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Lesson plan: Million Faces – evaluating a campaign activity

From Making Sense of World Conflicts online resource

Age group: 14–17

Objectives
Learning outcomes
You will need
What to do

Objectives

• To evaluate how choice of form, layout and presentation contributes to effect in print- and ICT-based information texts.
• To evaluate how the nature and purpose of media texts influence content and meaning with particular reference to persuasive writing as part of an Oxfam campaign.

Learning outcomes

Pupils will have:

• analysed how meaning is conveyed in texts that include print and images.
• distinguished between bias and objectivity and analysed persuasive writing techniques.

You will need

• Source material: The following pages from the Control Arms website either printed out or accessed online:
  • The issues
  • Act now
  • Join the Million Faces: step 1
  • Million Faces gallery (Choose one of the pages to print out from the gallery, for example do a search on your own first name and print out a page.)
• Source material: Statements: Million Faces – evaluating a campaigning method

What to do

Starter

1. Show pupils a selection of webpages from the Control Arms campaign website (see above under ‘You will need’). They give some information about the campaign and the Million Faces petition that is a way for people around the world to add their voice to the demands of the campaign. Ask pupils in pairs to carefully read and observe the pages. They should note down three questions to ask another pair of pupils about the information and pictures, such as one aim of the campaign and a method and visual image that the campaign is using to try and achieve its aim. Give them a maximum of ten minutes for this.

2. Each pair should then join with another pair. One pair should turn over the sheets of information and try to answer from memory the questions from the other pair. The other pair then take a turn. (Ask them to choose a method to decide who has first turn.)

3. Each group of four then agrees on one aim of the campaign and one campaigning method to report to the whole class.

Activity

4. Take feedback from each group on the aims and methods of the Control Arms campaign and compile a list on the board.

5. Check with the class that they have grasped the basic elements of the Control Arms campaign and the main reasons why it has been mounted. (Depending on the age and ability of your class and the time available, you could feed in additional information on the campaign at this stage. You could distribute more printed pages or if your class have access to computers, they could be given ten minutes to find out more about the campaign online.) Who is going to be petitioned?

6. Discuss with the class how they know that this is a campaign to persuade people to get involved and take action to change things for the better. How can they tell that the campaign is pushing a particular point of view? Refer to words such as ‘stop this suffering’ and ‘the situation is critical’ and ‘urgent measures are needed immediately’. Also, look at the image of the boy with the football against the bullet hole ridden wall and discuss what message the image is conveying – one of survival and the desire to live as normal a life as possible despite danger and the likely proximity of conflict, but that children shouldn’t have to live like this.

7. The 'Million Faces' is a visual petition – a way to show concern about the spread of arms around the world. There is an online gallery. Print out in advance several pages from the Million Faces petition and some of the close-up pictures – click on each picture to get a larger image and the name, country and message from the petitioner. If you print out pages from different countries and different name searches you can give groups a variety. Alternatively, you can ask groups to work online and browse the gallery and face images. You could also print a page or two relating to the launch of the Million Faces petition in various countries – click on ‘events’ to find relevant pieces.

8. Ask pairs of pupils to have a look at the statements which give a number of reasons for choosing the Million Faces petition as a method of achieving the aims of the campaign. They should rank them in a triangle according to how important or good a reason each is.

9. Take feedback from the class. There is not one answer as all were originally reasons for choosing the method of campaigning. Do the class think the campaign is effective? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a faces petition? What other issues could such a petition be useful for? Is it particularly good for a campaign against arms? Why or why not?

Closing discussion

10. Ask the class for ideas on how the petition could be presented to world leaders, at the conference at the United Nations in the summer of 2006 to discuss aspects of the arms crisis and on other occasions.

11. The class could send their ideas to Oxfam

From Making Sense of World Conflicts online resource