Ryan Cullen

Poster Campaign Proposal

In order to reach the greatest possible amount of the student body here at U of D, I have decided to begin a poster campaign encouraging reading through a variety of different methods.  The poster campaign will likely be seen by almost the entire community at school, often more than once by the same person.  This will hopefully get people to stop and look, because often students just walk right by posters and do not think twice about it.  The goal in mind is to make students aware of some of the things they are missing out on when not reading, and also to give them suggestions as to what would be an enjoyable read while still challenging them to increase their education.

            The main slogan for my poster campaign will be, “Good Books from Great Teachers.”  The concept is to ask 10 different teachers for recommendations on their favorite books, articles, or reading tips to students.  I will explain to each teacher my goal of improving literacy and convincing fellow students to pick up a book in their free time.  By using some of the more popular and well-liked teachers, the students will be drawn to the posters for the simple reason that they want to see what they have to say.  The teachers I will be using for this poster campaign are: Davidson, Miller, Slaughter, Hill, L. Godwin, Evalt, Diehl, Chandler, Foerg, and Teasdale.  All of these teachers are beloved by a large part of the student body and thus will draw increased interest rather than simply reading suggestions from a fellow student.

            The format of the posters will highlight two different teachers, one on each side, with the main heading running across the top of the page.  Besides the photo used for ID cards for the teachers, I will include images that show the cover of the novel, as well as pictures of books, magazines, etc. in a variety of colors that will add some pop to the posters.  Under each teacher’s name and picture will be the text containing their selections for the different topics.  I am also going to include a reading tip at the bottom of each.  However, I will make sure that the text is kept to a minimum so that students can simply read it in between classes or see some titles with a passing glance.  In total I would like to make 5 different poster sets, each one containing 5 copies.  The first week I will hang 2 of these sets (10 posters total) throughout the school, and on the second week I will hang the remaining three.  This is to ensure that the information is fresh and relevant, thus gaining the attention of more sets of eyes.  A key to this will be changing up the color scheme so it does not seem like it’s the same poster being used.  I’d like to hang the posters in a variety of different places throughout the school: outside the door of the teacher being highlighted, on the wall of the main staircase, on the wall of the second floor side staircase, in the atrium, and in the cafeteria.  This will make sure that students are able to see the posters in a variety of locations, the poster outside of the door will also hopefully bring questions from students to that teacher.

In summary, each set of posters will be unique, highlighting different teachers and pursuing the goal of making students at U of D more interested in reading and help bridge the literacy gap one small step at a time.