Lesson Blog
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Today's lesson idea: Advertising
It's our belief at Ticking Mind that students should do a unit on adveritising at every year level. Why? Because advertising is the single most pervasive text that students will come across in their life. Students will often do one unit on advertising somewhere between years 7-10 - but advertising is so multi-faceted that we think a different particular aspect of advertising should be focused on at each year level. Below are some suggestions about different aspects of advertising that can be focused on and different resources to use.
Product advertising - narrative
Over the last decade advertisers have increasingly worked at making advertisements entertaining - something we want to watch. One way they've been doing this is by creating short films that tell a story and in the process somehow advertise a product. These short film are often called 'branded shorts' (i.e short films that have been sponsored by a company). Something we want students to think about is - is it o.k for advertising to be entertainment? Here's some of the best advertisement narratives:
- The Chase (advertising Intel computer processors)
- Plot Device (advertising computer software for Red Giant)
- Back To The Start (advertising sustainable agriculture for food company Chipotle)
Product advertising - humour
If it's not entertaining (or horrifying - see public health advertising below) we can easily tune out. Telling stories is one way to entertain us. Another, of course, is to make us laugh. Here's a range of ads designed to tickle the funny bones:
- Bridgetstone tyre ad
- Nolan's cheddar ad (very good for thinking about music as a technique in advertising as well)
- Berlitz language school ad
Product advertising - gender stereotyping
One of the things that we really need to get students to think critically about is how gender is stereotyped in advertising. Why is it that advertisers appeal to a cliched perception of men and women?
- Matchbox pirate ship - boy gender stereotype ad
- Hasbro rose petal cottage - girl gender stereotype ad
- Kohler kitchen faucet ad - female gender stereotype ad
- Hahn beer ad - male and female stereotype ad
Satirical advertising
We often enjoy ads when they don't take themselves too seriously - when they actually satirise advertising itself. Here are some great satirical ads:
Public health advertising
Government agencies all over the world makes hundred of ads each year aiming to raise public awareness about health risks - such as smoking, speeding and drink driving. Which techniques are the most successful?
Liked some of these ideas? See our How To Teach Series page here to see a selected range of instantly downloadable resources on how to teach different English skills or order resources online from our Teacher Resource Shop here.
Archive of lesson ideas:
| Lesson Description | Resource Downloads |
| Using quotes: A guide for students on a range of ways you can use quotes in a sentence | |
| Dream Job Application: Model application writing by getting students to respond to advertisements for their dream job | |
| Horror scene: How to get students writing short horror scenes focusing on suspense and atmosphere | |
| Empathy writing: How students can write with empathy about refugees by using a resource from the U.N | |
| Writing ideas: Eight engaging writing ideas from Andy Griffiths and how to use them in the English classroom | |
| Wikipedia writing: How to have fun writing by creating mock Wikipedia pages | |
| Punctuation: A peer assessment tool for punctuation use in writing | |
| Apostrophes: How to use memes to help students remember to be alert to apostrophe misuse | |
| Characterisation: An activity to help students represent characters in more sophisticated ways | |
| Music In Film: Examples of how students can think about music as a technique in film | |
| Hexagonal Thinking: A concept charting tool using hexagons that supports students to develop a complex understanding about the relationship between vocabulary words or ideas in a text | |
| Quick Poetry: A short poem for students to practice their interpretation skills | |
| Animal Testing: Exploring the pros and cons of animal testing | |
| Mockumentary: Funny short films with serious messages | |
| Words make a difference: Get students reflecting on why learning about English is important | |
| Bucket List Writing: How to get students to create goals using a bucket list | |
| Media Bias: Looking critically at several different ways a social media prank was reported in the news | |
| What it feels like: Some high interest reading to stimulate anecdotal writing | |
| Asking good questions about texts: A resource for helping students to ask thematic questions about texts | |
| Lateral Persuasive Wrting: Activities for students developing lateral, engaging openings to persuasive writing | |
| Lateral writing: A writing activity to help students make lateral connections in anecdotal/reflective writing | |
| Power of The Protest Song: Strategies and resources for teaching protest songs to Year 8-10s | |
| Endangered Fairytales: Do traditional fairytales have relevance anymore? Students decide with this lesson plan. | |
| Teaching Metaphors & Imagery: Using walls as an example of metaphors and imagery | |
| Ideas For Teaching The History of English: A short film and ideas to use to explore the history of the English language | |
| Teaching Film Technique: Using the short film Dunny to teach film technique | |
| Indigenous Texts: Traditional indigenous legends and short films | |
| Teaching A Zombie Unit: Four ways you can teach zombies in the English classroom | |
| The Landlady: Some activities on how to teach this classic Roald Dahl story | |
| Micro Fiction: Some very very short stories to use in the English classroom | |
| Vimeo: The best video sharing site to find quality short films | |
| Little Big Shots: The best short films from the Little Big Shots Film Festival | |
| Word Creation: Fun ways to get students to create new words (and learn about parts of speech) | |
| Web 2.0 Games: Some fun web 2.0 activities for the English classroom | |
| Compare & Contrast Picture Books: How to use Woolvs In The Sitee and The Wolves In The Walls as the basis of a comparative text response | |
| Creating Picture Books: Using Shaun Tan's The Red Tree as a model for creating picture books | |
| Digital Personal Recounts: Using a short film as stimulus for students creating their own personal recount digital story | |
| Text Tales: An intriguing short film narrated through a series of text messages - an excellent example of digital story telling | |
| Representing school life on film: How do our students feel about how well school life is represented on film? | |
| Getting Students Engaged with Poetry: Tactile, visual and web 2.0 strategies for engaging students with poetry. | |
| Tips For Teaching Teen Identity: Activities for engaging students in a unit on teen identity. | |
| Hero Quest with The Web 2.0: How to use the Web 2.0 tool Jog The Web to navigate students through resources on the hero quest on the internet. | |
| Teaching Advertising in The English Classroom: Resources for looking at gender stereotypes in tv commercials and for modelling 'anti advertising'. | |
| Tuning into TV in The English Classroom: This lesson plan looks at what shows can we study in the English classroom, where can we get them, and what activities can we do. | |
| Fresh Perspectives on Old Fairytales: This lesson plan looks at a number of engaging short films that offer contemporary takes on traditional fairytales and how we can use these as a point of discussion with out students. | |
| Five Ways To Use Song Lyrics: How we can use song lyrics to teach everything from persuasive language through to autobiographical writing | |
| Four Things To Do With Four Very Short Films: Plot prediction, creative and reflective writing and comparative thinking tasks to do with four short films with a funny twist. | |
| Plot Prediction with The Lotttery: How to use Shirley Jackson's classic horror story The Lottery to do plot prediction activities and teach horror techniques. | |
| Using Banksy's art to stimulate discussion and discuss graffiti: British graffiti artist Bansky is famous for his stencilled images that look at social justice issues. Students pick out a favourite image and think about whether there is 'good' graffiti and 'bad' graffiti. | |
| Using social media tools in the classroom: A lesson plan on how to use fake social media tools in the classroom for activities such as character profiles and some resources for discussing some of the issues surrounding social media use. | |
| Teaching Students How To Create Multi Modal Narratives: How to use the engaging multi modal short film 'Chase' as stimulus for students creating their own chase sequence story. | |
| Teaching Plot Device: How to use the short film Plot Device as an engaging tool for teaching students some basic elements of narrative structure. | |
| Teaching Non Verbal Films: Using the short films Dangle and Black Hole to illustrate the significance of non-verbal action in films. | |
| Teaching Bottle: Bottle is a unique stop-motion-animation than can be used in a variety of ways to stimulate writing. | |
| Web 2.0 Tools For Teaching Vocabulary: A rundown of three web 2.0 tools for teaching vocabulary and how to use them. | |
| Teaching Satire: How to use a short satirical film on Facebook to stimulate students' own satirical writing | |
| Writing About Consumer Culture: Using the award winning short film Life Psycle-ology as stimulate for discussing consumerism | |
| Issues With Social Media: Exploring the pitfalls of social media through two topical news articles | |
| Teaching Scary Music: Using the short film Pencil Face as an example of the horror genre and music as a filmic technique | |
| Using Keep Video: Using Keep Video to save Youtube movies onto your computer - and trying it first with a fascinating sandmation film (with some teaching ideas) | |
| Teaching Social Justice and Genre: Using the award winning film Zero to discuss issues of social justice and to think about genre |
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