Looking At More Claims

I loved the warmth today.  We got home from school and instead of having to run in and turn on the fire we went outside and rode bikes.  I am done with winter.  I know that there will be more winter, but I got my first taste of warmth and I want more.

Today during school we looked at an advertisement for Pop-Tarts.

When the students were looking at the advertisement, I asked them to create a list of everything they saw.  The list was great as usual:

• I see red background
• I see words made with pop-tarts
• I see plump, juicy blueberries
• I see red, red strawberries
• I see the words baked with real fruit
• I see green and purple grapes on the vine
• I see the words made for fun
• I see frosting and sprinkles

The list went on and on and on.  I finally had to stop the class so we could take the next step.  For that next step I had the class think about what Kellogg's was claiming.  I made sure to remind the students  of the list we had created to help them to figure out the claim of the article.  I also wanted the students to tell me what in the advertisement helped to make the claim.

I was amazed how the class was able to figure out the claim of the advertisement.  I had many different answers but I will try to sum up some of my favorite, "Pop-Tarts is claiming that their pop-tarts are healthy.  They have pictures of fresh fruit and the words baked with real fruit.  They are also claiming that pop-tarts are fun.  The ad has the words made for fun and some of the words are spelled out with pieces of pop-tarts."

I wanted the students to think about why the ad had two different claims one of health and one of fun.  I asked the groups to talk about this at their tables.  I was glad to hear at every table the answers the healthy claim is for the adults and the fun claim is for the kids.  

I think this thinking that both classes was able to show was remarkable.  I cannot wait to think and share and write more claims in the next couple of weeks.

I hope your week is off to a great start.