Objective: To have students begin thinking more critically and not in terms of everything being right and wrong. Have them understand that we are persuaded by many things, but that might not be as bad as we might think. Persuasion can actually have helpful benefits.

Materials: One Eyed Doe handout. Assessment for skit. Commercials for students to watch.
 

Preset Activity: Have the students read the fable The one eyed doe. Have students write what they think the moral of the story is.
 

Lesson: Discuss the answers that the students give. Then explain the standpoint that the doe's problem is that it couldn't see things from a different perspective. Ask if persuasion can help keep us from being like the doe? Do we sometimes need to see something from a different perspective, or are we always right? Can this be what commercials are trying to do in their advertisements? (Good commercials for this would be life insurance, or any kind of insurance; different kinds of medicines like allegra or for mood disorders. Have them watch these types of commercials for preventive type things.)

Tell the students that we may not think of getting this kind insurance or preventive coverage if ads didn't tell us about them. If there weren't Allegra commercials we would never think of asking our doctor about such things. What about things like the "little purple pill." We might not even think of asking the doctor about things like that if there weren't commercials telling us that it is alright.

In their own lives students may have had to convince someone that what they were thinking of doing is actually bad. This is a form of persuasion that isn't bad. Parents try to persuade kids through punishment like grounding all the time. (The idea is to get students thinking about examples of how persuasion can be helpful for people. How someone might need to be persuaded for their own good.)
 

Activity: Have groups design a real life scenario that would fit the message in the tale of the one eyed doe. The groups need to develop two different outcomes: one would be with an unfavorable outcome due to overlooking something, the second would be a favorable outcome due to being persuaded to change their behavior. The students will design skits so they can act them out.
 

Reflection: Have students write whether they think persuasion can help or not. Why, or why not, they think the way they do. (Should be 1 page forming an opinion of their own.)