A fully resourced 6-lesson unit for SMP 3: Advertising (Pre-1980 – Product Focused), designed to support students in exploring historical advertising texts through the key Media Studies concepts of language, audience, representation, industry and context, while building confidence with exam-style responses and analytical writing.

This unit is highly ESL-friendly, featuring:

A consistent lesson and presentation structure throughout
Clear iconography and visual scaffolding to aid accessibility
Embedded literacy support within every lesson
Repetition of analytical vocabulary and exam command terminology
Model responses, guided writing tasks and peer assessment opportunities

Every lesson is aligned directly to exam practice outcomes, helping students develop skills for:

Define questions (Q1.1 / Q6)
Explain questions (Q4)
Evaluate questions (Q5 / Q8)
NEA preparation, reflection and development work

The unit explores:

Pre-1980 television advertising conventions and semiotics
Audience positioning through media language
Representation and Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory
Ownership models and media industries
Ethical debates surrounding advertising, health and wellbeing
Creative task development and refinement

Students develop analytical and evaluative skills through:

Semiotic analysis of moving image adverts
Exploration of audience positioning techniques
Representation analysis linked to media theory
Contextual evaluation using cultural and economic factors
Structured exam practice with peer and self-assessment activities

To support retention and confidence with more challenging concepts, the Industry and Context lessons intentionally revisit and reinforce key ideas introduced in SMP 2. This repetition helps students consolidate understanding while applying theories and terminology to a different historical advertising context.

Support materials include:

Model answers
Audience positioning activities
Scaffolded exam practice
Peer assessment frameworks
Literacy correction tasks
Reflection activities
Success criteria guidance
Key terminology support resources

The adaptable structure means content can easily be switched out for alternative pre-1980 advertisements or historical media products while maintaining the same progression of skills, theory and assessment alignment.

Additional curriculum time is allocated to the SMP 3 creative task due to the shared advertising genre focus, allowing students greater opportunity for editing, refinement and production development ahead of presentation work in SMP 5.

Lessons are fully mapped against the curriculum framework, with the accompanying curriculum map also available separately for purchase.