Advertisements of Our Own

This is the thirteenth lesson in the Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens [1] series.

This final lesson gives students a chance to reflect on what they have learned. Drama offers a wonderful way for students to make themselves heard. It also helps them synthesize their understandings of a topic. By working collaboratively to create their own advertisements, children will show that they are thinkers as well as activists.

Objectives

Activities will help students:

reflect on and synthesize knowledge gained over the course of the series.
develop a creative project with an eye toward social justice.
form connections between their personal opinions and the needs of a larger community.

Essential Questions

What is activism?
What is social justice?
How can we form a link between advertisements and promoting social justice?

Activities

Explain to students that this is the last lesson in the series. They have become more critical readers, thinkers and writers. Ask each student to share one thing they feel proud of learning or understanding.
Tell students that they will now have the chance to design or create an advertisement that plays a role in actively supporting social justice or fairness. Students can work with partners or in small groups. They should begin by choosing a real or imagined product to advertise and setting a social justice goal for their advertisements.
Students may design a billboard, a magazine ad or write a television commercial, or other form of advertisement. The purpose of this activity is creative and celebratory as well as reflective. It needs to send a positive message about collaboration in addition to promoting a product.
Give students a chance to share their advertisements with their classmates. Allow them to critique one another, polish their work and then share with a broader community in hopes of spreading their message about advertisements and social justice.

Reflection

As this was the final lesson in the series, it is important for students to have the opportunity to reflect on what they have learned and how these lessons will influence their reading of advertisements in their daily lives. They may do this by writing a letter to their teachers, by making lists or by interviewing each other or their teachers. It might be helpful to summarize key ideas students have raised in a letter to families, so that these conversations can continue at home.