teach me tech

just another teaching blog

August 9, 2007 • 2:05 am

Self Image

Doll Face

This video relies entirely on the reader to infer the rhetorical message. As we move toward our persuasive unit this year, I’m looking again at making media literacy the focus of study. It’s a challenge for some students to see that images alone have the power to intentionally convey messages. I hope this clip might serve as one compelling example of how images have the power to communicate complex and sophisticated persuasive messages. I may havee my students write what they perceive as the narrative to this and several other persuasive narratives in place of a persuasive essay for their portfolios this year. This would call for a synthesis of persuasive and narrative, as well as responding to a “text.”

Related to the topic of self-image, I found this documentary film last year entitled “Thin.” For a preview (movie clip) click on the following link: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/thin/. I may suggest self-image as a topic for research, or combine research with the media literacy… I’m still not sure of the best way to work it.

On another note, related by not entirely the same — I’m also toying with the idea of having them read websites. To alleviate the problem of blocked sites, I may capture screenshots (press the “Function” key–a.k.a the “Fn” key on some keyboards–and “Prnt Scrn” which is another key on the keypad) and assemble them for student review. D gave me the idea with his GCTE presentation last year. Here’s the PowerPoint from 2007 for those that are interested: cyber-selling-gcte-2007-v1.ppt.