Developing Visual Literacy: Advertising in Year 5

Multimodal texts communicate meaning to the viewer through visuals, composition and language. Competency in recognising the way composers combine visual and written elements to make meaning will enable students to comprehend a range of text types and to successfully communicate their own ideas.  

As part of the Year 5 Literacy and Unit of Inquiry units, the boys have been exploring the many ways that advertisers use visual and textual features to gain our attention, maintain our interest and persuade us about their product or cause.  

The boys learnt about the concept of salience and the way the composer considers the placement, colour and size of different features in an advertisement to ensure that one or more of these elements stands out, or is ‘salient’. They chose an advertisement that they were particularly interested in and reflected upon how the composer had manipulated visual aspects of the advertisement to make one element particularly eye-catching. They also engaged in some interesting discussions about the composer’s intention and the often-subjective nature of salience, in instances where boys had conflicting ideas about which feature was the most salient.

Year 5 considered the use of gaze in advertising and the way composers use a ‘demand’: when the subject is looking directly at the viewer, or an ‘offer’: when the subject is looking away from the viewer, to achieve a desired effect. In pairs, they used their knowledge of these two types of gaze to take a photograph that could be used as the basis of a print advertisement. They particularly enjoyed viewing and giving feedback on their peer’s photographs. Later, the boys added text, considering how the size, colour and placement of their text impacts the reading path of the viewer. They also decided upon how to make their message more powerful through their choice of language.

Groups of boys created Public Service Announcement videos to raise awareness about various issues that impact the boys and the school community. They filmed and edited their videos and learnt about the way composers use varied camera angles to have a desired effect, using this knowledge to inform their filmmaking choices.

Over the past six weeks, Year 5 boys have shown great enthusiasm towards learning about different visual and textual techniques chosen to convince the viewer. They have demonstrated their ability to analyse the use of these techniques in advertising and purposefully apply them when composing their own advertisements. There is no doubt that the boys will transfer these understandings as they continue to encounter and produce multimodal texts. Great work Year 5!

Christine Hilder, Teaching and Learning Intern