Writing for Understanding Instruction
Teacher Plan
Teacher Sarah Chap
Class 7th grade Health/F&CS
Date Fall 2011
Writing genre Information/Explanatory (report)
Topic / Subject / Text
CENTRAL IDEAS
Content: There are a variety of tactics – Image Appeal, Join the Crowd, Testimony, Scientific Proof, Fantasy/Fairy Tale, Offering Rewards, Comparison, Humor – which companies use to try to influence teens to buy their products.
Reading: Students re-read information, then summarize and paraphrase.
Writing: In an informative writing piece, students should provide relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions and details which support their focus.
Focusing Question
How do the tactics of advertisers affect our buying choices?
Focus (answer to focusing question)
Advertisers use various tactics (see above) to make it seem that a product will make you more appealing/popular, make your life easier/better, make the deal seem enticing with other rewards, etc.
About VWC
The Vermont Writing Collaborative is a group of teachers in Vermont (and elsewhere!) whose mission is to help all students, K - 12, write thoughtfully and effectively.
The five founding members are: Jane Miller of Burlington, Karen Kurzman of Derby Line, Eloise Ginty of Thetford, Joey Hawkins of Strafford, and Diana Leddy of Strafford. Among us, we have over 130 years of public school teaching experience at all grade levels.
In the fall of 2008, we published a book through Authentic Education (with a foreword by Grant Wiggins) called Writing for Understanding:Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively.
Since then, we have offered courses and workshops in the principles of Writing for Understanding around Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and elsewhere.
The five founding members are: Jane Miller of Burlington, Karen Kurzman of Derby Line, Eloise Ginty of Thetford, Joey Hawkins of Strafford, and Diana Leddy of Strafford. Among us, we have over 130 years of public school teaching experience at all grade levels.
In the fall of 2008, we published a book through Authentic Education (with a foreword by Grant Wiggins) called Writing for Understanding:Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively.
Since then, we have offered courses and workshops in the principles of Writing for Understanding around Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and elsewhere.
Welcome, VWC members!
June, 2011 - what a grand Summer Institute! We held four different strands, and had the honor of working with both old friends and new ones. It was a joy!
Teachers are working on a whole new batch of Writing for Understanding sequences, and those will begin appearing here. If you're a course participant, thanks for posting and giving your thoughtful feedback.
If you're a VWC follower, your feedback is most welcome as well!
Teachers are working on a whole new batch of Writing for Understanding sequences, and those will begin appearing here. If you're a course participant, thanks for posting and giving your thoughtful feedback.
If you're a VWC follower, your feedback is most welcome as well!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
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A worthy topic for research and report writing. Students need to understand how advertisers target and manipulate them using a variety of tactics. Join the Crowd is much like peer pressure (the subject of your 8th grade narrative). "Cool guys drink Bud Light and get all the pretty girls." We're bombarded by these images on TV, the internet, radio, and newspapers. Sophisticated search engines target us for specific advertising as well as news articles and other information. Students definitely need to know and understand how this works. Collecting and showing a rich variety of images (video clips and pictures, as well as reading materials) will help students think and write about these tactics. I wonder if students should focus on all the tactics, or focus on one tactic and offer several examples of how that tactic works?
ReplyDeleteGreat suggestion. I think when I assign the writing piece, I will specify the exact expectations of how many tactics they must address (limiting to one or two). Thanks!
ReplyDelete