In this lesson students explore gender roles in advertising by taking an ad campaign they have seen which is specifically directed to one gender, and redesigning the campaign to target the opposite gender.
In this lesson, students apply their searching and critical thinking skills to learn how to find legitimate online sources for downloading and streaming movies, music and videos.
This four-lesson unit on search skills and critical thinking teaches students how to target and specify their online searches to avoid unwanted results, how to judge whether a link, search result or website is legitimate or phony, and how to find legitimate sources online for media works such as music, videos and movies. In this lesson, students apply what they have learned in the first two lessons to find and verify information online.
In this lesson students learn how to create well-defined search strings and to use tools and techniques such as bookmarking, browser filters and search engine preferences to avoid unwanted material.
In this lesson students learn how to authenticate online information by comparing “facts” from the website www.allaboutexplorers.com with more authoritative sources.
In this lesson, students discuss television programming aimed at children and how girls and boys are portrayed in it. Students illustrate what they dislike about portrayals of girls or boys and then create their own TV character who will counter the illustrated negative portrayals.
These lessons are an adaptation of Grade 8 lessons from the Curriculum Healthy Relationships, by Men For Change, Halifax, Nova Scotia, a 53-activity, three-year curriculum designed for teens.
Students will consider the use of the Internet as a research tool and learn how to use search engines more effectively. They then apply these new found skills to investigating popular myths about sexuality and contraception.
In this lesson, students learn how shapes are used in character design in comics and animation and look at how male and female characters are depicted in comic books. Using a Comic Book Analysis sheet, students will record the attributes of male and female comic book characters. As a class, students will record common patterns and discuss what messages about men and women are communicated. Students then design a comic book character that uses shapes to communicate what they think a real hero is.
In this lesson students answer a brief questionnaire related to self-image, self-esteem, and advertising, and then work as groups to create and act in mock television commercials that parody advertising techniques.