Lesson 17: Flex Research: Pictures with a Point: Historical Propaganda

Think-Pair-Share

Teacher Guidance: Use this opening routine to connect students’ earlier work on propaganda in Animal Farm to the study of visual persuasion. Give students a brief moment to look silently before they talk.

Display the historical image and give students 20–30 seconds of silent viewing time.

Say these Directions: In the previous lesson, we tracked how propaganda shapes belief in Animal Farm. Today, we are looking at how images can persuade people just as strongly as slogans and speeches do. This matters because your final argument will need to explain how messages are built, not just what they say.

• Ask: What do you notice first in this image, what seems most important, and what feels missing?

  • The first thing I notice is the woman’s strong pose and rolled-up sleeve. That makes me ask whom the poster wanted to convince, because the image makes work look powerful and proud.

Say these Directions: Partner A, share first. Partner B, listen for one visual detail that your partner names. Then switch.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Students have started with what they can see; next they will learn a routine for explaining how those choices build an argument.

Think-Pair-Share

Teacher Guidance: For this sequence of research lessons, maintain the teacher model topic WWII propaganda posters. Use the We Can Do It! poster as today's model so students can see the same topic revisited as research skills build across lessons.

Display and read aloud this short slogan from Animal Farm:

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Say these Directions: In Animal Farm, Orwell shows how a short slogan can turn a complicated idea into something easy to repeat. Today, we are doing similar work with images by asking how color, words, symbols, and composition push viewers toward a belief or action. Take out the Analyzing Media: Visual Rhetoric graphic organizer. We are going to read an image the same way we read a text: by looking for choices the creator made on purpose.

Teach: Visual Rhetoric Routine

• Say: Good readers do not stop at naming what is in an image; they ask why it was arranged that way. First, I look at composition, or what is placed where, because the center and foreground usually feel most important. I see a worker with a raised arm, and the words “We Can Do It!” are a simple message people can remember. Next, I look at color and contrast, because bright colors pull my eye and help set a mood. I see a bright yellow background, a blue work shirt, and a red bandana. Then, I study subject positioning and absence to see who gets power in the image and whose story is left out. The strong pose and direct eye contact make the worker seem confident, so the poster is not just recording a person at work; it is arguing that this kind of work is admirable and possible.

• Say: When I put those choices together, I can name the argument the image is making: This poster encourages women to join wartime labor by making that work look patriotic, strong, and achievable. That is visual rhetoric—an image making an argument.

Display the completed model if needed for support and guidance:

• Ask: Which visual choice most strongly supports the image’s argument, and what claim do you think the image is making?

  • Subject positioning: The direct stare and rolled-up sleeve most strongly support the image’s argument because they make the worker look ready and confident. I think the poster is claiming that women can and should help with wartime work.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Now that students have a routine for reading an image as an argument, they are ready to research a historical propaganda image of their own.

Part A: Search, Select, and Save an Image (W.8.7, W.8.8) (15 minutes)

Turn and Talk

Teacher Guidance: Students will choose one propaganda image from the Cold War or another historical period and record source information plus initial visual-rhetoric notes. Briefly model how to turn a broad topic into a searchable phrase.

Say these Directions: Today you will research one historical propaganda image from the Cold War or another period of history. Find an image from a library, archive, museum, or history site, and record the image title, creator or organization, and date, if listed, as well as visual rhetorical moves the image uses to persuade viewers. Include any information about historical context from captions or other notes included with the image. If you are working digitally, save the image link with your notes so you can return to it in the next research lesson.

Say these Directions: Use the Analyzing Media: Visual Rhetoric graphic organizer to track your work.

If students are locating images on their own, display these supportive search terms:

• Cold War propaganda poster anti-communism

• Soviet propaganda poster youth future

• World War II home front propaganda poster

• enlistment propaganda poster public domain

• historical propaganda poster Library of Congress

• propaganda poster National Archives

• museum propaganda image labor war

• historical poster archive freedom security

Say these Directions: After you complete your notes, share one important piece of visual rhetoric in your selected image with a partner. Explain what it communicates.

• Ask: What is one example of visual rhetoric in the poster you researched, and what do you think it communicates?

  • The poster has a hand holding a sickle above a book. The book is at the center, but there is also wheat between the pages. The composition makes it seem like learning, producing, and loyalty to the state are all part of the same thing.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Students now have an image and notes; next, they will turn those notes into a short analysis and a purposeful design idea.

Part B: Analyze and Revise the Message (W.8.6, W.8.8) (15 minutes)

Think-Pair-Write-Share

Teacher Guidance: Students will use their notes to write a short image analysis and then share one planned visual revision or original design move with a partner. Encourage digital drafting when available so students practice saving and revising work, but allow handwritten drafting if needed.

Display the following writing model if needed for support and guidance:

This poster argues that women are strong enough to take on factory work and should see that work as patriotic. The creator supports this claim by showing a woman with her sleeve rolled up, a steady look toward the viewer, and the bold slogan “We Can Do It!” The bright yellow background makes the message feel energetic and confident instead of doubtful. When researching to find this image, I learned that factories needed more workers during World War II, so the image responds to a real labor shortage. That context matters because the poster is not just celebrating women; it is persuading them to join a national effort. If I wanted to strengthen the message, I would add a factory scene in the background so viewers could connect the slogan to a specific kind of work. That design choice would make the argument even clearer.

Say these Directions: Write a short analysis of your researched image in 6–8 sentences. Identify the image’s source and argument, and use at least two details to explain the use of visual rhetoric. Then add one sentence describing a change you would make to strengthen or shift the message, or sketch a quick original layout in your journal and label the visual choices. If you are drafting digitally, save your work with the image title in the document name.

• Ask: What is your image arguing, and what one visual change would strengthen or shift that message?

  • The Cold War poster I found argues that communism is dangerous and should be resisted. Dark colors and threatening shapes make the enemy seem scary, and according to the image caption in my research, the poster was made during a time of strong anti-communist fear. If I wanted to shift the message, I would replace the threatening shadow with ordinary people talking, because that would make the viewer think instead of panic.

Say these Directions: After you write, share your planned visual change with your partner. Partner B should respond by naming one detail that makes the analysis clear and one question that could help the writer strengthen it.

• Ask: Which planned change would most affect the message, and why?

  • The most important change would be changing the background colors, because color shapes the mood quickly. If the colors became brighter instead of darker, the image would feel more hopeful and less threatening.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Students have now researched, analyzed, and revised a persuasive image, which builds the same kind of message analysis they will need for the unit essay.

Quick Write

Say these Directions: Today we practiced reading images as arguments and tracking source information, which is a skill you will need when you explain persuasive messaging in the unit Performance Task. In the next research lesson, you will build on today’s notes by refining your analysis and choosing strong evidence. As you reflect, name what you learned and what question should guide your next step.

• Ask: What new information did you learn today about visual persuasion, and what new question do you want to carry into the next research lesson? Use at least one specific visual detail and one text detail from your notes.

  • Today I learned that color, pose, and symbols are not just decoration, because they help build an argument. In my image, the dark background and warning words work together to create fear, and my source notes showed the poster was made during a time of strong political tension. My next question is how the intended audience at the time would have reacted to the image, because I want to know whether the message was persuasive to everyone or only to some viewers.

Instruct students to complete the following homework.

Review your research notes from today. In your Journal, write one sentence naming the strongest visual detail in your image and one sentence naming the question you want to investigate next.