When my students complete this unit, they will have developed skills to objectively view visual images, including advertisements and photojournalism, and discern what meanings or messages are conveyed within those images. Additionally, they will have learned how rhetorical devices are used when text is paired with images to persuade consumers, voters or any particular audience. Students will also have learned how to create their own personal advertisement for either a consumer product or cause, using rhetorical devices, text, and images to persuade audiences for their own purposes.
Students will closely examine and evaluate visual images—including paintings, photographs and photojournalism pieces—to make inferences about them, and they will compare and contrast inferences made about visual images to their "intended meaning" when those images are paired with text in advertisements or photojournalism pieces. Students will examine the use of rhetorical devices in advertisements and identify their intended audience and purpose, and they will implement rhetorical devices in the creation of their own advertisements for an intended purpose and audience. Students will also discern fact from opinion through close readings of advertising and extend that skill to close readings of text.
