Seventeen, Self-Image, and Stereotypes by Bakari Chavanu

In "Seventeen, Self-Image and Stereotypes" by Bakari Chavanu, he walks us through a seven week media literacy unit on advertising in his 11th grade class. Similar to what we learned in class yesterday from Brittany. The purpose of this unit was to help students look at the role and influence of media, specifically advertising, and how it influences their decisions, values and ideas that maintain sexist, racist and pro-capitalists points of view.  The unit began with skit performances on a product and television commercial critiquing. At this point in the unit, students were still reluctant to think that advertising media had any influence on "them" as a consumer or their values.
The next focus was on "Images of Women" beginning with a showing of Jean Kilbourne's classic Killing Us Softly 4:  Advertising's Images of Women, an analysis of how images and ads shape our values. After discussing the presentation, students worked in small groups on tearing out ads in magazines that portrayed Kilbourne's arguments made in her presentation. They began to see for themselves how women and men are sexualized in ads to sell products.
The next activity had students analyze a Seventeen magazine. This was very relevant to many of his students who subscribed to the magazine. This ended up being a very enlightening activity. Many came to the conclusion that the media stereotypes groups of people as well as influences the consumers buying habits.
Chavanu's goal was to teach his students to be critically conscious citizens rather than manipulated consumers.