiple sensory stimulation, is a very popular form of media, can reach the entire nation, and targets specific interest groups according to the programs they are viewed with (Home Depot can advertise on fix it shows for example). Explain how this can lead to commercials focused on groups with the most buying power (population and money). This can sometimes be unreal and unfair.
-Class activity (5 min) - Watch a sampling of commercials.
-Class discussion (25 min) - Who were the ads targeting? Who were represented in the commercials? Were they portrayed positively or negatively? Would you say the representations were fair? How well do the characters shown represent America ?
-Individual work (15 min) - Work on assignment.
Assignment: Pretend you are an alien from another culture who has never heard of America . What would you expect to find in America from what you saw in the commercials in class today? Would these assumptions be correct? Remember to look at both who is/isn't represented and how they are represented.
Assessment: Student should have a few well-written paragraphs that include at least three conceptions they have of American society based on the commercials. Each of these should be addressed as being correct or not.