Grade 10 Media Unit

Media Week Overview 

Monday
Analyse commercials and news articles and talk about presentations of Beauty in the Media and how the media shapes our ideas and constructs our reality. Brainstorm, as a class, different representations of people or issues we see in the media. Are these accurate representations? Practice writing a response/analysis to informational texts, commercials, and advertisements (point, evidence, explanation, summary). Explore an article about ecotourism in Borneo and identify the purpose, audience and if there is bias. Practice writing this into an organized response. This will help students prepare for the culminating project as well as practice analysing informational texts and news stories.

Tuesday
Looking critically at images that try to sell products. Determining bias, slogans, audience and purpose of advertisements. Students will create their own slogans and posters/act out a commercial to sell a product to a specific audience. There will also be practice reading and responding to a news article about the Ivory Trade.

Wednesday
Understanding that advertisements and commercials can have both positive and negative effects on the public. Students will look at examples of Public Service Announcement and create their own. Create culminating task success criteria. Get into groups/pairs and sign up with their chosen topic for their website. Use the rest of class to find articles relevant to their topic to analyse.

Thursday
Students will read and respond to the Trip Advisor article. Take up ideas as a class. Explain that the articles we looked at in class are the types of articles that students should look for to create their website. Work with group members to find, summarize and respond to their chosen articles for their topic. Start creating your list of extra resources and thinking about action to take. Students will use a google doc at this point to collaborate with group members on their project. A computer lab will be booked for the later half of class.

Friday
Students will be putting their website together and typing out their summaries to their articles/advertisements/commercials that they created in class. They can add links to helpful sites and list resources. Students can also be working with their group members to add their action plan or ideas to help solve the problem onto their website.

Full Day by Day Lesson Plans 

Learning Tools for Unit
● Website creation
● Hypertexts
● Google Docs

Resources for the Unit
Monday U1_L1
● Dove Commercials
● Singer Video ● Pizza Photoshop Video
● Cube Handout
● Response Writing Powerpoint
● Borneo Article

Tuesday U1_L2
● Frank Baker video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=142&v=bilpXY0AvIA&feature=em b_logo
● Advertisement Images
● Advertisement Handout
● Paper for Student made Slogan and Advertisement
● Ivory Trade Article

Wednesday U1_L3
● Public Service Announcement Handout
● Public Service Announcement Posters about Wildlife https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36055160
● Animal Protection Agency and Campaign Website On the Wild Side https://www.apa.org.uk/campaigns/handsOff.html
● Animal Trafficking WWF https://www.wwfindia.org/news_facts/?16621/TRAFFIC-warns-against-buying-illega l-wildlife-products
● Group Signup Sheet ● Computers

Thursday U1_L4
● Trip Advisor Article
● Computers

Friday U1_L5
● Computers

Culminating Activity

Media Unit ENG 2D 

This morning, your parents had the news on in the background while you ate breakfast. Usually it is just noise, but this morning something caught your attention and you turned from your cereal towards the television. A newsperson was talking about an issue that you really care about. The story was only on for a moment to give the headline and some photos. They were missing so many details! At school, you told your friends about the issue and the news story. You and your friends decide to get those details out there by creating a website with information, links to stories, and ways to take action.

Your Task:
● Create a free website that highlights the travel issue you and your partners have chosen at www.web.com. Create at least 3 pages titled ‘In the News,’ ‘Learn More,’ and ‘Take Action.’
● Create a homepage together that describes your topic and gives some background on an issue you found presented in the media. ○ Some ideas for your topic could be: Diversity in Media, Police in the Media, Vaping, Video Gaming, Body Image, Elections, Gender Representation, Gambling, Sports, Deceptive Toy Ads, Environmental Awareness, Cellphone Use or the topic could be your own choice (once approved by teacher).
● “In the News” page is where each group member will summarize and create a response to a recent article/news story/ interview that is relevant to your topic. ○ Your summary of the article/new story must be in proper form, introducing the author, title, date, and have proper citations. If it is an online resource, provide a link/hypertext to the article. Be sure to state the author’s main points. ○ Your response to the article must outline the purpose of the article, and the audience. Also note if there is any bias in the article and state your opinion or thoughts about the article.
● “Take Action” page is where your group can create a plan for people to make good choices and not contribute to the problem. Give examples of people or organizations that actively try to fix the problem. ● “Learn More” page is where anyone who visits your website can access extra information through links that you add. If there are books or magazines you can also add these as resources on your “Learn More” page.
 ______________________________________________________________________ Modifications:
1. Teacher will provide appropriate articles to a student who struggles with research.
2. Teacher will provide fill in the blank handouts to help certain students stay organized in their research/responses.
3. The teacher would have more challenging articles or more complex advertisements available for a student who is considered a gifted learner.
4. The teacher would have more simplistic advertisements available for a student at a lower level of learning.

Accommodations:
1. If students have trouble working with others they will have the option of working individually and creating their own website.
2. If students are being disruptive, teacher will rearrange groups.

This Culminating Task is suitable for a variety of learning styles because the task incorporates technology and allows flexibility with respect to the way the students chooses to present information. For instance, if a student is an auditory learner, the student could choose to do their media analysis on a commercial or a commercial where there is rich auditory content instead of writing their response about a written newspaper article. In addition, students would be able to record themselves speaking about the article and upload their voice to their website. Because this task looks into broadcasting, journalism, and website creation there could be an opportunity for cross-curricular connections with career studies or art (website design and advertisement) as courses with marketing.