There is so much to share in art, it would be easy to let writing ideas slip aside. So I’ve decided to dedicate Wednesdays to writing! This week’s idea is a fun one you can use with either an individual student or a large group.  I gave out this assignment to the students in one of my homeschool co-op writing classes, and we all learned a lot.

This lesson deals with exaggeration in advertising and how words can influence and persuade us.  I had the students start by looking through newspaper ads for key phrases such as “Today Only” and “One-of-a-Kind”. I’m one who’s almost always believes every infomercial (I don’t watch them anymore), and we talked about the way they also use words to convince people to buy to products. Then it was time for the students to Advertise It!

While your students could choose a product to advertise, you can put a twist on the assignment and have them promote a place instead. We used real tourist attractions in the United States.  I gave the students a list of unusual places, and each student chose a different one. Then they looked up the information about it and wrote an ad to entice visitors to come. Here was the list of places we used:

• The Tree that Owns Itself (Georgia)
• The Corn Palace (South Dakota)
• Carhenge (Nebraska)
• The National Museum of Funeral History (Texas)
• The Seattle Gum Wall (Washington)
• The Barbed Wire Museum (Kansas)

The kids read their ads to the class the following week, and we all discovered some interesting things about these places we could visit. I was convinced to go — even to the Seattle Gum Wall!