Sell It With Style

Overview

Tamariki apply their current persuasive writing learning to a visual arts challenge: designing a flyer that makes an everyday object appealing to an audience. Working in pairs, they develop convincing ideas, make deliberate choices about words, images, colour, layout, and lettering, then share their product pitch with the class.

Learning intentions

• WALT use persuasive ideas to promote an object to a specific audience.
• WALT combine images, words, colour, lettering, and layout to communicate a message.
• WALT explain how visual choices can influence what an audience thinks or feels.
• WALT work cooperatively to plan, create, and present an artwork.

Success criteria

• I can identify what makes my object useful, interesting, or worth buying.
• I can include the required number of strong selling points for my year level.
• I can use visual features such as colour, images, lettering, and layout to attract attention.
• I can explain how my flyer persuades the audience.

Curriculum links

• The Arts — Visual Arts: developing and communicating ideas through art-making practices.
• The Arts — Visual Arts: exploring how visual elements and principles communicate meaning.
• The Arts — Visual Arts: presenting and responding to artworks.
• English — creating texts for a particular purpose and audience, using persuasive language and structure.

Lesson structure (40 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Hook and noticing. Display an image of an ordinary object presented as an exciting product. Open with the hook and visual examples and ask, “What makes you want to look at this product, and what might persuade you to buy it?” Students turn and talk, then identify persuasive words and visual features they notice. Explain that today they will turn an everyday object into a product people want.

2. 5–10 min · Model the task. Use the task instructions and flyer example to model choosing a target audience, such as younger children or busy whānau, and generating possible selling points. Demonstrate how a headline, bold lettering, an image, colour, and a clear layout can work together. Clarify that the flyer should make claims that are imaginative but not unsafe or unkind, and that students must persuade rather than simply describe.

3. 10–15 min · Pair planning. Give each pair one object and distribute the paired product planning sheet. Students have five minutes to agree on a product name, audience, headline, and selling points. During planning, Year 3 students plan three main ideas, Year 4 students plan four, and Year 5 students plan five, as a scaffold for creating their flyer. Circulate and prompt: “Why would your audience care?” and “Can you make that point more convincing?”

4. 15–30 min · Create the flyer. Students use their plan to create a promotional flyer on paper. Remind them to make the product name and headline easy to see, include an appealing drawing or design, and organise information so it can be read quickly. Refer back to the flyer design checklist while students work. Teacher conferences with pairs, checking that the required number of ideas is visible and that visual choices support the persuasive message.

5. 30–36 min · Product pitches. Pairs display their flyers and give a brief 30-second sales pitch. Each pair states the product name, target audience, and strongest selling point. When pairs present or try to convince the class, students may use as many or as few ideas as they need to make their pitch convincing. The audience listens for one persuasive idea and one visual feature that influenced them, then offers specific, respectful feedback.

6. 36–40 min · Reflect and assess. Return to the reflection prompts. Students complete the final section of the self-check and reflection section by finishing: “Our flyer persuades people because…” and “One visual choice we made was…”. Invite two or three pairs to share. Collect the worksheets and flyers together for assessment.

Resources

• Teacher-selected everyday objects, one for each pair
• A4 or A3 flyer paper
• Pencils, erasers, rulers, coloured pencils, felts, crayons, or collage materials
• product persuasion and flyer design slide deck
• the paired product planning sheet
• Timer
• Display space or board for completed flyers
• Optional examples of real, age-appropriate product flyers

Assessment

• During planning, listen for students identifying a target audience and developing reasons rather than simply naming object features.
• During creation, check whether students meet the year-level expectation of three, four, or five highlighted ideas and use visual elements deliberately.
• Use the pitch and reflection to assess whether students can explain how their flyer communicates and persuades. Note pairs needing further support with audience, clarity, or visual organisation.

Differentiation

• Provide oral instructions alongside the written task, model each step visually, and allow students to rehearse ideas before writing. Pair students thoughtfully so responsibilities can be shared.
• For dyslexia-friendly access, use a clear sans-serif font, large print, short instructions, generous spacing, and read the worksheet aloud. Accept dictated ideas, speech-to-text, labelled drawings, or a recorded pitch where appropriate.
• Offer sentence starters such as “You should buy this because…”, “This product is perfect for…”, and “Our picture makes people feel…”. Provide a small bank of persuasive words on the board, including best, useful, strong, save, enjoy, and perfect.
• Support students who need reduced cognitive load by giving them a choice of two audiences, scribing ideas, or allowing three clearly developed points while an adult records additional thinking.
• Challenge advanced learners to include a rhetorical question, a call to action, or a carefully justified claim, and to explain how their choices target a particular audience. They may also redesign the flyer for a different audience and compare the changes.

Extension

• Pairs create a second headline or layout for a different audience and explain which version would be more persuasive and why.
• Students conduct a quick gallery vote for the clearest message, most appealing design, and strongest persuasive reason, then justify their choices using art and English vocabulary.