English Career Resources
Key Stage 4: Produce a media careers page for magazine/webpage
Teachers' notes
This unit provides an opportunity for students to engage with careers in the media industry and also to develop skills required in for En1 Speaking and Listening and for GCSE English Language Paper 1, which consists of multi-part questions on reading unseen non-fiction and media texts and a writing task.There are opportunities throughout the unit to assess the Speaking and Listening triplets.
| explain | describe | narrate |
| explore | analyse | imagine |
| discuss | argue | persuade |
To model research for your students you will need an electronic whiteboard and a range of print material (e.g. media section of The Guardian, Independent). In preparation, you may be able to arrange visiting speakers, the visit could be used as an opportunity to assess responsive listening with students contributing prepared questions to a 'Questions and Answers' session.
- Researching careers in class needs to be kept lively and engaging: you could follow a quick brainstorm by, in groups, compiling lists of jobs in different industry areas: creative, production, marketing. One person in each group should keep a record of questions that arise. Feedback to class should focus on those questions. What do they need to know?
- Using the electronic whiteboard (EWB) show students the following web pages and invite class to compare: Who are they for? How can you tell?
- For guided research, students need internet access and a number of websites to access. Using the Skillset and Blast websites, they should complete the worksheet (PDF) provided as they go along, to keep a record of their discoveries.
- Expert input At this point it would be useful to have input from Connexions about jobs in media industries with relevant material: alternatively media professionals who are able to speak about and show their work. This would be followed by a Q&A to which students bring prepared questions: (Assess for Speaking and Listening: see above).
- Focus on Language and Audiences: this could be developed to prepare students for writing to advise and to explain, with reference to writing triplets in GCSE English Paper 1 (argue, persuade, advise) and paper 2 (inform, explain, describe).
- Students should be given A3 paper in order to design their flatplans for the magazine page. The final production could be done in Photoshop and/or linked to the school website in a special careers section.
- Production work should be evaluated through a process of peer and self- assessment. To test whether it is fit for purpose, careers pages could be made available (anonymously) to KS3 classes to give approval ratings. The main criterion would be being fit for purpose i.e. delivering information appropriately to target audience.
What sort of jobs are we talking about? Jobs in the media industries comprise: publishing, telecommunication, broadcasting, music, film, computers, video games, cross media, advertising.
Explain that a research log and log of learning, together with plans for production and final self assessment are to be presented in a final portfolio.
Discuss the visual impact of these web pages. You could provide students with printed copies to annotate, drawing attention to format, style, colour, images, fonts and styles. They could write a paragraph about each webpage comparing the two and giving an opinion about their relative effectiveness.