Ashlyn Anderson
Lindsey Rogers
Lesson 5: Audience
Grade level: Advanced English (11th or 12th grade)
Time: 80 minutes
Lesson Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of target audiences and media messages by analyzing examples and applying new concepts to their development of scenes from Twelfth Night.
Essential Questions:
- What elements of a text are most likely to reach a target audience?
- How do artists and producers select target audiences and tailor their production to successfully influence their consumers?
- How do artists and producers manipulate media messages in their work?
Core Standards:
Theater:
Analyzing, critiquing, and constructing meanings from informal and formal theatre, film, television, and electronic media productions.
English:
Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
Core Principles of Media Education:
Media Literacy Education requires active inquiry and critical thinking about the messages we receive and create.
Media Literacy Education affirms that people use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.
Materials Needed:
- slips of paper with Catchphrase, Pictionary, and Charades clues printed on them
- video clips from TV commercials
- printed magazine advertisements
Sources:
Instruction:
Step One: Intro/Hook
Distribute cues on strips of paper to individual students. Direct them to go in numerical order and follow the instructions on the paper. Begin by saying, “Who has number one?”
- #1 Charades: Get your classmates to guess this clue without using your voice or any other materials. Only use your body to act it out silently. Your clue is X
- #2 Pictionary: Get your classmates to guess this clue without using your voice or any gestures. Only use a marker and the whiteboard. Your clue is X
- #3 Catchphrase: Get your classmates to guess this clue without using your body gestures or any other materials. Only use words to describe the clue without using all or part of the word in your descriptions. Your clue is X
Step Two: Instruction
Were they able to guess the clues? Why or why not? Ask the students what strategies were successful in helping them guess each of the clues. Explain how the interpretation of messages can be influenced by partakers’ individual backgrounds and experiences. What happens when there’s a disconnect or miscommunication?
Step Three: Class Discussion
Because TV commercials are trying to sell a particular product or idea, they are constructed with target audiences in mind. Producers make critical decisions in order to appeal to their target audiences. Let’s watch these commercials and discuss what the target audience is for each commercial.
What aspects of the commercial make you think so?
What is especially effective for the target audience?
Step Four: Group Discussion and Presentation
Spread out magazine advertisements on a table. Divide students into small groups or pairs. Have each group select a magazine ad that interests them. Give the class 3-5 minutes to analyze the media messages in their chosen magazine ads. Ask them to be prepared to share their findings with the class. They should look for the messages in each ad that the advertising company would like their target audience to get from the images, i.e. “This will make you attractive,” or “This product will help you make friends,” etc. Give each group 2-3 minutes to present their ideas and answer questions about the specific qualities of the ad.
- Which design elements, slogans, celebrities, or appeals are present to promote the media message?
- Is there a chance this message could be miscommunicated?
- Is this media message more effective for some audiences than others?
- What prior backgrounds contribute to the interpretation of these media?
Step Five: Group Work
Give students the remaining time (approximately 30 minutes) to work on their scene from Twelfth Night. During this time, students should be focusing specifically on what they are going to do to reach their audience (their classmates). While working, students should consider the following questions:
- What is your scene’s target audience?
- What are ways you can reach your audience? (Keep in mind things such as costume, language, bringing in pop culture, etc.)
- What two things are your group doing to reach that audience?
- If successful, what media message will your audience get from your performance?
- Do you see any potential problems in reaching your audience?
By the end of their time working together, students should have not only made progress on their scene, but should have come up with at least two things they plan on doing in their scene to reach their audience. Before leaving, groups need to turn in a sheet of paper with the two things they plan on doing listed and why they think adding these two features to their production will help them more successfully reach their audience.
Step Six: Assessment
Students can be assessed on their completion of the blog response prompt:
Today in class we discussed audience. In your groups, you should have figured out at least two things you plan on doing in your scene in order to reach your audience (mainly, your classmates). Now, to show that you understand the things we talked about today, pick one of the following audiences (listed below) and pretend that you are performing your scene for them instead. What would you do differently to reach this audience? What would you do the same? Answer these questions and then, like we did in class, come up with two things in particular that you would do to reach this audience. Post is due by midnight.
Pick one of the following audiences to write about:
- Your grandparents
- Pirates
- A classroom at Hogwarts
- The animals on a farm
- A preschool class (kids ages 3-5)
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