Even my students who “don’t have time” for homework spend 2-3 hours a day on Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix. Our students consume media in amazing quantities, and it’s said that traditional advertising doesn’t work on their generation. As advertisers become more and more savvy in an attempt to break through to their younger listeners, it’s important that students understand how to identify the ways in which a speaker could be manipulating their emotions and instincts. Here are some activities for helping students develop an awareness of persuasive techniques. You can use these to start a larger conversation about being an informed viewer (and citizen!) in today’s media-driven climate. 1. Introduction to Rhetoric Use this activity to introduce (or refresh) ethos, logos, and pathos. Students watch two videos and complete a Doodle Notes worksheet, eventually synthesizing the concepts. My students really enjoy watching these short, animated videos a couple of times in order to make sure they “get it”, and the Doodle Notes provide a nice visual to help them remember the important ideas! You can grab them here. 2. “Buy My Pencil” In this activity, students try to convince each other to buy a pencil. They will employ a variety of persuasive techniques, even if they do not yet have the names for all of them. This is because students absorb persuasion constantly, and demonstrate various techniques on a hunch. After a few minutes of letting them try to sell a partner their pencil, call students back together and have them describe the techniques they used. To extend this, you can have students perform these impromptu skits in front of a larger group or in front of the class. This is a great way to get some informal public speaking practice, and I’m always a proponent of making public speaking less intimidating. 3. Introduction to Persuasive Techniques I use this interactive PowerPoint will help students put names to the techniques they’ve grown up hearing and using. Students will be able to identify techniques in context and apply their knowledge of ethos, logos, and pathos. To break up the term-definition monotony, I have students “buzz in” to identify the techniques in some example ads. I also include Think-Pair-Share to get them to generate more examples of various techniques they’ve seen in recent commercials. 4. Persuasive Tweets A fun bellringer or exit slip activity for practicing persuasive techniques is Persuasive Tweets. In 140 characters or less, students can use one persuasive technique to sell something. I’ve had success giving all students one item (similar to “Buy My Pen”) and having them draw a persuasive technique from a hat. You can download my list of persuasive techniques for this activity here. 5. News Literacy Project The News Literacy Project is a new tool that I would like to integrate into my curriculum throughout the year to help students determine the credibility and levels of bias in various news reports. I’m still in the early stages of exploring this project, but they have online modules that take students through the steps of developing media literacy. According to their site, “As students progress through the checkology™ platform, journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, NBC News and other news outlets are joined by experts on the First Amendment and digital media to guide them through each lesson’s core concepts. These e-learning experiences use real-world examples of news and information that test students’ emerging skills and lead them to mastery.” This has huge potential to help our students become informed, discerning citizens! Wow! Share this post on Facebook! 6. Commercial Analysis Lastly, my students really enjoy applying their new knowledge to commercials! This is a perfect activity to use in this post-football time of the year. Students are still talking about commercials aired during the Super Bowl, and you can find a “top ten” list of commercials to bring to class (vetted first by you for content). Have students choose a commercial, and follow this step-by-step analysis of persuasive techniques. They can complete this alone or in pairs, and can present in small groups. For an added bonus, let them show the commercials in class. Persuasive Techniques are a great way to get students engaged and thinking. You can help develop their media literacy and challenge them to consider the incoming messages. Check out these great resources by other Coffee Shop authors: Logical Fallacies by The Daring English Teacher Media Literacy/Advertising Activities by Addie Williams Critical Analysis with Disney by Room 213 (blog post) Analyzing Music Videos by Stacey Lloyd What are your favorite resources and activities for teaching persuasive techniques? Pin this article for future reference. :)
Media literacy is a key component to a good literacy program. Read about the top reasons about why teaching media literacy is important.
Teaching students how to identify fake news is a daunting task since many adults continue to struggle with this skill. It is imperative that we teach these essential digital literacy skills to students so they automatically think critical y before clicking, sharing, and assuming what they see online is true. I've rounded up some resources and lessons for teaching students how to evaluate information online and identify fake news. 1. iCivics Fake News Literacy Unit Thank you to a member of the Teach With Tech Facebook Group for sharing this fantastic resource. iCivics, founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, is
Forms of media continue to grow each day. Equip your young learners with media literacy skills to help them be responsible and safe online!
Ideas to help teach media literacy to students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade and critical thinking ideas to help students dissect the purpose of media (TV, movies, YouTube) that they view every day.
Learn everything you need to know about how to use cereal boxes to teach media literacy skills. Use this cereal box media literacy unit to integrate your media expectations into your Health and Math Probability curriculum expectations.
It is really hard to find resources to teach media literacy to K-2 students! If you have a subscription to Brainpop, they do have an excellent video about media literacy. You can find it HERE. Another great resource is media smarts. They have several videos about media. You can find them HERE. After introducing media with these videos, we made flipbooks in our interactive notebooks that had all the media literacy notes we needed. We also completed a couple sorting worksheets to review the concepts. At the end of our unit we created posters and pamphlets to help to promote and sell our Market Day items. You can download all the media literacy pages HERE.
It is really hard to find resources to teach media literacy to K-2 students! If you have a subscription to Brainpop, they do have an excellent video about media literacy. You can find it HERE. Another great resource is media smarts. They have several videos about media. You can find them HERE. After introducing media with these videos, we made flipbooks in our interactive notebooks that had all the media literacy notes we needed. We also completed a couple sorting worksheets to review the concepts. At the end of our unit we created posters and pamphlets to help to promote and sell our Market Day items. You can download all the media literacy pages HERE.
Here's how you can help.
Help upper elementary, middle school, & high school students with media literacy by teaching them to distinguish between real and fake news. Great tips here!
Media literacy is a key component to a good literacy program. Read about the top reasons about why teaching media literacy is important.
Teaching elementary students how to analyze media messages is an important skill in any reading curriculum!
For grades 3-8!
Help students learn 21st-century media literacy skills with these lesson ideas. Check out this blog post.
Help students learn 21st-century media literacy skills with these lesson ideas. Check out this blog post.
Social media makes it easy to say and share whatever you want while hiding behind a screen. That's why it's important to think before we share!
Teaching students how to identify fake news is a daunting task since many adults continue to struggle with this skill. It is imperative that we teach these essential digital literacy skills to students so they automatically think critical y before clicking, sharing, and assuming what they see online is true. I've rounded up some resources and lessons for teaching students how to evaluate information online and identify fake news. 1. iCivics Fake News Literacy Unit Thank you to a member of the Teach With Tech Facebook Group for sharing this fantastic resource. iCivics, founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, is
This blog post explores engaging resources, lessons, and activities for making media literacy relevant in the 21st-century classroom.
Looking to develop your Canva confidence so you can create beautiful handouts, flashcards, and models for your ELA classroom? Great! Find help in this post.
With all the different information sources out there, media literacy is essential. Get tips for teaching your kids and students about this important topic.
Teaching students how to identify fake news is a daunting task since many adults continue to struggle with this skill. It is imperative that we teach these essential digital literacy skills to students so they automatically think critical y before clicking, sharing, and assuming what they see online is true. I've rounded up some resources and lessons for teaching students how to evaluate information online and identify fake news. 1. iCivics Fake News Literacy Unit Thank you to a member of the Teach With Tech Facebook Group for sharing this fantastic resource. iCivics, founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, is
Teaching students how to identify fake news is a daunting task since many adults continue to struggle with this skill. It is imperative that we teach these essential digital literacy skills to students so they automatically think critical y before clicking, sharing, and assuming what they see online is true. I've rounded up some resources and lessons for teaching students how to evaluate information online and identify fake news. 1. iCivics Fake News Literacy Unit Thank you to a member of the Teach With Tech Facebook Group for sharing this fantastic resource. iCivics, founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, is
Here are 30+ fantastic YouTube Channels for Teachers, Students, Administrators or any Educator!
Do you want to teach kids about good digital citizenship and media literacy but don't know how to promote these skills? These books help!
Students answer questions in an informational poster to gauge the value of a news story and decide whether it deserves to be linked, shared or retweeted. (Poster also available for download in Spanish, Japanese and Ukrainian.)
Looking for ways to incorporate New Media into your lessons? Here are some easy ways to explore issues surrounding social media and how teens use and interact with it online.
Social Media Safety Tips for Teens & Families Social media platforms, & the Internet in general, can be amazingly powerful tools for social good & as informational resources. However, t…
Your students are vulnerable to the effects of advertising. Learn about how and why you should teach about advertising techniques.
Learn everything you need to know about how to use cereal boxes to teach media literacy skills. Use this cereal box media literacy unit to integrate your media expectations into your Health and Math Probability curriculum expectations.
Here are some useful websites that you can share with your students to teach about web literacy and critical thinking. Can they work out which websites are true, and which are fake?
With media sources being so divided - many favoring either the left or the right in American politics - it's more important
An awesome start to the school year for Mount Holly Middle School! Over the summer, MHMS received and processed many new books for our...
As adults, we often walk into a bookstore with a certain genre we are ready to peruse the aisles for in order to find our next read. Would your students be able to do the
How to teach beginner ESL students is just as important as what to teach them. Here are 7 strategies that will help you out.
Social media is a powerful tool and a big part of your students' lives. Help them learn to use social media positively and identify bulling.
Guest blogger Dave Guymon, an online middle school teacher and edtech Master's candidate, defines visual literacy and proposes using three popular social media modes - Instagram, Emoji and memes - to enhance students' academic fluency.
Do your students need lessons about online safety and digital citizenship? We created these lessons to help our students stay safe online.
Just some idle charting on the concepts of information literacy, media literacy, critical thinking, etc. This is simply one (librarian-centric) possible model of these concepts. The idea is all the other literacies (media literacy, 21st cent literacy, ICT, translit, etc.) involve interacting with information in one form or another, so "information literacy" acts as the umbrella under which all the others sit.
Social media is a big part of our students' lives. They're always checking Facebook updates or Tweeting to each other inside and outside the classroom. So the big question
