subject: Free Teaching Resources from Magazines [print this page] Free Teaching Resources from Magazines Free Teaching Resources from Magazines
Magazines - literacy lessons in the making!
Whatever you do, never throw out your magazines when youve finished reading them. They can be used and re-used in the classroom in so many different ways. Whats more, theyre free! Here are just a few suggestions for literacy activities and lessons that revolve around these free teaching resources. With a little time and imagination you can probably think of many, many more.
1. Descriptive writing A select suitable images from the magazines and either present the whole class with one image or give a different image to each group. Ask the children to describe what they think is happening in the image, and why. This can be a written exercise or a discussion. Who do they think the people in the image are? What are they doing? Why? What are the people thinking?
2. Descriptive writing B the children cut out a picture from a magazine. Can they write a descriptive passage that would identify that image? Display the pictures then read their descriptions, or have the children read them aloud to the class. Can we guess which picture they were describing? Or simply display the passages and pictures side by side. The vocabulary expected would depend on the age and ability of the children. The youngest children could be recorded giving oral descriptions rather than written ones. Young students might give a simple account of colors and facts, e.g. , A lady is walking on a road. She is wearing a blue dress and holding a handbag. Older and more able children should be encouraged to use more extensive, descriptive vocabulary, e.g. The tall, slim woman hurries along the mud track. She looks out of place in her elegant, blue velvet dress as she glances anxiously over her shoulder at the heavy clouds gathering on the horizon.
3. Poetry making let the students cut out words or phrases they like particularly focusing on descriptive ones. They can shuffle them around on a sheet of paper, combining them with their own words and phrases to create a poem.
4. Instructional Writing find a suitable recipe (or recipes) in a magazine. Discuss the conventions of writing recipes. Have fun baking/ cooking with the children. They try to follow the recipe. Discuss the instructions. Were there any parts where they werent sure what to do? Were there mistakes? Could they improve the instructions to make it clearer? Ask them to re-write the recipe, incorporating their own ideas for improvement. Display the new, improved versions next to the original and with a photograph of their cooking taking center stage!
5. Magazine Covers ask the children to imagine they are creating a class or school magazine (or really get them to do it if you have the time and enthusiasm!). Look at lots of magazine covers, and discuss what the common features are. What seems to make a good magazine cover? What has to be on the cover? What kind of language is used? What makes it stand out? Ask the children to make their own cover designs, thinking carefully about the title of their magazine, what headlines theyll feature, and how they will try to make readers choose their magazine over the competition.
6. Story telling choose a picture or pictures from magazines to use as a stimulus for story writing. Give the children some framework questions to get them thinking, then set them free to write an imaginative story inspired by the picture.
7. A memory game: expanding sentences a bit like the, I went to the shop and I bought game. In this case, find a good picture in a magazine, and ask child one, Whats this? They reply with a simple description, e.g. This is a car. When you ask child two, Whats this? they must remember what child one said, and expand on it in any reasonable way, e.g. This is a red car. Child three might say, This is an exciting, red car. And child four could continue with, This is an exciting, red car with white leather seats. Continue until everyone has added a suitable phrase or word, OR until it becomes too difficult to add more, at which point you can turn to a new picture and start again, always pushing for new, interesting vocabulary.
8. Playing with words Pluck any sentence from a magazine. Write it on the board and explore how many different meanings it can be given by emphasizing different words in the sentence. How many different (but logical) sentences can the students make by re-arranging the words?
9. Persuasive language look at suitable passages, articles or letters in the magazines and discuss how the language used helps to persuade the reader of the writers point of view. Set the children the task of writing a persuasive letter or article using similar techniques and styles. You might ask them to write a reply to the original letter or article.
10. Looking for Bias Find an opinion piece or clearly biased report. Ask the children to identify the words and phrases which indicate bias (this could be in discussion or as a written exercise, or just using highlighter pens). How much can they trust what they read?
These ten simple ideas are just scraping the surface of the hundreds of lessons and activities that could be resourced by old, ready to throw away magazines. So clear a corner in the classroom and start hoarding them. Get your family and friends to donate their old magazines to the cause too, and youll soon have a veritable treasure trove of teaching resources to delve into!
