Reality and Redefining Persuasive Writing

From a mere four reality TV shows in 2000 to a staggering 340 in 2010, this phenomenon has captured audiences and changed the face of television. So, how could a topic you are passionate about be transformed into a reality show? This is the question that Ms. Appel, from Medlin Middle Sschool, posed to her 8th grade language arts students. Students were tasked with collaborating to design a persuasive multimedia pitch for a reality tv show. 

Students worked in teams to develop a reality show name, a concept, a catch phrase, and conducted  research to identify the network that would be the best for for their show. After developing the foundation for their show, the groups created a storyboard and had the opportunity to chose the media or presentation tool they would utilize to present their persuasive pitch. The last piece of the puzzle was presenting their multi-media presentation to an audience and receiving feedback.

Josey, Brydon, and Shayleigh developed a showed called Fiction Wars. "Our mission is to get multimedia representation for readers, and their books, everywhere. Our show puts readers into mind bending situations based on their favorite book, testing their knowledge and resilience under pressure.  We believe that CBS is the best fit for our show because not only is it a major network, it has a strong reputation in the gameshow world."

"I felt like this was a great idea for a project. It allowed me to feel free to choose a topic I was passionate about. I was fun to get to come up with an idea and work through the process. Getting to choose our own tool allowed us to find what works best and make it our own. Using technology enable us to make our project more professional than we could have on paper. We were able to combine audio, visual and imagery to create a fun presentation for our audience." Shayleigh added that they were confident their persuasive technique was effective based on the clapping their group received at the end of their presentation. She found that this was a fun way to learn about persuasion while incorporating it with an idea they were passionate about.

Click here to view the rubric for this project.