Images and Influence
A WebQuest for 11th Grade Language Arts
Designed by Carol Boehm
Introduction | Task | Process | Evaluation | Conclusion | Credits | Teacher Page
Introduction
| Think about the times you look in a mirror or your reflection in a window. Do you watch your shadow grow, change? Do you see yourself in magazines? Billboards? How do we see ourselves? Do we see fun house reflections? Do we see our hopes, failures, dreams, depressions, desires, disappointments? Do we see an ideal constructed by corporations? |  |
Task
Critical Question: Do advertisements influence or reflect youth culture?
This is a journey though the maze of media images of young men and women which populate the pages of our magazines, commercials, billboards, and the sides of our city buses. Your task is to investigate the sources, purposes and manipulation of these media messages.
For the second task your group will investigate the influences of the images. What are the correlation between images, obsessions with appearances and what health issues are involved?
For your final task your group will compile the information you have gathered, come to a consensus on an approach to use for a presentation. The presentation may be informative, persuasive, or both.
Process
PART 1 - IMAGES
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Critical Media Literacy Question: What are the codes and conventions of advertising? |
- Define advertising (look up in online dictionary, ask Jeeves etc.)
- Define (brainstorming) words associated with 'masculine' and 'feminine'
- Share
- Explore websites for favorite products - select those incorporating male and or female images (may also use magazines) Some suggestions are in the box below.
Critical Media Literacy Question:What is the purpose of the message?Who is the target audience? |
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Use the tools listed in the box to the right: |
Questions to Ask About Media Messages Questions to Ask of an Advertisement The Language of Advertising Claims Don't Buy It: Get Media Smart (from PBS) |
- come to consensus on ideal male and female as depicted on websites
- Create a collage of the images of ideal males and females adding adjectives collected earlier in #2
- Share
- in groups experiment with posture etc.
- in groups describe - brainstorm adjectives to describe how you each feel
- males model females
- males model males
- females model females and
- females model males
Use adjectives to describe the postures of the models and add to collage
Part 2 - Influence
Critical Media Literacy Question:What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented?Who and What are omitted? |
View clips of Tough Guise and Slim Hopes
Listen to Jean Kilbourne author of Slim Hopes - Counterspin
View Quick Time clips from Body Image
Group Work
In groups ask and answer questions about the clips.
JigSaw Activity
Each member of your home group is responsible for reading two articles. Each member will then meet with their counterparts from the other groups in the class. The counterparts are the students in the other groups who read the same articles. Your second group will discuss the articles and create questions for a quiz. Questions should include yes/no questions, information questions and questions requiring inference. These will be used at the end of the JigSaw activity. Each student will then return to their home group to teach their group members about what they have read and discussed in their second group. Do not read any part of the article to other members of your home group.
Critical Media Literacy Question:What are the social and political implications? |
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Women and Girls (7 pages) |
Men and Masculinity (7 pages) |
Times change. Fashions change. Do body images?
- Generate lists of adjectives and short phrases to describe the images from each decade you have chosen
- Use a Venn Diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between images from 3 different decades.
- How-to Compare and Contrast using Venn Diagrams
(Choose several images from each decade, copy and paste in the image software program and use them later to insert in your final presentation)
Media Manipulation
Divide the articles among the members of your group. Each member is responsible for reading the article, choosing key words, and teaching group members about the subject. The group will then create questions which will be submitted to the instructor. The instructor will chose the best questions to use in a quiz at the end of this activity.
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Aniston seething over Redbook cover |
So What? |
(Evaluation)
We have looked at ads, gender representations in ads, elements and components of ads, manipulation of images, opinions, historical perspective etc. You have three options for demonstrating and apply what you have learned. YOu will also have ample opportunities to extend your learning through further researrch. Your instructor will be available and be happy to aid in your researech.
Option #1
Write a persuasive essay.
Multigenre papers are encouraged. You also have the choice of You may also choose to create a webpage or more, a powerpoint presentation or other possibilitiy as long aas it is approved by the instructor. You may choose to write a letter, or an op-ed paper. Your choices are only limited by your imagainations and by the instructors decisions.
Possible audiences include the instructor, your fellow students, an editor, an advertising agaency, the advertiser you either find exemplary or disgusting, or other optiions you may arrive at.
Option #2
Organize a boycott.
You will need to do a lot of publicity, organiziation, and use all four skills well - speaking, listening, reading, and writing. A very important element in this assignment is visual. Use what you have learned about images and their use to enhance and support your campaign.Option #3
Create art. This option may very well tie into option #1 if you are going to use powerpoint or publish to a website. This could also be a collage. Another optioin in this catagory is creating an anti ad. There are three sites to help with the purpose and process listed in the supplimentary material. they are starred. (*)All three of the options will be accompanied by a journal in which you will record your experiences, both postitive and negative in your progress through these projects. By being able to articulate challenges, define problems, and decode successes you will gain immesurably from your project.
- Assign students a specific audience to persuade this should be linked to how students will be evaluated (examples: an activist club against the student(s) position; an expert on the issue; the class; the teacher; the principal; another class, etc.).
- Students should come up with a specific, well-organized thesis at this time. Scaffold this process by using the online thesis builder (http://www.ozline.com/electraguide/thesis.html), which creates a workable persuasive thesis and outline. Students must be instructed to acknowledge (and refute) their opposition. Students must support their opinions and statements from the research. Research must be cited.
- Explain in detail what the final product will look like (examples are a PowerPoint presentation to the class or other audience, a persuasive essay, a letter to the editor, a research paper, etc.). The final draft must be a professional-looking, properly formatted product. Scaffold this step with a template for the student to use.
- Students turn in and/or present the final product."
Evaluation
Describe to the learners how their performance will be evaluated. Specify whether there will be a common grade for group work vs. individual grades. You may want to have separate rubrics for individual and group work.
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Beginning 1 |
Developing 2 |
Accomplished 3 |
Exemplary 4 |
Score |
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Research
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able to find some information both print and on the Internet. Some confusion as to information vs. hype
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Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance. | Able to perform focused searches in both print and electronic media. Able to easily discriminate between hype, opinion, and information. | |
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Persuasive Techniques: Addressing the Audience
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Able to identify and use several persuasive techniques. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance. | Able to use persuasive strategies appropriatly and to use them effectiveily. | |
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Persuasive Techniques: Acknowledging and Refuting the Opposition
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Unable to identify opossing opinions or vague about possible objections to a stance or apporach. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance. |
Able to identify opposition to positions, opinions, projects, etc. Able to acknowledge and articulate the points of opposition and to counter them logically and persuasivly. |
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Students read a selection of print and non print text to acquire knowlege about the needs and demands of society
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Able to read for content but does not extend the information to new situations. Uses inference only minimally. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance. | Able to read for understanding, understanding implications and inferences, and is able to apply knowledge to the changing needs and demands of our society. Able to connect the understanding of advertising to the needs and mores of society. Able to | |
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Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience. |
Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting a beginning level of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting the highest level of performance. | |
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Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes. |
Able to use standard format for persuasive essay. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance. | Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance. | Able to use a varieity of strategies and genres of writing to communicate with a varitety of audiences. | |
| Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge. | Able to use library catagologue stystem to do reearech. Able to use standard search engines for research. Needs to clarify goals and focus seaarches. | Able to use a variety of electronic and traditional resources for research. Able to focus researc. Able to explore alternative sources of information and resources. | |||
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Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language
(e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively
with a variety of audiences and for different purposes. |
Able to use some conventioal stragegies for communicating. | . |
Conclusion
Advertising is a powerful tool which is used to influence us. Awareness is the key to exploiting advertising. We exploit it in this unit by using advertising images as specimens to examine. By stepping back, and taking a second, and a third look at the codes and conventions of ads, and the power they have on us, we mitigate that power and in fact turn it on it's head. The critical thinking skills you use to deconstruct advertising sap it of it's power. Do you still want to look like Kate Moss or Marky Mark? By writing advertisers, publishers, and the models themselves you are establishing your right and comfort with yourself.
Extend this lesson a bit further and look for examples of unrealistic images on television and in film. They abound of course. Use the tools you have learned to take a second look. Perhaps we can enjoy the media manipulating even more when we are aware of it.
Credits & References
ClickArt - Borderbund - copyright free clipart
Absolutely Free Clip Art - http://www.allfree-clipart.com/main.html
To four people who helped me with this site.
Frank Baker who maintains one of the best list of resources for media literacy advocates and must be a collector at heart. He is also a prince among men.
Bernie Dodge has rekindled my love of teaching and learning and working with technology. Also a prince among men.
Wendy who has the patience of a saint, and the answers when I needed them - not later.
And to David Considine who first introduced me to the world of media literacy, the possibilities, the thrill of learning more everyday and the energy to carry on. Perhaps he is a another prince or a duke or earl or someone important in every way.
Media-Awareness Network has some of the very best resources for teachers, parents, and children of all ages on the essential issues of today's learning and teaching in the information world.
Very Important Links!!
The WebQuest Page
Design Patterns
"We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL."
Last updated on July 7, 2003. Based on a template from The WebQuest Page