Multiliteracies in ELA Classrooms

Persuasive Visual Media Lesson Plan

It is evident to today’s educators that literacy is a sweeping domain that extends well beyond the written text. Literacy includes oral, written, and visual representation, in multiple forms.

In its ELA curriculum, the BC Ministry of Education highlights the importance of  evaluating ideas from a variety of texts with a consideration to purpose, messages, effects and impact, and bias, as well as an examination of forms of persuasive “texts” such as magazines and advertising:

A3: listen to comprehend, interpret, and evaluate ideas and information from a variety of texts, considering –

-purpose- messages – tone – structure –effects and impact – bias

B2: read, both collaboratively and independently, to comprehend a variety of information and persuasive texts with some complexity of ideas and form, such as —

– magazines, and newspapers

– advertising and promotional material

A critical examination of persuasive visual media will fulfill many of the BC Ministry of Education’s Curricular PLOs and engage students in important processes of analytical thought.

Persuasive media is defined as a means to gain support for ideas, products, and services. The visual message generally serves two key functions: it is attention grabbing and packs an emotional impact. In order to critically engage with such media, it is important to discuss its criteria, to question the relationship between image/representation and reality, and to raise awareness of ethical responsibilities and violations.

We know that ads, along with movies and TV, are a major source of images that young people can use to visualize their places in the world. It can be argued that advertisers have an ethical and social responsibility to take these circumstances into account.

As critics of persuasive visual media, it is important that we raise awareness of the role of visual media in creating and reinforcing structural, cultural, and societal elements.

Some thorny issues that we should be examining with our students, in an aim to cultivate  informed critical “readings” of images, are:

– reinforcing of stereotypes, negative stereotypes, exclusion of minorities

– focus on materialism and consumption

– class/social status

– sex appeals, reinforcing of gender roles, constructions of masculinity and femininity

– image manipulation/idealization (distortion of truth)

– propaganda.

– cause-effect juxtapositions

In a discussion on ethics, it is important to present to students the idea that visual claims that would be unacceptable in verbal form are found in most parts of advertising. The two major areas in which such uses of visual syntax have become standard practice are images of social status, and images of sex and romance. The two tend to work together.

The creative power of ads and the merits and effects of “shockvertising” in raising social awareness are also interesting issues to bring to the fore.

Finally, as teachers of visual literacy, we need to build awareness of the intentionality and tactics of media persuasion, familiarity with icons and symbols, and the processes of interpreting these.

Sources and Resources:

Farmer, Lesley S.J. (2007). I See, I Do: Persuasive Messages and Visual Literacy. Internet @ schools, 14(4), p. 30-33.

Messaris, P. (1997). Visual persuasion: The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Messaris, P. (1998). Visual Aspects of Media Literacy. Journal of Communication, 48(1), 70-80.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5pM1fW6hNs     Miss Representation Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI     Tough Guise

Power Point Presentation:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/lled368/files/2012/10/P-V-M.pdf