On the 4/8/10 I had the honor of teaching a 6th grade Language Arts classroom about Advertising Techniques Companies use to make us buy their products. The students were excited and eager to express their interest and knowledge about the various techniques that they learned about and how they were now able to make a connection with the type of advertising the companies used.
Day 1: The students were exposed to five types of advertising techniques which included: Bandwagon, Repetition, Emotional Appeal, Transfer and Testimonial. I used examples from magazines and from various video clips from Youtube.com to show and explain the difference in the advertising techniques.
Day 2. The students were placed in cooperative learning groups, and were assessed using a performance based approach were they were give two magazines per group and had to create a collage with the advertising technique they received. It was a group activity, a rubric was given, teamwork, and pictures chosen had to identify with the advertising technique they received. The cooperating teacher was thrilled as research shows that students tend to retain a concept longer and understand it better when they are able to discuss, reflect, connect with the concept and this activity allowed just that. Finally, the students presented to the class.
Day 3. The students in their same groups had to create their own commercial and present it to the class as if they were presenting it before a board to buy their product. It had to be an original product that was not on the market. This developed the students higher order thinking in synthesis and analysis as the students had to brainstorm the product, price, target audience, who would sell their product, and come up with a reason why their target audience should buy their product. All students had to participate in the presentation at the front of the class. Thus improving their speaking/presentation skills. This lesson and presentation carried over into another day.
Day 4. Persuasive writing: A classroom model. This was a plan for modeling persuasive writing with this grade 6 classroom using homework as the topic. Writing requires planning, writing, and rewriting. To impress upon students its importance, the teacher needs to demonstrate a writing model. In other words, the teacher guides the students through the writing process as they work collaboratively on a writing assignment. We will discuss and the teacher will demonstrate the five stages of writing:prewriting, drafting, revising/editing, proofreading, and publishing/presenting
Day 5. Students will compose a persuasive writing piece adopting the opposing view about homework. The teacher will facilitate the lesson and provide direction. The goal is to complete stages1 and 2 of the writing process of this assignment. Students esp. ESOL who might need scaffolding throughout this lesson will be guided, and accomodated by referring to to the initial prewriting stages of the modeling of persuasive writing from yesterday's class. As all students and the teacher brainstormed and generated ideas for both sides ie. Students should have homework. Students should not have homework. That information will be reviewed at the beginning of the lesson. The emphasis is that students begin to understand the writing process and the prewriting stage and drafting stages are very important to the writing process. My objective is for them to demonstrate their knowledge of the first two stages of the writing process. As the saying goes "Practice makes perfect".
The video clip shows the commercial created for a "glow in the dark football", the female student is an ESOL whose second language acquistion level is stage II, I was trying to get her to share and to discuss any part of the commercial. She was a bit shy, but I was proud that she stood with her group and was willing to try.
