Activity Bank
Fourth graders sort ads, information, and clickbait strips, challenging each other to prove their choices.

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Ad or Info?

Students sort mock posts, videos, and headlines into ads, information, and clickbait, hunt for persuasion tricks, and then create an honest, clearly labeled ad of their own.

Print handouts

Overview

Kids see ads everywhere, and many don't look like ads: a favorite gamer's "honest review," a sponsored search result, a cartoon inside a free game, a shocking headline built to get a click. In this lesson teams sort fourteen mock media items into Ad (wants you to buy), Info (wants you to know), and Clickbait (wants you to click), using a Persuasion Detective checklist. Then pairs flip roles and become media makers, creating an honest ad for a made-up product, labeled so no one is fooled. Along the way they see that AI can write persuasive text in seconds, which makes spotting persuasion a skill everyone needs.

Objectives

  • Students will classify media items as ads, information, or clickbait and cite the clue that shows the creator's purpose.
  • Students will name at least three persuasion techniques (hurry words, bandwagon, famous endorser, too-good-to-be-true, mystery headline) and find them in examples.
  • Students will create an honest, clearly labeled ad and explain how it differs from an information piece about the same product.
  • Students will explain that AI tools can produce persuasive text quickly, so readers need to ask who made something and why.

Materials

On paper

  • Handout A: Ad, Info, or Clickbait? sort strips (1 set per team, cut apart, with the sorting mat)
  • Handout B: Persuasion Detective checklist (1 per team)
  • Handout C: Make an Honest Ad (1 per pair)
  • Colored pencils or markers; three corner signs: AD, INFO, CLICKBAIT

On screen

  • Optional: a generative AI chatbot your district approves, on the teacher's device, projected for the class
  • Optional: screenshots you capture in advance of a kid-safe search results page that includes items labeled "Sponsored"
  • Optional: a slide or drawing tool students already use, for making the honest ad digitally

Before you start

  1. Print and cut Handout A so each team has 14 strips and one sorting mat.
  2. Post AD, INFO, and CLICKBAIT signs in three corners for the whole-class check.
  3. Read the key (the "why" lines) and mark the three trickiest strips (the gamer's promo code, the homework app, and the sponsored search result) for discussion.
  4. If you'll run the AI demo, test the prompt from the Digital section in your district-approved chatbot first.

Step by step

  1. 10–4 min

    Hook

    The cereal review

    Read aloud, with a big smile: "Hey friends! I just tried CloudCrunch cereal and it's honestly the best breakfast ever. It gives you SO much energy. Everybody at my school is eating it!" Ask: "Would you try CloudCrunch?" Then reveal the tiny line at the bottom: #ad · Paid partnership with CloudCrunch. Ask: "Does that change what you think? Why?"

    Facilitator noteCloudCrunch is a made-up brand. Many students will say the review now feels less trustworthy. Ask why being paid might change what someone says.

  2. 24–10 min

    Model

    Three questions and the detective checklist

    Write three questions on the board: Who made this? What do they want me to do: buy, know, or click? What clues tell me? Walk through Handout B, the Persuasion Detective checklist, giving a quick example of each technique. Then model one strip from Handout A: "'You WON'T BELIEVE what this cat did next!!!' Who made it? I don't know. What do they want? A click. Clues: ALL CAPS, three exclamation points, a mystery with no answer. Clickbait."

    Facilitator noteClarify that ads aren't bad. People make and sell things. The problem is when you can't tell something is an ad.

  3. 310–22 min

    Practice

    Team sort

    Teams sort the 14 strips onto their mat, using Handout B to check clues. The team must agree on each strip, and anyone can say "Prove it" to ask for the clue. After 8 minutes, run a fast corner check: read five strips aloud and have one member of each team walk to the corner their team chose and name the clue.

    Facilitator noteStrips 12 and 13 are designed to split the room: they are ads that don't say "ad." Push teams to find the clue (a promo code, a product pitch inside an answer).

  4. 422–28 min

    Debrief

    The sneaky ones

    Ask: "Which strips were hardest? What made them sneaky?" Focus on the gamer's promo code (a clue he may be paid, even without #ad), the homework app's answer that ends with a product pitch, and the sponsored search result that sits at the top. Ask: "How is an ad hiding inside a helpful answer different from a label that says 'Sponsored'?" Then ask: "If a computer can write a persuasive ad in five seconds, what does that mean for us as readers?"

    Facilitator noteIf you do the AI demo, run it here. Students hunt for persuasion techniques in the AI-written ad using Handout B.

  5. 528–37 min

    Create

    Make an honest ad

    Pairs complete Handout C for a made-up product (Pencil Pal, the eraser that never smudges; or a product they invent). They design an honest ad that uses at most two persuasion techniques, includes a clear "AD" label, and makes no promises that aren't true. Then they write a short info version about the same product: just the facts. Pairs swap with another pair, who checks it using Handout B and says which techniques they spotted.

    Facilitator noteThis is S5.2 creativity with limits: students must persuade honestly. Look for labels and facts they could actually back up.

  6. 637–40 min

    Reflect

    Exit ticket

    On the back of Handout C, students finish: "The next time I see a video or post about a product, I will ask ___." and "The persuasion trick I'll watch out for most is ___ because ___."

    Facilitator noteStrong answers name a specific question ("Is this person being paid?") rather than "is it real?"

Paper or screen

Unplugged

The sort, checklist, and ad creation all run on paper. The corner check adds movement. For the AI part without a screen, read aloud the idea that computers can now write ads in seconds and have students write a 30-second ad themselves, timing it, to feel how fast persuasive text can be produced.

Digital

During the Debrief, project a district-approved AI chatbot and type as the class watches: "Write a short, exciting ad for kids for a made-up eraser called Pencil Pal." Students use Handout B to find the persuasion techniques in the result and check whether it made any promises that couldn't be true. You can also show screenshots, captured in advance, of a kid-safe search results page with items labeled "Sponsored." Students can build their honest ad in a slide or drawing tool the class already uses. Students under 13 never use their own AI accounts; the teacher drives the chatbot.

Does it need a screen? The sort works fully on paper. The projected AI demo adds evidence paper can't: students watch a tool produce a slick, persuasive ad in seconds and then pick it apart with the checklist, which shows why spotting persuasion matters more, not less, with AI in the world.

Evidence of learning

What you should be able to see or collect if it worked.

  • Teams cite a specific clue (#ad, Sponsored label, promo code, hurry words, a pitch inside an answer) for each tricky strip.
  • Students find persuasion techniques in the AI-written ad and flag any claim that couldn't be true.
  • Honest ads on Handout C include a clear AD label and no false promises; the info version sticks to facts.
  • Exit tickets name a specific question to ask about product posts.

Adaptations

Grade 3
Use two categories (Ad and Info) with 10 strips, then introduce Clickbait as a bonus round with strips 3, 7, and 10.
Grade 5
Add a fourth category, "Both," for items that mix info and selling, and have teams defend one item they placed there.
Emergent bilinguals
Pre-teach "ad," "sponsored," "persuade," and "clickbait" with visuals; let students create their honest ad in either language.
Students who need fewer strips
Give a team 7 strips (one from each clear category plus the tricky ones) and a partner who reads aloud.

Standards connections

Students sort mock media by the creator's purpose and name the persuasion clue, core ELAR author's-purpose work that also builds the grades 3–5 media-spin strand of digital citizenship.

TEKS
author's purpose and craftmultiple genres, including multimodal and digital textsethics and laws (c)(9)compositionTEKS sections: Technology Applications §126.8–§126.10; ELAR §110.5–§110.7

See how all activities align

Reflect

  • Am I good at using different tools to help me learn? How do I know when a post is trying to sell me something? (Student ELE guiding question)
  • Which persuasion trick works best on you? Why?
  • How did it feel to try to persuade someone honestly?

What comes next

Students go on an "ad hunt" at home with a family member, finding one ad that says it's an ad and one that doesn't, and noting the clue for each on the back of Handout C. Next lesson, Credit Where It's Due builds on being an honest media maker.

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