Powers of Persuasion: Pathos
A
Pop Literacies, Urban Middle School
Language Arts Unit Learning Plan
In this seven-lesson, multimedia,
Language Arts unit – eighth grade urban learners encounter the power of persuasive
speaking and expand their understanding of the concept of persuasion in
advertising. Learners consider that effective speakers use volume, pacing, vocal
inflection and word choice appropriate to audience. They evaluate how rhetoric
designed for a target audience employs imagery and transfer to make appeals to emotion. Through questions concerning cultural
perspective, learners also look at ways in which they themselves are a target
audience, developing awareness of how the popular mass media maneuvers to persuade
them as purchasers of products and consumers buying in to the cultural
marketplace of ideas.
While
this plan is a discrete, one-week unit, POP: Pathos is envisioned as the
second part of a four-part series – not necessarily scheduled back-to-back -- investigating
the three appeals identified by Aristotle in classical rhetoric: appeals to
reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), and to the speaker’s authority (ethos). These
persuasive text/pop media units would ultimately lead to a major final project
where teams of learners would collaborate to prepare live multimedia
presentations – expressing opinions on a social or cultural issue at play in
Chris Crowe’s narrative non-fiction text, Getting
Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case, or a similar work.
In this unit, learners
will:
- Review and discover
vocabulary associated with persuasive speaking and persuasive advertising
techniques;
- Interpret their
thoughts about various advertising images, symbols and slogans;
- Write and deliver a
targeted ad voice-over using various learned techniques;
- Create a sound
recording of a persuasive speech using Audacity
software;
- Create a
full-motion video clip and publish it using Animoto.com webware;
- Present targeted texts
and assess why and how student ads are convincing.
Instructional
Strategies:
Lesson Two sequence is from Sullivan’s “Persuasive Speech” lesson – at Poway
Schools, Powayusd.com. Lesson Three uses ideas and information from McCarthy’s
“Persuasion through Advertising” lesson, located at Scholastic.com.
Big Idea: Cultural Perspective
Essential
Questions:
- What makes a
good speaker?
- What makes a
persuasive speech?
- For what
purposes might an author create a persuasive speech?
- How are images
associated with emotions and feelings?
- How are images
used to persuade?
- What is
perspective?
- What is
cultural perspective?
- What cultural
perspectives do I identify with?
- How do I deliver
a spoken text convincingly?
- What is a
target audience?
- What target
audiences do I belong to?
- How does intended
audience affect word choice?
- What shapes
our point of view?
- How do others
influence our thinking?
Lesson
Plan Overview
Lesson
1 – POP Quiz
o
Web pretest. Review vocal speech techniques -- What makes a good
speaker? - volume, pacing and vocal inflection. [What is perspective?]
Lesson
2 – Commercial Properties
o What
makes a good speech? - word choice. Targeting audience. [How can persuasion
skills be used to change perspective?]
Lesson
3 – Target Audience: Pathos
o Investigate
the concepts of transfer and appeals
to emotion. [What is cultural perspective?]
Lesson
4 – The Write Angle
o Vocabulary
Quiz Bowl. Write text, make word choices, for advertisement voice-over. [What cultural
perspectives do I share with others?]
Lesson
5 – Speaking Engagement
o Deliver
and listen to voice-over speeches. [How does my worldview
differ from the perspectives of others?]
Lesson
6 – Power of Pictures
o
Vocabulary Quiz. Create sound file,
choose picture files for voice-over and publish video [How do others
influence my thinking?]
Lesson
7 – Commercial Appeal
o Presentation
of final projects / evaluations. [How is my worldview shaped by the way the world views me?]
Learners: (based on a class
from Patrick Henry High) 22 mixed ability students of widely diverse cultural
backgrounds. Class has theoretically had a previous speech unit – POP: Logos – and some experience with
the basic vocabulary associated with persuasive speaking, the delivery of brief
speeches and solo readings, and manipulation of Audacity sound recording software and Animoto.com webware.
Duration: seven, 60-minute
sessions
Special Resource
Requirements:
computer lab, Animoto.com account, Audacity
software, examples of print and video advertisements from Creativity-Online.com
Materials – Unit Plan
Forms:
Target Audience, Picture–Symbol–Slogan map, Transfer Techniques, Voice-Over rubric,
Persuasive Presentation rubric feedback
form, web pretest, web POP Quiz, Vocabulary list for Quiz Bowl review
Resources/Websites: Animoto.com; sample
adverts from [www.creativity-online.com];
“Persuasive
Speech” lesson by April Sullivan [www.powayusd.com/pusdctae/exex/2009-products/Hospitality/
admin_powayusd_com_20090724_163000LessonPlan6.pdf].
“Persuasion
through Advertising” lesson by Tara McCarthy at Scholastic.com [www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/pictures-and-slogans-persuade-audience];
The
three appeals identified by Aristotle in classical rhetoric;
appeals
to reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), and to the speaker’s authority
(ethos).
POP: Pathos
Core Learning Strategy Map
Standard: 8.9.3.3
Delineate and respond to a speaker’s argument, specific claim, and intended
audience, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and relevance and
sufficiency of the evidence and identifying when irrelevant evidence is
introduced.
Core Objective: I can determine a speaker’s target
audience to evaluate a speech’s power and persuasiveness.
Learning Target: I can identify names
of common vocal techniques used by speakers.
Learning Assessment: word splash, vocabulary
quiz bowl
Learning Target: I can evaluate a
persuasive spoken text.
Learning Assessment: two Voice-Over rubric
forms – partner and self-assessment
Core Assessments: vocabulary POP Quiz
- 20%;
six
completed Persuasive Presentation Rubric
feedback forms - 30%
Assessment Description: Just
before learners partake in the unit’s final presentations, they will each be
randomly assigned the names of six other students whose projects they will evaluate
using the Persuasive Presentation rubric feedback form.
Standard: 8.9.4.4
Present claims and findings, respect intellectual properties emphasize salient
points in a focused, coherent manner with relevant evidence, sound valid
reasoning, and well-chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate
volume, and clear pronunciation
Core Objective: I can present my ideas clearly and
convincingly to a target audience.
Learning Target: I can author a
speech intended for a specific audience.
Learning Assessment: written text of
advertisement voice-over
Learning Target: I can deliver a
speech persuasively.
Learning Assessment: speech
presentation of advertisement text
Learning Target: I can record a
speech using standard software.
Learning Assessment: Audacity sound file of voice-over
Learning Target: I can create a full
motion video using standard webware.
Learning Assessment: published
Animoto.com video
Core Assessment: final presentation
of published advertisement projects - 50%
Assessment Description: Learners will give
a brief introduction and present a published 30-second Animoto.com video – for
assessment of written text, *recorded
speech, and multimedia elements.
*Based on evaluation
of the initial speech presentations, this summative core assessment could be
altered so that students would deliver speeches live as their Animoto media file’s
music and images play. This would place a greater emphasis on public speaking --
if focus on that skill component is deemed necessary.
Success
Opportunity for Urban Learners – SOUL Focus:
Comprehension, Collaboration and Presentation of Knowledge
ISTE NETS (National
Educational Technology Standards) addressed:
Standard 1 - Students
demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative
products and processes using technology.
Standard 6 - Students
demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and
operations.
Differentiated
Instruction:
This multidimensional, multiliteracy unit dynamically aligns with several of the
MDE’s Speaking Viewing, Listening, Media
Literacy benchmarks for Grade 8 and should be fairly simple to adapt to
suit all learners in an urban middle school program. For the final project, advanced
learners could alternatively be invited to deconstruct a completed, previously
published Animoto design and create new narration for a specific target
audience – while differentiation for struggling learners might involve inviting
students to work in pairs or shifting project length requirements.
Please note the name and acronym of the new heading listed
under standards, representing my thought to include -- along with a state
standard – an additional standard that specifically identifies the college and
career readiness anchor area for inner-city students: Success
Opportunity for Urban Learners – SOUL
Focus! This urban learning
protocol -- based directly on the Common Core website’s CCR definitions – would
be an instructional planning assessment tool and a guide to answering the
question: “Why do we need to learn this?” My concept here is to energize the passive,
academic CCR language so that urban students are explicitly instructed as to which
of the basic, broad areas of life and learning skills are being addressed.
writing
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