Students are to search through magazines to find positive and powerful representations of women in ads.
Learning intentions Students are learning to…
- To find out if the positive and powerful representation of women in ads is common and if so how strength and power are shown.
Success criteria (How do students know they have achieved success?)
I can…
- I can find positive and powerful representations of women in magazine ads.
- I can identify the techniques that have been used to produce these representations.
Activities
This lesson gives students the chance to find positive and powerful representations of women in magazine ads and to identify some of the techniques that produce these representations.
Task: Students are to work in small groups with magazines and find five strong and powerful representations of women in ads. They should cut these out and stick to A3 paper.
On the back ask them to: Draw a circle and in it write any common factors that make these women seem strong? They could look for things like certain shots, colour, costume, gesture, stance etc
Turn the page back over and write down for each advertisement a message being given about women or being women. Quotes are a good place to start when looking for messages.
Introduce the idea of consequences and ramifications.
Secret letter. Write on the board a scenario that has occurred in the news recently e.g. the power cut in Auckland, the woman running in her bikini across the rugby pitch. Get class into groups and sit in small circles. Ideally they might be silent while doing this but more realistically they might discuss quietly so when it is their turn they know something to write. Give out paper and ask first student to write what they think might be a consequence of that event or action, and then fold over. Students could either look at last students comment, or keep it secret till it has been around the circle. Once the class has finished this activity, get them to write up their consequences in their books. If they do the secret letter it will be interesting to see if any are they same. Have a discussion with the class and write up on the board the consequences / ramifications.
They need to know that every representation / message / value has a consequence or ramification in terms of the audience watching.
