How many treats do you buy each week? Learners investigate diets and how the media tricks consumers into purchasing unhealthy snacks. They will investigate the designs and logos affiliated with cereal boxes and identify specific phrases...

Critical thinking and social justice are central themes for this resource on bias and crime in media. The class views and discusses an incisive PSA that highlights assumptions based on race. Small groups read newspaper opinion pieces...

Why might toy advertisers use gender stereotypes to sell their products? Young people think critically about media messages and its role in gender stereotyping with a thought-provoking lesson.

Although students are aware of news as information that influences their perceptions of the world, they are often unaware of the various ways to present that information. Encourage them to investigate, discuss, analyze and make valuable...

Even young children watch sports and like team logos and products. It's never too early to think critically about what's onscreen. This exercise develops awareness that media communicate values (i.e. who participates in sports and who...

Eighth graders are exposed to different types of media in order to investigate the tendency of being exposed to a set of values that run contrary to conservative values. They role play a television program in order to communicate the...

Explore concepts of audience, purpose and symbols in this activity from Media Smarts that asks students to consider all the functions of music. Through a series of discussions and activities, your class will brainstorm possible functions...

Pupils discuss the role of media in their lives and making decisions. In groups, they define violence and identify how it is represented in the type of entertainment they are accustomed to viewing. They compare and contrast behaviors...

Students look at popular media presentations to determine what type of messages they convey about class and class-linked behavior. They listen to contemporary music to explore how the songs touch upon social class issues. They read...

Students critically examine news articles and editorials for attitudes of discrimination and prejudice. Students then complete checklist in which they analyze news reports for context, content, point of view, language, graphics, and...

Explore the influence social activism can have on important issues, and create a class full of young citizen activists. This plan calls for learners to participate in a whole class discussion and brainstorm about ways to effectively...

Students analyze alcohol and tobacco ads and create parodies of them. The eight lessons in this unit include discussions about why teens smoke or drink, the psychology behind the advertising, and writing persuasive letters to agencies,...

Students consider the implications of dogfighting. In this character education lesson, students examine propaganda in advertising and then create their own anti-dogfighting advertisements.

Students research visual messages by completing a media quiz. In this television programming lesson, students identify the many programs and commercials which use sexual imagery to sell their program or product. Students discuss methods...

Learners explore the techniques used by advertisers to sell toys and snack foods, increase awareness of consumer habits and media influences and differentiate between information and selling.

Seventh graders analyze how media and celebrities influence consumers. In this social studies lesson, 7th graders view different commercials and discuss their advertising techniques. They explain why celebrities are often used to give...

An introductory lesson shows learners how pervasive and influential advertising is in our culture; particularly, how teenagers are actively targeted by advertisers. As teenagers, your students already have all the information they need...

students discuss the vehicles used by media to feed images to consumers. In small groups, 9th graders are given magazines and asked to pick out the ads that appeal to them. They write responses to the questions:

Pupils study different photographers who started the concept of battlefield photography.  In this media lesson students explore how to "read" a photograph and relate the use of photography during the Civil War to current use...

Ninth graders analyze media messages. In this media messages lesson, 9th graders identify techniques in television commercials that appeal to the senses and emotions. Students analyze the elements in example ads. Students keep journals...

Many historians discuss how gender roles changed because of World War II, but how did this come to be? An informative resource challenges scholars to do some digging and research the information for themselves. They research how...

Campaign ads target both timely issues and general themes. Presidential campaign ads from 1952 and 1988 provide class members an opportunity to compare how the topics ads choose to address can dramatically influence election outcomes.

Students examine the factors that can influence a celebrity's media image and marketplace viability. They read an article, answer discussion questions, role-play advisors to a studio head, and write a letter to a studio head.

What is advertising? What role does it plan in an election? Middle and high schoolers discuss advertising and its purpose by sifting through different magazines and discussing the products they find. Then they relate advertisements to...