Thirty Days to Unlock FCAT Writing Success - Polk County School ...

Day Three, Four and Five: Writing Radio Ads
Rationale: To practice writing for a variety of audiences and purposes, students will create four 30-
second radio advertisements geared toward different radio stations and audiences.
Materials: Teacher will need enough product advertisements individually cut out from the local
Sunday/holiday newspaper for each student to receive two items. It is helpful for students to see the
product description and price when they are creating their advertisements. Teacher may choose to have
students bring these in to create an “ad bank” on the first day of the activity then call students up to
pick out two from the collection.
Day Three-Discuss & Post the following criteria for advertisements-
Purpose: to convince your chosen audience to purchase your product
Audience: choose from one of the following
-children
-teens
-adults
-senior citizens
Context: the 30-second advertisement will be played on a local radio station during a tough economic
time.
Students will glue/attach the picture of their product to a sheet of paper. On the paper students must
state their chosen audience, radio station chosen from the Central Florida Radio Stations list and write
out their radio commercial.
Day Four-Writing for a Different Audience
Students choose a different audience from the list and create a second radio advertisement for each of
their two original products. Students need to state their second audience choice and radio station, and
include their new commercial on the same sheet of paper as their first one. Students should share their
commercials with a partner and decide which one they want to share with the class.
Day Five- Radio Commercial Performances
Each student will share their favorite original radio advertisement with the class without identifying the
audience they are targeting. Each student will guess the Purpose, Audience & Context the commercial
was written for, and write them down on a 3 X 5 index card. Students can hand in their written radio
ads and the 3X5 index cards for assessment.
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