This ethnographic-style article chronicles the author’s experiences teaching fourth-grade students media literacy. The 4-day lesson plan combined persuasive techniques articulated by Aristotle and media aesthetics as well as the creation of a “television commercial” to enable the students to become more critical media consumers and gain better media literacy skills. The four lessons emphasize the importance of adapting to audiences and remind readers that teaching is a two-way process.
Aristotle . (1954). The rhetoric and the poetics of Aristotle. (W. R. Roberts & I. Bywater, Trans.). New York: Modern Library.
2.
Consumers Union . (2002). Captive kids. Retrieved from http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/edissue/cecapti2.html
3.
Englehardt, T. (2002). Saturday morning fever: The hard-sell takeover of kids’TV. In K. K. Massey (Ed.), Readings in mass communication: Media literacy and culture (pp. 268-283). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
4.
Zettl, H. (1999). Sight, sound, motion: Applied media aesthetics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
