Representing Tasks

One of the modes typically assessed in the English classroom is representing.  Recent discussions regarding assessments at school have started me thinking about creative, engaging and meaningful ways to have students represent their understanding of texts and concepts set for study.  Some ideas are below:

• Students select four small props or symbols representative of the key ideas in a text.  These are used as the focal point of a speech/tutorial presentation.  One prop selected by a student studying Othello, for example, might be a pair of reading glasses.  This could be used to flag discussion of Othello’s desire for “ocular proof” of his wife’s alleged infidelity, a punning allusion to Othello’s inability to ‘see’ Iago for who he truly is, and/or a link to how the omniscient audience ‘sees’ and understands Othello’s downfall.
• Students create a poster advocating for the social change desired by the poets/authors whose texts have been studied during the unit.  Students then present their poster, explaining how the poster (a) responds to the texts and issues set for study, and (b) demonstrates their own commitment to the focus issue.
• Students invent and pitch a product to represent their knowledge of persuasive devices and advertising techniques.
• Students craft a metaphor or simile to explain and represent a concept set for study.  Then, they create a presentation explaining how that metaphor or simile can be used to explore their set text(s).

‘Have I Got a Book For You!’

I recently happened upon an awesome picture book entitled Have I Got a Book For You!  I hope to use this book as an introduction to a unit about persuasion and marketing.  In particular, I want students to test drive some of the strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of each.

The Pitch

Inspired by the television show The Gruen Transfer, one of my Year 9 classes has been tasked with ‘selling the unsellable’.

In order to kick-start their thinking, I showed them a series of extracts from The Gruen Transfer segment ‘The Pitch’.

We began exploring the proposition that ‘We should invade New Zealand‘.  Students enjoyed both advertisements, and talked intelligently about the different approaches.

We then looked at advertisements created to sell the idea that ‘We should support child labour in Australia‘.  Again, students were captivated by the different approaches.

Students will use these ads, and the commentary around each, to guide and inspire their own advertisements.

A sweet lesson

My mainstream Year 9 class is about to begin a unit on advertising.  In order to get them to identify all the key features of an advert, I will go through the vocab and then ask them to identify the elements in a series of chocolate advertisements.

In order to show them how advertisements are used to illustrate slogans, I am going to show them the Snickers ad featuring Betty White as this offers a very literal demonstration of the slogan.  I will then follow this up with the Mars ad with the monks.  There, students can identify the work, rest and play sections and discuss how consuming the chocolate makes the monks able to have more fun.  I would also like to show them the Cadbury ad with the crazy eyebrows.  There, the link to the slogan can be discussed as can puns, humour and target audiences.