Evaluate & Judge

So as I'm reading through other people's blogs, I feel like I'm not moving through my book fast enough so I'll be making 3 posts today on 3 different chapters. Not only will I feel accomplished, but I'm hoping this will give me more free time at the end of the blogging assignment to do some reflecting.

Chapter 4 of Gallagher's book is all about evaluating and judging. We are introduced to these sub categories through side by side lists. You may be familiar with these same lists, as they are used to compare products when purchasing something on the internet. See example below:

Gallagher has his students make similar lists so they can get familiar with the evaluating and judging process, but also he does this so that kids can start to become familiar with our societies consumer culture. In addition, he says that our kids will one day be making some serious judgements, like what career they should pursue, how they might vote on an issue, where they might live after high school, and so many more topics, so the ability to evaluate, judge, and ultimately come to the best decision for the individual is imperative. Now that the serious stuff is out of the way, on to some of my favorite lesson plans in this chapter. 

Evaluate a print ad using propaganda techniques (pp 103) Gallagher has an amazing list of propaganda techniques used by the media the he gives us in the book. Some of the list includes "snob appeal", "fear", "vagueness", and "bandwagon". He uses this list to help kids determine which techniques are being used in different advertisements, which create an overall awareness to deeper messages within ads. 

YouTube Study (pp 106) With this mini lesson, kids will evaluate the effectiveness of a YouTube video. The point is to determine what the author's purpose was, and who the audience is supposed to be. Kids will always want to start evaluating their favorite videos and we should let them, but we should also shift gears and have kids explore more serious videos as well. 

The rest of this chapter is filled with other great mini lessons that use the teach, model, practice method and though I've said it a million times, I can't stress enough how much I recommend that you look into buying this book. If you're interested in the mini lessons I've talked about so far, or want to explore some others within Gallagher's book, it can be purchased here.