George A. Massa
Shaw High School – Global Communications & Creative Arts
East Cleveland, Ohio
Title: Advertising in the Multicultural Community
Overview and
Rationale
Journalism students need to sell ads in the immediate community.
When the community is multicultural students must be able to communicate clearly
and successfully
with all potential sellers of advertising.
Editor's note: Given the specific nature of this lesson plan, it will
be necessary to adjust it to your community's particular immigrant groups
and situation.
Goals for Understanding
- Essential Questions
- Why is understanding of diversity in the advertising
community necessary ?
- What strategies can be used to sell to the multicultural
seller ?
- What are the traits of a multicultural seller that make he or she
more likely to buy an ad ?
- Critical Engagement Questions
- What are typical misunderstandings that a
selected group of students have of a particular
ethnic group ?
- What steps can a school newspaper ad seller utilize to reduce
these misunderstandings?
- How do potentials advertisers perceive the community,
the high school and its school newspaper ?
Activities
Activity 1: Diversity in America – Who are the immigrants
?
- Identify ethnic and racial immigrants who have migrated
to America.
- Identify religious, social, and economic characteristics
of the groups.
- Identify geographical patters of re-location in the country.
- Identify
sources of mistrust among cultures.
Activity 2: Speaker: An Arab-American in East Cleveland
- A “champion” (An Arab-American business owner who supports
your efforts to improve the sales climate for your students) of your
cause speaks
to the journalism students, sharing specifics of their culture, reasons
for immigrating to East Cleveland, problems encountered within the community,
their understanding of African-American culture, etc.
- Question and answer
segment between the students and the “champion.”
- Reflection segment: Suggestions by the “champion” as
to how African-American students can best sell ads to Arab-American business
owners
in the community.
Activity 3: Speaker: A Korean-American in East Cleveland
- A “Champion” (A Korean-American business owner who
supports your efforts to improve the sales climate for
your students.) of your
cause speaks
to the journalism students, sharing specifics of their cultures,
reasons for immigrating to East Cleveland, problems encountered within
the
community, their
understanding of African-American culture, etc.
- Question and answer segment between the students and the “champion.”
- Reflection segment: Suggestions by the “champion” as
to how African-American students can best sell ads to Korean-American
business owners in the community.
Activity 4: Hitting the Streets
- Assign students to
selected business owners of Arab-American heritage and Korean-American
heritage to use the skills they learned in previous lessons
to try to sell
an ad to that business owner. (Owners will have
been forewarned that the students are coming, however the students don’t
know that.) Some owners are told to buy ads, while others are told
not to.
Activity 5: The Successes and Failures
- Representatives
from both “champion” communities
come to the class and critique the efforts of the students in their sales
pitches.
Both successes and failures are discussed.
- Students ask questions as to how they can improve their styles
of selling.
- As a reward to the students, each business owner buys an ad from
the student that made the attempt the previous day, with the
stipulation that he
or she returns for the next issue and demonstrates a significant
improvement in their skills, or the running ad will be pulled.
Preparation:
- Contact representative from Arab-American business community
- Contact representative
from Korean-American business community
- Diversity activities – Source:
Conflict Resolution Guide for the State of Ohio. Ohio School Conflict Management
Resource Guide Grades 7-12. (Some material is at this site: http://disputeresolution.ohio.gov/
