Grade 8 Media Portfolio

 For the three weeks we will be working on a media portfolio.  You will complete at least three tasks a week.  Due dates – June 5, 12th and 19th.  Marks will be awarded for effort and completion of tasks.  Supplies needed EVERY DAY: pens, pencils, ruler, and colors.  Each activity is INDEPENDENT – no partners will be permitted.  There will be two parts to most of the assignments; written and artistic. Be sure to complete both parts if required.  Remember to put your name on every assignment. Activity #1 - Creating a Newspaper Article 1. Outline the purpose of your article 2. Choose an article topic 3. Research the article 4. Write the article 5. Edit the article – have a friend proofread it 6. Rewrite the article and type it on the computer 7. Do a spell check

TIPS: Formula for a Well-Written News Article 1. First paragraph In your first one or two sentences tell who, what, when, where, and why. Try to hook the reader by beginning with a funny, clever, or surprising statement. Go for variety: Try beginning your article with a question or a provocative statement. 2. Second/Third/Fourth paragraphs Give the reader the details. Include one or two quotes from people you interviewed. Write in the third person (he, she, it, they). Be objective -- never state your opinion. Use quotes to express others' opinions! 3. Last paragraph Wrap it up somehow (don’t leave the reader hanging. Please don't say...."In conclusion" or "To finish..." (Yawn!) Try ending with a quote or a catchy phrase. •Use active words (verbs that show what's really happening.) •Take notes when you interview. Write down quotes! •Tell the really interesting info first!

Newspaper Vocabulary font: style and size of type headline: extra large font across top of front page, placed above or below the masthead wire service: a news agency or organization that gathers news and transmits it to individual subscribing newspaper (AP, CP, Reuters) tabloid: a smaller format 1/2 broadsheet folded, often preferred by publishers of local papers or commuter papers and the sensationalist press (National Enquirer) broadsheet: full-size newspaper, averaging six columns to a page column: · the vertical divisions of a page · opinion or comment expressed by a regular writer masthead: information about the newspaper, such as the name of the publishing company, names of the officers of the company, location of editorial offices, editorship and distribution facts, all usually found at the top of the editorial page hard news: up-to-the-minute news and events that are reported immediately soft news: background information or human interest stories paparazzi: international press corps who compete for stories, usually of a sensational nature reporter: a person hired to rush to the scene and phone back information as soon as possible or to key the report into a word processing terminal at the newspaper office layout: the position of stories, advertisements, photos and graphics on a page morgue: the newspaper's collection of clippings, photos, reference materials and microfilm deadline: the assigned time for stories to be submitted in order to make the issue going to press

Read the example article as a guide when writing your article! Activity # 2 -  Create a headline for each of the stories listed below.  Write the newspaper report for 3 of the stories; use the ‘Jack and Jill’ example to assist you.

Bad Fall Injures Children

It was reported by a reliable source last night that Jack and Jill Jones both fell down slippery hill. The twelve year old twins were sent by their mother to get a bucket of water. In returning, Jack fell down, hit his head on a rock and received a slight concussion. Jill apparently tripped over Jack, and in falling down, received a skinned knee. The two were taken to county hospital. Jill was treated and released. Jack remains in satisfactory condition and will probably be released tomorrow.

Give these topics as examples or the students may come up with their own:

Title Headline Hickory, Dickory Dock Little Miss Muffet Little Bo Peep Little Boy Blue, Come Blow Your Horn Little Jack Horner Tom. Tom, the Piper's Son Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? Simple Simon Met the Pie Man Mary Had a Little Lamb Georgie Porgie Four and Twenty Blackbirds Snips and Snails and Puppy Dogs' Tails Old Mother Hubbard The Owl and the Pussycat Hey, Diddle Diddle Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat Little Red Riding Hood Snow White Jack B. Nimble Cinderella There Was An Old Woman Goldilocks and Three Bears Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater There Was An Old Woman Goldilocks and Three Bears Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater Charlotte's Web The 3 Little Pigs Harriet, the spy Old Mother Hubbard Curious George Humpty Dumpty Activity # 3 – Create the next TOY FRENZY!

•Devise a marketing strategy for a new toy that will involve arousing media attention. What will the toy be? How will you market it? Why will children want it? Who will promote it? When will it be available?  Provide pictures of your toy sensation.  Write – create a marketing sensation – write the story of the product, use this example to help you get started.

Tickle Me Elmo: Using the Media to Create Marketing Frenzy Sensation Background The story of how a slow-selling, expensive doll become the must- have item of Christmas 1996, is a fascinating look at how the media can inspire a consumer-buying frenzy. Tickle Me Elmo – a fuzzy red doll patterned after a Sesame Street muppet – went from languishing on store shelves to creating department store stampedes and making millions for its manufacturer Tyco Toys – all because a shrewd promotion involving talk show host Rosie O'Donnell and a little luck. It all started in July 1996, when the marketing team sent a Tickle Me Elmo doll to the one-year old son of a U.S. talk show host and comedian Rosie O'Donnell and another 200 to the show's producer. Nothing happened until October when O'Donnell decided to pull an old Groucho Marx gag on her unsuspecting guests. Every time a guest said the word "wall", she threw a Tickle Me Elmo into the audience. Because O'Donnell's core audience is at-home moms with preschool-age children, the stunt proved to be a marketer's dream-come-true. Retail sales of the doll jumped and they received a second boost in November when Today show co-host Bryant Gumbel held an Elmo doll on his lap throughout most of the show. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Tickle Me Elmo dolls were in such scarce supply that ads cropped up in newspapers asking for as much as $2000 per doll. "Tickle Me Elmo is a study in mob mentality", says Stephen Sandberg, a U.S. toy buyer. "People today are looking for Elmo without even knowing what it looks like".

Activity # 4 – Using the “Common Advertising Strategies” to create a billboard. You are now a billboard designer. There is only one blank billboard left on Barrington Street in downtown Halifax. You have to fill this space with something. What is it going to be? It can be an actual product or something you create.

Design – Choose anything to advertise. Turn an 8 ½ x 11’ sheet of paper sideways and supersize it in your mind. Now, create it! It must feature a product, use the strategies below. COLOR it and give it a name.

Write-up – What are you advertising? How did you decide to advertise this product? Is it effective? Will your billboard stop traffic?

Common Advertising Strategies

Produced by the Center for Media Literacy. Reprinted with permission, by the Media Awareness Network.

1. Ideal Kids - The kids in commercials are often a little older and a little more perfect than the target audience of the ad. They are, in other words, role models for what the advertiser wants children in the target audience to think they want to be like. A commercial that is targeting eight year-olds, for instance, will show 11 or 12 year-old models playing with an eight year old's toy.

2. Heart Strings - Commercials often create an emotional ambience that draws you into the advertisement and makes you feel good. The McDonald's commercials featuring father and daughter eating out together, or the AT&T Reach Out and Touch Someone ads are good examples. We are more attracted by products that make us feel good.

3. Amazing Toys - Many toy commercials show their toys in life-like fashion, doing incredible things. Airplanes do loop-the-loops and cars do wheelies, dolls cry and spring-loaded missiles hit gorillas dead in the chest. This would be fine if the toys really did these things.

4. Life-like Settings - Barbie struts her stuff on the beach with waves crashing in the background, space aliens fly through dark outer space and all-terrain vehicles leap over rivers and trenches. The rocks, dirt, sand and water don't come with the toys, however.

5. Sounds Good - Music and other sound effects add to the excitement of commercials. Sound can make toys seem more life-like or less life-like, as in a music video. Either way, they help set the mood advertisers want.

6. Cute Celebrities - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sell pizza. Spuds McKenzie sells beer. "Joe Cool" camel sells cigarettes. All of these are ways of helping children identify with products either now or for the future.

7. Selective Editing - Selective editing is used in all commercials, but especially in commercials for athletic toys like Frisbees or footballs. Commercials show only brilliant catches and perfect throws. Unfortunately, that's not the way most children experience these toys.

8. Family Fun. - "This is something the whole family can do together!" or "This is something Mom will be glad to buy for you." Many commercials show parents enjoying their children's fun as if the toy will bring more family togetherness. 9. Excitement! - Watch the expressions on children's faces. Never a dull moment, never boring. "This toy is the most fun since fried bananas!" they seem to say. How can your child help thinking the toy's great?

10. Star Power. - Sports heroes, movie stars, and teenage heart throbs tell our children what to eat and what to wear. Children listen, not realizing that the star is paid handsomely for the endorsement.

Activity # 5 – Slogans

Coca-Cola needs a new slogan! It’s your job to create a new ‘jingle’ for them. It must be either a phrase or a jingle in ‘sing-song’ format. It must be VERY catchy.

Write-up - Include a write-up approximately one page detailing how you chose your slogan and why it will be effective for selling Coke. What other ideas did you consider? Also, write about what you found easy and difficult about this activity.

Design – One 8 ½ x 11 advertisement featuring the new slogan you created and Coca-Cola. This should be drawn in pencil and colored vividly.

Activity # 6 – Novel to Movie

Think back to a novel you read this year. Write a summary of the novel detailing what the novel was about. NOW pretend you are making the novel into a movie (if it already is you must re-cast it). Cast the characters in your book.

Write-up –

 Summary of the novel  List of characters –from the novel  List of actors to play each character  Explain WHY you choose the actors that you choose to play each character.

Design - Create a movie poster for the book. This must be in color and represent something from the book. Feature the names of the ‘stars’ on the poster. Activity # 7 – Clothing Line

Design a new clothing line.

Write-up - What is its name? Why did you choose this name? What’s special about the clothing line? How much will the clothing in this line cost? Describe at least three different articles of clothing you will offer for sale. What will this line of clothing be known for? What colors will be used?

Design – Pictures of the three articles of clothing you’ve designed. Put a price on each. Color each. Put the name brand on each. Design a slogan for the line.

Activity # 8 – Comic Strip

Choose a theme and create one four-frame comic strip. Remember to it must be appropriate and must get the point of the theme across in only 4 frames. Title it.

Activity # 9 – Promote ELLENVALE

Designing our own ads (3 of them) to attract visitors to the school, taking into consideration:

 Construction of reality – what is your message?  Representation: - what medium will you use? - What colors, shapes, and techniques will you use to create an image? - What will attract the interest of the audience?  Audience – whom are you trying to attract? You can substitute any activity 5 to 9 for one of these two activities.

Activity # 10 – Create a Web Portal

Create a new web portal. Give it a name (yahoo./MSN/Canoe – for example). Tell what will be on this site when you call it up. Which categories of information will be available for those who use this page as their home page? What will the URL be? (www.______.com) Make a list of at least ten different links. Design the banner for the top of the page. What other graphics will you use and why?

Activity # 11 – Script It.!

You must have done activity 6 to complete this one!

Use the novel and write a script for one chapter of the novel. Use the sample to help you.

Sample script:

Title of play Page #

Scene: A living room with a couch table and two chairs. Early afternoon.

Bob: (looking around) Has anyone seen my socks?

Sally: (Angrily) Well if you didn't leave them all over the place it would not be a problem to find them.

Mom: (Frustrated) Children stop fighting. Sally: (hits Bob in the face with a sock) There is your stinky old sock.

Script Notes:

 Type your script using Arial 12 font.  Characters names in bold.  Stage directions (motions and emotions) written in parenthesis (smiling).  Spoken lines in regular print.