10 English – Identifying representations of teenagers in visual texts

In today’s lesson students are introduced to a term they need to know for their exam: representations. There is a humorous viewing activity (a New Zealand deodorant ad) which students watch and then discuss what representations they observed. This is followed by a brainstorm of teen representations we might encounter (activating prior knowledge). Students copy down 4 practice questions (in preparation for answering these for multiple visual stimulus). They learn a structure for providing evidence (“Name it, quote it, explain it”). Students are reminded about the following terms: values, attitudes, beliefs and cultural assumptions. They see the 4 Q’s answered for a different topic (travel). They then see a teen fitness ad I created and have a go at finding the four elements they need in this ad (with my help): representations, VABs/CA’s, language features & text structures. We then answered the questions together (this is included in the resource). There are 2 additional posters provided in the event that you get through that one quickly.

Part of a set of resources created for a year 10 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus, version 9). The other resources are also available in my store – Aussie_Resources. A PowerPoint designed for use in a 70 minute lesson.