YOU ARE SMARTER THAN THE ADS
Grade: 4
Age: 8
Submitted by: Michele Ritchie-Harris
Objectives:
- Know and use a variety of appropriate arts elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the arts.
- To increase critical thinking skills in relation to visual information; to use elements and principles of design to emphasize focus on subject matter in a composition.
Problem/Activity:
Students will learn to critically scan and design advertisements as consumers and as advertisement designers.
Motivation:
Catalogs, magazines or newspapers of interest to the student.
Authenticity:
Potential career in advertising (&/or consumer affairs if integrate lesson with another subject).
Resources/Information Available:
Worksheets, adult rationale and story from "Seeds of Simplicity Curriculum." Teacher review of Feldman's Scanning Method. Sample ads having elements and principles of design noted in criteria section below.
Procedures:
Preparation/Distribution/Materials: students will have sketchbooks and advertisements at the start of lesson period one.
Lesson day 1: Teacher will set out a carryall bin on each of 5 group work tables; contents of bins:
- 15 mixed color, fine point & thick chisel point markers
- 5 pencils
Lesson day 2: same as above & 24 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 white construction paper
Lesson day 3: Clear bulletin board for use at end of class.
Teacher/Student Activity - Lesson Day One:
Students will scan and discuss the features of their advertisements that led to choosing them.
Teacher will record comments on the board and summarize key points.
Class will discuss the influence of advertising on consumers, noting students are consumers and they have control over the influence of advertising.
Vocabulary:
Consumer - a person who buys products or services for his own use.
Advertise - to tell many people about a product in a way that makes them want to buy it.
Advertising - work of preparing advertisement and getting them printed (or on TV, radio).
Class will scan their advertisements again and point out visual factors that make the advertisements attractive to the viewer.
Teacher will prompt student response to REVIEW of former lessons on the elements and principles of design, pointing to examples using the ones to be assessed in this lesson's activity (see below).
Teacher will briefly introduce the concept of advertising as a career. Students will "be advertisers" of a product in the lesson's activity.
Teacher will give the assignment and plan for next two class periods (also post on bulletin board):
- Think of a product that you really like.
- Think about what would make consumers want to buy this.
- Think of a design for an advertisement or catalog cover that includes your
ideas for making a consumer want the product.
- Artistic Problem: How to design an advertisement that uses elements and
principles of design to attract viewer attention to subject matter (product).
- In Sketchbooks, record sketch ideas for the design AND thoughts you have about advertisers and consumers during the process of designing your "ad".
Teacher will present criteria for assessment (post minimum on bulletin board):
- Elements of design - Texture on subject matter to be sold
- - Color scheme (label on back - monochromatic, analogous, complementary)
- Principles of design - Emphasis or dominance of subject matter
- - Balance (label on back - symmetry, asymmetry)
- Craftsmanship always counts!
- Depending on amount of time students participate in discussion, students may begin sketching ideas in their Sketchbooks.
Lesson day 2:
Work-in-progress period; teacher to give individual feedback on process of using elements and principles of design; indoor voice peer discussion.
Lesson day 3:
Class critique of completed advertisement designs; class will scan and critique the completed advertisements noting use of the elements and principles of design from the criteria; half the class will discuss their own works as advertisers; half the class will discuss their own work as consumers; students may share comments they wrote in their sketchbooks.
Clean-up:
Lesson day 1: Return all markers and pencils to carryall bins; students at end of
table return bins to the supply cabinet on appropriate shelf.
Lesson day 2: same as above.
Lesson day 3: Pin advertisements to bulletin boards.
Integrative Possibilities with Other Subjects:
Social studies and the media in history (ex. - the civil rights movement in the 1960-1970s); home economics and consumer affairs.
© Michele Ritchie-Harris
Seeds of Simplicity | P.O. Box 9955 | Glendale, CA 91226
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