Through cooperative observation, analysis and discussion, students learn to recognize how the basic visual elements learned in activity 2A – lighting, camera angle and composition – are used in real-life media texts. As they compare and contrast different magazine covers featuring the same person, they begin to notice how visual techniques convey both obvious and subtle meanings. In this process, they discover many more visual techniques, such as body language, symbolism, color, etc., that influence feelings as well as ideas. For a practical application, students use their growing repertoire of visual techniques to construct two very different photographic images of the same person.

Download lesson plan # 2B

NOTE: This lesson plan is one of 25 cornerstone lesson plans for media literacy education available in Five Key Questions that Can Change the World, published by the Center for Media Literacy. To access the full collection, click here