Part 1

As you discovered in this topic, advertisements are a big part of persuasive nonfiction. In the Warm-Up activity of this topic, you took a look at the influence that media messages have on the smoking habits of teenagers. For this application, choose two or more of the advertisements from print and electronic sources that you interpret as having possible negative influences on teens today. For example, maybe a cosmetics commercial suggests that women need to have "perfect" features, or perhaps a bike shop ad features cyclists who ride without wearing helmets. Once you have chosen your advertisements, analyze them by briefly responding to the following questions.

1. Who created the message?
   
2. What persuasive techniques or special effects are used in the advertisement?
   
3. Who is the target audience of the message, and how might different people react to the message?
   
4. What values, viewpoints, or biases are represented in—or omitted from—the message?
   
5. What is the purpose of the message?

Part 2

Now that you have examined examples of advertisements that may carry negative messages, select one of these advertisements as the focus of your own public service announcement, or PSA. PSAs are advertisements used by the government and non-profit organizations to raise awareness of an issue or encourage people to take action to make an improvement in their community. Their aim is to benefit the public by raising awareness and motivating change and opinion. The purpose of your PSA is to advise fellow teens with a positive message, but you must make your PSA convincing. Apply the techniques and special effects that you learned about in this topic to create a persuasive PSA.

You will need to use resources outside of this course to complete this assignment, so please submit a Works Cited document with your assignment submission. If you need assistance, visit the Developmental Module for information on citing resources. Before you begin Parts 1 and 2, review the Media Literacy Checklist to make sure that you include all of the items required for full credit.

Once you have completed your advertisement analysis questions and your persuasive PSA, please submit your work to the dropbox.