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Definition:

Any type of notice designed to draw public attention or patronage to a product, event, cause, person or business (e.g., billboard, flier, circular, pamphlet, poster, packaging slip, banner, balloon, blurb, TV and radio spots, websites, inserts or notices in magazines and newspapers, classified column, brochure, informational poster).

Purposes:

  • To sell a service or product
  • To develop loyalty to a cause, person, or product
  • To tantalize, persuade and invite
  • To promote an event, product, cause or person
  • To endorse a product over that of a competitor
  • To correct actual or perceived misinformation
  • To generate goodwill

Characteristics:

  • Range of formats
  • Extensive use of graphics: layout, color, type font/size, visual images
  • Superlatives (conveying the utmost degree) and hyperboles (intentional exaggeration)
  • Comparisons with competitors
  • Abbreviations of terms
  • Use of metaphor (making comparisons without using like or as)
  • Appeal to an audience
  • Elements of urgency
  • Jingles and/or songs
  • Logos
  • “Claimed” excellence or superiority
  • Testimonials from anonymous or notable figures
  • Asterisks referring to fine print, conditions, limitations, or warnings
  • Order forms and requests for further information or samples
  • Omission of conventional punctuation
  • May be “sponsored” by a business or organization
  • Use of concise language structures; often including unconventional spelling and colloquial terminology
  • Use of persuasion (adjectives, rhetorical questions, argumentation)
  • Appeal to logic; author entices an analysis of the point of view expressed, and its rationale
  • Appeal through admiration and transfer; getting the reader to identify
  • Appeal to readers’ emotions
  • Appeal to readers’ senses
  • Product and service descriptions providing price and contact person

Grade Level Instructional Scope for COMPREHENDING and USING the Genre and Text of an Advertisement:

Grade 5

Opportunities to Teach:

Understanding the genre

  • Elements
  • Features
  • Structure
  • Style
  • Purpose
  • Headings and subheadings
  • Dates or timelines
  • Effective graphic layout
  • Diagrams
  • Charts
  • Introductions
  • Summaries
  • Conclusions
  • Descriptions eliciting emotion
  • Key and supporting ideas
  • Informational text patterns
  • Technical vocabulary
  • “Invented” or unconventional spellings or language structures for effect (e.g. “the mostest…”)
  • Hyperbole/exaggeration/superlatives
  • Text features important for understanding key and supporting ideas
  • Facts, evidence and support
  • Author credibility
  • Identifying author’s bias and intent
  • Identifying and discussing “appeals”
  • Illustration
  • Determining the message
  • Identifying persuasive techniques
  • Critical response

Understanding the text

  • Text features used to support comprehension of ideas
  • Predict, visualize and visually represent, question, reread, interpret
  • Analyze text patterns
  • Analyze theme/message
  • Evaluate based upon standards
  • Analyze effect on audience

Booklists:

  • Grade 5 — Use magazines, newspapers, pictures of billboards, etc., as models.

Access to the Documents:

Complete K-8 Genre Project
From the Michigan Department of Education

Complete K-8 Genre Booklist
From Kent Intermediate School District


Page last modified on February 11, 2009, at 10:39 AM