Advertising Lesson Plans for Teaching Media Literacy to Elementary Kids

Before you embark on teaching media literacy through a planned series of advertising lesson plans, you need to understand some marketing basics. Firstly, remember that tweens are gold in advertising land. They are young, and uninformed as yet about the world of advertising. And advertising to children has, not surprisingly, become big business. These children are aware of shops and shopping, but do not have the skills to balance a budget or make fully informed buying decisions. They come from any social demographic, but they have one thing in common; they are the 'next' generation. They are six to 13 years old. Not yet a teenager, but dragged rapidly away from their childhood period. Whereas 'childhood' used to extend happily from the post toddler stage right through to adolescence, now there is a new stage, created mostly by the mixed blessings of our consumer age. The 'tween' is not a child, but also not yet a teenager. And one quick search on Google using the term tween or tweenie is enough to make most parents' hair stand on end! The tween marketing cohort is in a dangerous and vulnerable place. So are there some benefits of teaching media literacy for tweens that can help?

Advertisers know that tweens are a special group. They are particularly easy to target through advertising to children strategies but with a more sohphisticated tweek to it. As a collective, they have massive buying power. Individually, they have the power to dictate household spending, particularly on discretionary items like clothing and activities, but also on daily products such as foods, drinks and groceries.

Advertising to children is extended into the world of tween marketing because tweens are susceptible to advertising messages. They respond to triggers in advertising, and are already beginning to show traits previously associated with adolescents. They are becoming brand savvy, and making choices based at least partly on image, appearance of items and brand names. They believe in upgrading and replacing items in line with trends, and they move rapidly from one purchasing desire to another. They have not yet learnt basic money skills such as budgeting.

Tweenies are particularly interesting around Christmas and Easter, as they can be easily coaxed into holding a desire for the latest and greatest toy, game, clothing item, music, piece of technology or food. At these times of year, there is a trend towards advertising to children through highly visual, colorful, musical messages which has strong appeal to a young audience.

Another one of the benefits of teaching media literacy is the ability to weave it into the fabric of the wider school community and teach it through several different topic areas. Useful school resources include:

fact pages from consumer protection sources to copy into the school newsletter (after seeking copyright permission)

collections of examples of advertising to children (watch for copyright permission here though - check your copyright laws in your area)

examples of recent tween marketing in the media

'Reading for Media Literacy - Navigating the World of New Texts' by Anne Vize (Curriculum Corporation, Australia)

Read more about advertising, particularly in relation to television, in this article.

Schools can help support tweenies in a number of ways. There are huge benefits of media literacy as a targeted, documented program. Teachers can also role model an awareness of media literacy and media skills. Encourage young children to stay just that - young. Avoid focussing conversations on brands, trends, the 'latest' of a particular item, or TV shows. Focus instead on the simple things in life which can give pleasure, such as making a card or present, having a face to face conversation, singing a song with a friend, or playing a game out of doors.

One of the benefits of media literacy is the scope to teach children about advertising, with an emphasis on how it works, and the principles which underpin it. These include:

• explaining that advertising to children (or any other group) is deliberate
• that advertising and tween marketing does not constitute an instruction; there is no requirement to buy a product because an advertisement tells us to
• that advertising and tween marketing works on the principle of 'AIDA' - attention, interest, desire, action - catch attention, promote interest, make the reader/viewer desire the product and prompt an action on their part (usually buying the product)