Uncovering Assumptions through Critical Writing

Students will learn to identify assumptions and propaganda techniques in advertisements. They will then use these techniques to create their own advertisement for a product and write a business letter persuading a company to produce their product.

A lesson plan for grades 7–8 English Language Arts

By Rennie Lee

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• identify the assumptions consumers make about advertisements.
• identify the 6 propaganda techniques used by advertisers to persuade consumers to buy their products.
• develop advertisements using at least one of these propaganda techniques.
• rate the effectiveness of advertisements that use these propaganda techniques.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

4 hours

Materials/resources

Handout of a magazine advertisement.

“Uncovering Assumptions” transparency and handouts.

Magazines with ads (one for every student in the class).

Technology resources

Overhead projector

Pre-activities

None

Activities

Modeling/ Minilesson

1. Set-up classroom in collaborative groups of four.
2. Handout copies of a magazine advertisement. Put the “Uncovering Assumptions” transparency on overhead. Tell students:
   
   “An assumption is something you believe without thinking about it or checking it out. Once you realize that you are assuming something, you can stop and check it out to make sure there is a good basis for believing it. We are going to check out the assumptions in this advertisement.”
3. Talk through the advertisement, identifying the audience, context, assumptions, and reality of the ad. Write your answers on the transparency.
4. After discussing assumptions, hand out magazines to each group and the “Uncovering Assumptions” handout. Have students select one ad and fill out the handout. We used this ad to discuss assumptions. Each student had to find the assumptions in their advertisement and then present their findings to the class. As they present, assess and correct their understanding of assumptions where necessary.

Guided Practice

5. Once students have the understanding of assumption, move to the 6 propaganda techniques. Ask students (individually) to record the definition for the following: Bias Assumption Propaganda Techniques: bandwagon, glittering generalities, plain folks, name calling, transfer.
6. Using the definitions, as a team have students look through magazines to find examples of the 6 techniques. At the end of this assignment they had to present their findings to the class. This leads to a question and discussion session on the techniques and hidden messages.

Independent Practice

7. Following this activity, assign each team the task of brainstorming and coming up with a new product to put out in the world of marketing. This product has to be something that society would benefit from as well as being real.
8. Before beginning their project, each group supplies the teacher with the following information: what the product is, the name of the product, the audience the product will be geared towards, and the propaganda technique they plan to use. After getting teacher approval, students construct their advertisement, taking into account the assumptions, bias, hidden messages, and techniques.
9. Upon completion of the advertisements, students create a rubric to score their advertisements. The criteria students usually come up with are: Audience, Propaganda Technique, Context, and Overall Advertisement. Have students vote on which advertisements are most persuasive and explain why.

Followup Activity

1. Have students brainstorm and come up with companies that could possibly produce their product. Once each group has identified a company, have each student in the group write business letters to these companies, explaining the processes taken to create their product and asking the company to consider their ideas. Search the internet for addresses, and mail the letters off. Discuss the differences between their audience for the advertisement and their audience for the business letter. What were the differences in the techniques they used to persuade the two audiences?
2. More Followup: Investigate bias further using editorials from the newspaper and looking at the language of bias.

Assessment

• Students’ evaluation of their understanding of propaganda techniques using the plus/delta method.
• Student-developed rubrics for the group advertisements.
• Persuasive letters to companies promoting each group’s product.

Supplemental information

Advertising in the Media Theme Page
http://www.cln.org/themes/media_advert.html
This website has links to more resources and lesson plans on evaluating advertisements

Related websites

Advertising in the Media Theme Page
http://www.cln.org/themes/media_advert.html

Comments

This lesson plan was adapted from the North Carolina Certified Writing Training Manual for Grade 7, presented by Anne Brown, Johna Faulconer, Shayne Goodrum, Jeanneine Jones, and Sara McCall, October 2002, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Raleigh, NC.