My Cat Cafe

Learning intention: 

I am learning to use visual techniques in persuasive texts so that I can communicate benefits to an audience. 

 

Success criteria: 

• I can identify information in a text that relates to my argument. 
• I can use information from a text to communicate with a specified audience. 

• I can create a visual design to capture an audience’s attention. 

 

Essential knowledge: 

More information about presenting ideas in a persuasive manner can be found in the English Textual Concepts video Argument. 

After reading the poem, ask students what the café owner in the poem has included that would make cats want to visit. This should include: 

• Frothy milk 
• Catnip toys 
• Window seats 
• Tuna treats 

Explain that the owner has a problem – despite opening such a wonderful café, not enough cats know about it, and they need to get the word out to more feline friends. Students need to help solve this problem by creating an advertising poster for the café that will communicate its benefits to the neighbourhood cats and entice them to visit. 

Ask students to consider how they will get the cats’ attention and communicate the benefits of visiting the café. (We can, of course, pretend for the purposes of this activity that cats can read and understand English) Explain to students that in planning their posters, they should consider the following aspects: 

• How they are going to visually grab the cats’ attention (e.g. appealing design, colours, illustrations). 
• How they are going to communicate the benefits of the café to the cats (e.g. large lettering, pictures of other cats enjoying the facilities). 

• What their call to action should be (e.g. a discount for locals, a special deal if they visit before a certain date). 

Once they have drafted their plan, students should complete their posters. If time allows, students should present their work to the class to facilitate discussion about different ideas and design choices.