“Tenth-grade student Priscilla Farrington is learning not to believe everything she reads. Sitting at her desk in a Coupeville High School classroom, Farrington pulls out a magazine advertisement for a dietary soy supplement with a headline proclaiming it will help women going through menopause.They have nothing to back that up, she said, pointing to the claim and the advertising copy below. They just tell you to believe it. Farrington’s healthy skepticism of advertising is being encouraged and even promoted in teacher Sandra Moore’s sophomore English class these days. That’s because Moore has added a section on media literacy to her regular instruction this year.Media literacy study is a growing trend in education. It’s catching on in the United States after several years of attention in Canada, Great Britain and Australia. It’s a movement spurred by growing concern over the amount and quality of information – and sometimes misinformation – today’s kids receive through television, radio, the Internet, movies and print media such as newspapers and magazines.The concern is backed by statistics that show the average American child and adolescent spends 22 to 28 hours per week viewing television and is exposed to about 20,000 television commercials every year. According to the Media Literacy Center in Los Angeles, media literacy study seeks to make students aware of their media diet and give them knowledge for how to manage it. It also teaches skills such as critical viewing and analysis of how media messages are put together and what may have been left out. Finally, media literacy education asks students to look beyond the message at who produces it, who the audience is and who profits.For Moore, the study of media fits well with the 10th-grade English curriculum which focuses on research, debate and argument. She said her intent is not to portray all media or advertising as bad. She said her students can use media examples to learn how to send a powerful messages using words and images.Though Moore is concentrating just on advertising right now due to lack of class time, true media literacy instruction explores more, including how media’s packaging affects such things as news, politics, social issues, literature, pop culture and public opinion. She said kids need to know that everything is not always laid out on the surface, and that they have control over what they see and believe.It’s about having your eyes open to all the images and ideas that come toward us, she said. The object is not to make them critical of adult society. It’s about giving them their own voice.Though their introduction to media literacy is only a few weeks old, some students seem to already be finding their voice. Student Erica Lamb pointed out a car advertisement that equates ownership of a certain car with peace of mind and a good night’s sleep.It implies that you won’t sleep if you have another car, she said. Lamb and three other students in her group had been assigned to find ads that used false analogies to make their point. Such ads may avoid dealing with the real issues by focusing the viewer’s attention on something unrelated.Students are also instructed on how to spot other media techniques such as using catchy musical jingles or celebrities, making glittering generalities or appealing to status or emotions.If they put a good looking girl on the front, guys will look at it more and they’ll probably notice the Web site, said Kalani Haleanau, as his all-male study group focused on a magazine ad for an Internet site prominently featuring a provocatively-posed and lightly-dressed female model.Fellow student David James pointed to a clothing ad that pictured a highly-polished sports car behind a guy holding a beautiful woman on his arm and a large wad of cash in his hand.This guy gets the girl and the money and the car. They make it look like you get all that stuff if you buy the clothes, he said.The boys acknowledge that ads using girls, cars and money do indeed get their attention but don’t always convince them to buy. Some students said they are sometimes swayed by name brands just because they’re more known, but others said image is more important than name. The same holds true with celebrity endorsements. Some said they might be more attracted to a product featuring someone they admire while others said it didn’t matter. Most of the sophomores said they don’t watch nearly as much TV as the statistics say they do, and they don’t think they’re as susceptible to advertising’s siren calls as other age groups. That’s despite the fact that much of today’s media advertising is aimed directly at them.I think that’s a much younger generation, said 15-year-old Danielle O’Connor about what she considers the most vulnerable viewers. They see the toys out there and they want them.Farrington said she thinks it’s older kids.The middle school students are buying it, she said.A national study of kids and advertising showed that young people are big consumers. It’s estimated that American children receive about $6 billion a year in allowances and other compensation and directly affect the annual purchase of household items worth $50 billion. It’s a fact that hasn’t been lost on advertisers who spend about $700 million annually advertising to kids. And it seems to be working. An advertising agency survey of nearly 10,000 U.S. children aged six to 17 found that with no prompting, kids could identify more than 240 commercials.Moore said once her students have had a chance to analyze existing ads, she wants to have them create their own. The product they’ll be working with, a fictitious consumable named Sweet Crispies, will be the same for everyone. But the students will be asked to use different advertising techniques to sell it. In this way, Moore hopes they will get a true feeling for the thought process, the planning and the component parts that go into an ad’s creation, and, as a result, be able to view the media world around them with a clearer understanding and a more discerning eye.————-Tube visionHow much advertising are you exposed to during a one hour prime-time TV show?* More than 11 minutes of commercials.* Nearly four minutes of local and network promotions and public service announcements.* Not as much as during daytime TV where television stations run nearly 20 minutes of ads and promotions each hour.What do children see?* 2,000 beer and wine ads per year.* Sugared cereals, candy, cookies and junk food make up 96 percent of food ads on children’s television. “