Today's Classroom Activities :

Understanding Advertising

Advertising Trends
Math Get some old magazines from the library and have students make graphs depicting the amount of space devoted to advertisements. Then graph what kinds of products the ads are selling. Are the students being targeted? What percentage of the magazine is reading material that isn't an ad?

Advertising Talk
Reading Give your students catalogs and store flyers. Ask each child to select one item and list all the details they can learn about the item from the text and photo in the ad (size, color, cost, used for, etc.).

Advertisers Tread Lightly; Quietly Encouraging Consumers To Spend Again
Students will analyze how one national company responded to the recent tragedy by incorporating special messages into its advertising.

Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
This lesson provides students with the opportunity to look at mass media in a critical way. Students become aware of the tremendous amount of advertising that they are exposed to on a daily basis. By looking at advertising critically, students begin to understand how the media oppresses certain groups, convinces people to purchase certain products, and influences culture.

Can You Sell it?
Students will understand the methods of making commercials to market a product, learn about the truth in advertising, and produce their own commercials to sell different objects.