A fully resourced 7-lesson unit for SMP 4: Social Media, designed to help students explore influencer culture and online media through the key Media Studies concepts of language, audience, representation and context, while building confidence with exam-style analytical and evaluative writing.

This unit is highly ESL-friendly, featuring:

A consistent lesson and presentation structure throughout
Clear iconography and visual scaffolding to support accessibility
Embedded literacy and vocabulary support in every lesson
Repetition of analytical terminology and exam command language
Scaffolded sentence stems, model responses and structured writing support

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

Define questions (Q1.1 / Q6)
Analyse questions (Q1.3)
Evaluate questions (Q5)
Explain questions (Q7)

The unit explores:

The conventions of influencer social media content
Audience targeting and Uses & Gratifications theory
Representation in social media posts
Cultural, historical and technological contexts
Debates surrounding influencer culture and its impact on society
Exam writing techniques and success criteria

Students develop analytical and evaluative skills through:

Annotated influencer post analysis
Audience and gratification mapping activities
Representation exploration through codes and conventions
Structured debates on cultural and technological influence
Scaffolded sentence-building and exam response practice
Self and peer assessment against exam success criteria

A key focus of the unit is helping students bridge theory and application through carefully scaffolded activities. Lessons progressively build toward extended Q5 and Q7 exam responses using sentence stems, vocabulary drills, model answers and collaborative discussion tasks.

Support materials include:

Model responses and annotated exemplars
Vocabulary match-up activities
Scaffolded sentence stems
Peer and self-assessment opportunities
Debate and discussion frameworks
Success criteria guidance
Literacy correction and syntactic structure support
Key terminology resources

The adaptable structure means content can easily be switched out for alternative influencers, platforms or social media case studies while maintaining the same progression of skills, theory and assessment alignment.

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