Project

**Public Service Announcements!** (OK, it's not catchy, but the exclamation point has to catch your attention, right?) **Overview and purpose:** One of the main pieces of the curriculum for the junior year of high school is a knowledge of persuasion and persuasive devices. We look at political speeches and talk about the ways politicians use their ethos, pathos, and logos to sway their audiences. We also take a careful look at all the persuasive devices speakers use (metaphors, parallelism, etc.)

In order to have the students really obtain a grasp of the persuasive devices and apply this knowledge, the students create a Public Service Announcement.

Concept 4: Persuasive PO 1: Write a persuasive composition that: a. states a position or claim b. presents detailed evidence, examples, and reasoning to support effective arguments and emotional appeals **Viewing and Presenting standards:** VP-P1: Analyze and evaluate visual media for language, subject matter and visual techniques used to influence attitudes, decision making and cultural perceptions VP-P2: Plan, organize, develop, produce and evaluate an effective mutlimedia presentation, using tools such as charts, photographs, maps, tables, posters, transparencies, slides and electronic media VP-P3: Analyze and evaluate the impact of visual media on the intended audience First we look at specific PSAs. The samples we look at are below.
 * This meets the following Performance Objectives:**
 * Instructional Steps:**

While the students are looking at the examples, they observe each PSA for persuasive devices:

Once we have finished looking at all the examples, we compare them to see which was most effective.

Now that the students have a clear knowledge of persuasive devices and have seen examples of PSAs, they are ready to create their own. These are the steps: In case they don't know what a print ad should look like, here are some examples:

The students present their PSAs to the class (and upload it to our Ning site) and then they are assessed.