Mentor Text: War-Time Propaganda Posters
Content Area: History
War-time propaganda posters are an interesting form of writing to introduce in a history class. Not only does it cover a stream in the history curriculum, but it also touches on concepts found in the media studies stream in English, and therefore serves to be cross-curricular.
The posters offer an interesting range of literacy types into the student's repertoire: visual, artistic, and linguistic literacies can be explored. The posters are often composed with a visual image, using bright and vibrant colours, and a catchy slogan which aims to persuade the reader.
Thusly, the convention styles which these posters cater to include both persuasive and information texts.
The propaganda posters are a useful text which contribute greatly to the subject matter because they allow students to become familiar with historical contexts, biases and perspectives, economic, social and political factors of a particular time period, which are all presented in a differentiated formate, namely visual. They provide a different medium for students to observe these factors, rather than examining historical documents or contemporary articles on the same subject.
Furthermore, students learn about media studies in regards to persuasive writing and advertising. Students can then question as to whether the poster is informative or if it is too cluttered with biases to depict a truly informative view of the historical period/event/concept.
Students can also work on creating their own posters based on the conventions and concepts observed in the war-time propaganda posters, focusing particularly on the use of persuasive language, choice of words, slogans, representative pictures, and so on.
Examples of War-Time Propaganda Posters:
Wow, these are powerful!
ReplyDelete