For Teachers

The following eight lessons are designed for use by high school teachers and students. Each lesson contains direct links to the relevant television or web ads. The New York City and New York State curriculum standards which each lesson is designed to meet are specified at the end of the document.

Additional lessons will be added to the site over the course of the next several months. In addition, interactive activities which can be used in the classroom or independently by students will be made available in 2009. Teachers are encouraged to register so that they can create and save playlists for classroom instruction or homework assignments, as well as receive updates about new features as they are launched.
Lesson One  UNDERSTANDING THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICAL ADS
Students will understand the nature and uses of language in presidential ads, and become aware of the ways in which this language can be used to influence viewer opinion. 		Download PDF
Lesson Two  THE POLITICAL AD AS MINI-FILM: DEVELOPING CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Students will learn how to be critical viewers of presidential television campaign commercials by analyzing the political and stylistic techniques used. 		Download PDF
Lesson Three  CHILDREN IN POLITICAL ADS
Students will understand how certain elements—in this case, children—are used in campaign commercials to manipulate the feelings of the voting public. 		Download PDF
Lesson Four  CASE STUDY OF A CAMPAIGN
Students will examine a single campaign to gain an understanding of how television ads reflect and address the concerns of the voting public. Furthermore, students will assess the extent to which the U.S. presidential campaign has become an event that influences our culture and history as well as being influenced by them. 		Download PDF
Lesson Five  EVALUATING INFORMATION: FOCUS ON ELECTION 2008
By studying the 2008 presidential race, students will learn how to evaluate the claims and information presented in political ads, and to become critical consumers of modern political advertising. 		Download PDF
Lesson Six  BEHIND THE AD: THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING A POLITICAL COMMERCIAL
Students will learn about and try out the behind-the-scenes processes and techniques of advertising used in producing campaign commercials. They will create their own 30- or 60-second spots. 		Download PDF
Lesson Seven  CAMPAIGNING AND THE INTERNET
Students will achieve an understanding of the Internet as a medium for campaign ads and other forms of video. By examining the main candidates' websites, as well as Web-only advertisements produced by the campaigns and by independent groups, and by seeing how candidates are using new forms of social media such as YouTube and Facebook, students will see how the Internet now rivals television as a campaign advertising medium. 		Download PDF
Lesson Eight  TELEVISION ADVERTISING AS A CAMPAIGN TOOL
Students will understand how the introduction of television commercials for presidential candidates differed from previous forms of political communication and how the first campaign commercials in 1952 changed public exposure to and perception of candidates and issues in the campaign. 		Download PDF