Music plays an important role in most
students’ lives on a day-to-day basis. As the last school bell rings,
headphones are quickly removed from pockets and popped into ears. The same
occurs as soon as the lunch bell rings and students make their way to the
cafeteria. Many students even go as far as to sneak at least one headphone into
their ear during class, hiding it under their shirt and hair. Today, music is
easily accessed on cellphones, computers, and iPads through Pandora, YouTube,
and iTunes. Students no longer have to sit through commercials, unless they are
listening to the radio or watching television.
Sitting through a commercial while anxiously waiting for a song or for your favorite show to play, may be “annoying”. Even though we have all wished that we could just fast-forward a commercial, it is important to keep in mind that commercials portray creativity and are a means of informing, and persuading.
Sitting through a commercial while anxiously waiting for a song or for your favorite show to play, may be “annoying”. Even though we have all wished that we could just fast-forward a commercial, it is important to keep in mind that commercials portray creativity and are a means of informing, and persuading.
It is for this reason that I believe
it would be a great idea to incorporate commercials into an English class. For example,
after students write a persuasive essay, I could have them convert their essays
into a commercial. Two possible commercial forms that could be used are visual,
a commercial to be seen on television, and auditory, one heard over the radio.
The students could then write a reflection paper on whether their commercial
was successful and what exactly the commercial refelcts about their paper. Perhaps,
once students transform their essay into a commercial, they might want to alter
their paper.
Before the students begin to record or film their commercials, I believe that it would be a great idea to show some commercial examples on the SmartBoard. The students could discuss and analyze them – what is this advertisement trying to sell? Who is the targeted audience? This way students could have an idea of the key elements needed in their commercials.
I believe that using commercials would be a great way to engage students; it would also be an excellent way of incorporating several different technologies into the classroom. For example, I would have to use a SmartBoard to project television commercials off of Youtube. I would need to bring a radio or a recorder with recorded commercials for students to listen. The students would then need video cameras or recorders to record their personal commercials.
Before the students begin to record or film their commercials, I believe that it would be a great idea to show some commercial examples on the SmartBoard. The students could discuss and analyze them – what is this advertisement trying to sell? Who is the targeted audience? This way students could have an idea of the key elements needed in their commercials.
I believe that using commercials would be a great way to engage students; it would also be an excellent way of incorporating several different technologies into the classroom. For example, I would have to use a SmartBoard to project television commercials off of Youtube. I would need to bring a radio or a recorder with recorded commercials for students to listen. The students would then need video cameras or recorders to record their personal commercials.
I think that this is a great blog post. I never thought about turning persuasive essays into commercials before. This definitely does make a great deal of sense pedagogically. After all, we are in the 21st century, and multimodal assessments are becoming increasingly popular amongst teachers due to their authenticity. Not everybody is such a great writer, but you provide another venue to students who better express themselves visually. I also think that it is great that you provide model commercials to mentor students in how a good commercial should look like. However, students like myself, may benefit from explicit instruction on how to use cameras and the software to edit footage. I always relied on other people to edit for me because I do not know how to use the technology that well. Although, there are many students that are great at creating films. This would be a fun activity that would probably engage students. There is a caveat, however. Not every school will be able to afford cameras, and there will probably be students who cannot afford them. In addition, there is a problem where students could potentially damage expensive equipment. We need to instruct students of the proper ways to care for the cameras in order to make sure they do not damage them. This assessment seems more authentic than essays because, as you said, students need to think about their audience. Like many other assessments though, you can wind up penalizing students who are just not interested in visual expressions such as these. I think that you should provide multiple, varied forms of assessment to meet the diverse learning interests of your students.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of using commercials in the classroom, because they would serve as a visual aid that would be great to use for an analytic essay, not just a persuasive one. While reading your post, I thought about another great way to use commercials, and that is to teach rhetorical language. Students could look at the way that language is manipulated or constructed to persuade the listener/audience to buy a particular product. The student could look at the kind of appeals being made, and could even try to identify if a certain commercial uses any type of logical fallacy to try to get the reader to agree with what they are saying!
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite parts of English class in high school was making videos for our unit projects. If we weren't re-enacting the story we were making commercials in the form of videos. I think focusing on commercials in our society is a really valuable lesson for students of all ages. People have become numb to commercials and advertisement but it still affects our decisions. Making students more aware of them, and creatively spinning their ideas sounds like a great way to engage in the content.
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