Lesson 8
Bringing it all together: Where to from here?

1. Overview
1.	Sharing of email responses from advertising companies
2.	Proposing alternatives to negative media messages
3.	How to handle unhelpful thoughts when reading magazines
4.	Class discussion

2. Activity

Sharing of Email Responses

Each pair will have the chance to share with the class, any emails they’ve received from the company they wrote to in lesson 5.  

Each pair will be asked to show the advertisement they wrote about and then read the company’s response.  

After this, the class will rate if they think the response was either “acceptable” or “not acceptable”.  

Do you think it’s in a company’s interests to respond to emails like these? 

If you were in charge of customer relations at a company, how would you handle a complaint?

Do you think writing letters to a company could make a difference?  Why?

Planning an advertisement that sends a healthy message

In this activity you will:
1.	Get into groups with 4 people
2.	Choose an advertisement that one of you brought in for today’s lesson 
3.	Your group’s task is to come up with a plan for how you would make an advertisement for that product that sends a more positive message to young people
4.	You don’t have much time, so just brainstorm some ideas about what would be in your advertisement and what slogan you might use – you will not be making the advertisement!
5.	Remember, the key is that you want people who see this advertisement to feel good about themselves.
6.	Each group will share their design with the class.  
Ideas

Do you think people will buy products that are advertised with a healthy message?  Why/why not?

How to handle unhelpful thoughts when reading magazines

1.  Even though you now know that magazine pictures are often artificial, you might sometimes still find yourself thinking:

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2. When this happens, remember you own special unique personal qualities:

3. What advice can you give yourself about how useful or harmful it is to want to look like the pictures in magazine?

4. So, given what you wrote for part 2 and part 3, what might be a helpful way to handle the unhelpful thoughts that go through your head?

3. Class Discussion

This will be a chance to reflect on the program and what you have learned.  Questions to think about include:

Do you think that you look at things differently or do you find yourself reacting differently to the media, to comments that friends make etc, after doing this program?  Why/why not?

What was your favourite part of the program?

What would you have liked to learn more about?

What have you learned during the program? 

Lesson 8 Take Home Message
As consumers of the media we have a choice.  We can believe that we should look like the artificial, digitally enhanced pictures we see, or we can choose to respect ourselves and value the many special qualities about us.