Resource+3

**//'Harmony Day 2010- Everyone Belongs'// advertisement**  media type="youtube" key="TO4dIPdgwnY?version=3" height="360" width="640" align="center"  The purpose of the //Harmony Day 2010: Everyone Belongs// advertisement is to promote Harmony Day, a day on which we recognise and celebrate Australia’s cultural diversity and the various contributions that have been made to our collective identity. This resource is a short community service announcement which aims to raise the general public’s awareness of the significance of this annual event (held on March 21). Schools celebrate this event in a variety of ways, including exploring the sport, dance, food, music and art of different cultural groups in the local community.
 * __ Description of resource __**

The primary aim of this unit is to build students’ personal appreciations of the cultural diversity in their local community. The //Harmony Day 2010: Everyone Belongs// advertisement is relevant to the following HSIE unit outcome and indicator: - // gathers information about significant multicultural celebrations (e.g. Harmony Day) in the local community or in other communities //
 * __ Relevance to unit outcome __**
 * CUS2.4: Describes different viewpoints, ways of living, languages and belief systems in a variety of communities. **

This video is highly relevant as it provides students with an introduction to Harmony Day and why we choose to celebrate it. This is beneficial as students will be working in small groups to plan, film, integrate and edit their own short Harmony Day promotional ad (which will be played at the school assembly). Students will also conduct their own research into the contributions of particular cultural groups using appropriate internet sites, books and discussions with community members. Viewing this advertisement may lead to a more meaningful discussion about Harmony Day celebrations in the local community and promotional methods (e.g. ads on TV and posters). This advertisement also provides an excellent stimulus for a discussion about the purposes of different forms of advertising (e.g. selling vs. promoting something), the target audience and effective film/composition techniques.


 * __ Aspect of literacy to be explored __**

Roberts and Philip (2006) argue that in order to be critically literate (i.e. to understand and draw personal meaning from what we view and read) it is ‘essential that we understand visual language’. This means that students must be explicitly taught about the various components of advertisements and their intended effects on viewers. This Harmony Day advertisement is a multimodal text (integrating audio, written text and visual images), making it an excellent resource to use as the basis for a discussion about visual grammar (e.g. camera angles, modality and social distance). The English K-6 Syllabus (1998) also emphasises that in responding to texts, Stage 2 students should ‘identify symbolic use of music, sound effects and voice style’ (p. 33) and the way in which visual texts ‘enhance or detract from meaning’, all of which can be discussed using this particular advertisement.

 __** References: **__ Board of Studies. (1998). English K ‐ 6 Syllabus. Sydney: Author. Board of Studies. (2007). HSIE K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: Author. Roberts, S. & Philip, R. (2006). The grammar of visual design. //Australasian Journal of Educational Technology. 22//(2), 209-228. Retrieved from: []