Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Part A: Connecting Emotions And Language

20 minutes

Part B: Deconstructing Emotive Appeals

20 minutes

Part C: Emotive Language vs Factual Approach

10 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students understand...

how language can influence perceptions
the role of emotive language in persuading an audience
how emotive language is used alongside other techniques to construct an argument.

Students can...

connect their own emotional responses to language experiences
identify examples of emotive language and imagery in an audio-visual text designed to inform, entertain and persuade
differentiate between factual and emotive appeals and separate the two in their own writing in order to reflect on their usage
use a mentor text to guide their own writing and to gain appropriate language techniques.

Part A: Connecting emotions and language

Step 1

Tell students that they will silently, but using their bodies and facial expressions, react to a series of situations you narrate. If your class dynamics and space allow, ask students to form a circle so that they can see the reactions of others.

Step 2

State a series of emotive situations, giving students time to react physically. For example:

You didn’t get the mark you wanted on a test
You see a puppy dog playing with a giant stick
You get a phone call from a friend you haven’t seen for two years
You find out all your clothes have been shrunk in the wash
Your younger sibling stole your favourite toy
Your friend lied to the teacher that you pinched them
You’re not allowed to go to the pool with your friends.

Step 3

Invite students to sit down. Ask students to explain the different emotions that they acted out. Write a list of these emotions on the board for students as a vocabulary bank.

Step 4

Give students the following definition:

Emotive language: Language designed to cause the audience to feel strongly about an issue.

Remind students that it is language to make the audience feel a certain way, it is not necessarily language about the creator's emotions. Give some examples, such as:

The innocent child was relentlessly bullied by the cruel children
The tiny puppy bounded joyfully towards its new owner.

Step 5

Distribute the Student Worksheet to all students and have them copy this definition into the space provided.

Step 6

Show students these examples of headlines from The Final Quarter and ask them to suggest what emotive response the author/editor may want.

Part B: Deconstructing emotive appeals

Step 1

Explain to students that they will be watching some clips from the documentary The Final Quarter, about AFL star, Adam Goodes.

Note: It is strongly recommended that students have participated in The Final Quarter - Responding To The Film - Years 7 & 8 lesson beforehand, in which case, they will already be familiar with Adam Goodes and the film.

Invite students to arrange themselves so that they are seated where they can see the screen and remind students that these clips are only a small piece of the Adam Goodes story.

Watch The Final Quarter trailer with the class and ask them to complete the associations table below:

The Final Quarter Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8KJ0_bdUDU)

Imagery/choice of words	Emotions I feel

Step 2

Show students this second clip and complete their deconstruction with a peer/individually:

Standing Ovation for Adam (https://vimeo.com/348313112/1cb1b5549c)

Imagery/choice of words/music	Emotions I feel

Part C: Emotive language vs factual approach

Step 1

Tell students that authors often combine facts and emotions in their texts. Today they will be trying to separate the two. The task for the whole class is to write a script convincing people to come to the game to support Adam Goodes.

Step 2

Divide the class into two roles - fact and emotion. Students are to work independently or in pairs to write their script. However, if they have been given the ‘fact’ role they can only write using facts. If they have been given the ‘emotion’ role they can only write using emotions.

Rule for facts group

Rules for emotions group

You cannot use any emotional language or appeals

E.g. ‘Adam needs you’ is not allowed - that is an emotive appeal.

The only ‘facts’ you can include are:
Adam Goodes is involved
The meeting will be at a game

E.g. You cannot talk about the booing; you cannot talk about the racial vilification.

Step 3

Give students 10 to 15 minutes to write their script. If you wish to integrate a multi-modal element to this task, consider having students create a short video which integrates their script with images and videos. Circulate to ensure that students are not accidentally breaking the rules of their group.

All NSW Government school students have free accounts for Adobe Spark which can be accessed via their school emails. You could also offer a slideshow or poster and script option.

Step 4

Have students read their script to a partner. Their partner should give them feedback about what to improve.

Step 5

Tell students to revise their scripts based on the feedback. As students revise, circulate and choose a few to present (try to have an even balance of fact-based speakers and emotion-based speakers).

Step 6

Have the selected student presenters from each side present to the class.

Reflection

Ask students to write a personal reflection, based on the activities in this lesson, using these questions:

What was difficult about writing using only facts or only emotions?
What do you think is the right balance when writing a persuasive text?
Which do you think is more persuasive - facts or emotive appeals?

Differentiated Learning

Extension

In the deconstruction of the clips in Part B, students could be asked to reflect upon the impact of the combination of how choices made by the media make a more nuanced impact, than simply one of the choices alone (e.g. the way that the music choices combined with the visuals).
In the persuasive response in Part C, direct students’ appeals to more complex emotions, such as patriotism.

Provisions for Learning Support

Students could work in pairs or small tables to create their script for an emotive response, rather than factual response (this is generally the easier of the two choices, so allocate it to less confident students).
Student reflections could be verbally presented to you or a peer.
For students with low literacy, designing a poster with one key slogan could be an alternative task to the written persuasive component in Part C.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

The Final Quarter - Emotive Language

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students understand...

Success criteria:

Students can...

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