Rationale
This unit plan is composed of five lessons and is designed for a 7th grade Language Arts class in an English high school on the island of Montreal. The students are male and female students between twelve and fourteen years old. While the vast majority of students are English-speaking Canadians, there is a lot of variability in the classroom. The students come from different religious groups and communities. There is also variability in the students' sexual orientation, learning styles, family socioeconomic status, and physical and intellectual capabilities.
The purpose of this unit plan is to analyze media in an attempt to have our students realize the extent to which media perpetuates and maintains gender role stereotypes. It is also our desire for our students to be aware of any emotions they feel throughout this unit in the hope that any anger or sadness they feel will inspire them to create media to counteract gender role issues.
Little attention is given to the emotional effects of media's perpetuation of gender roles; this problem will be addressed in our unit plan. Many males and females suffer from low self-esteem due to the comparisons they draw between themselves and the unattainable images they see in the media. The harming effects of the perpetuation of gender roles in media was our primary motivator in creating this unit plan.
This unit's big idea is not only to educate students on the importance of critical media analysis but to also highlight the emotional dangers of media, encourage self-confidence, and foster positive self-esteem, all important in the holistic approach to teaching. Group work and discussions are also encouraged as we value the social nature of learning. We believe in the social constructivist theory of learning, and we have done our best to foster a sense of community and democratic participation in our classroom in this unit plan.
All the materials needed have been uploaded within the various lesson pages on this website. Moreover, the links and technologies used in our lessons are easily accessible and free. Therefore, the only resource required for this unit plan is a computer laboratory with internet access.
We chose the specific assessment methods mentionned in our unit plan because we believe that they will maintain our students' interest, as they are allowed to choose what they would like to focus on based on their individual interests. For example, for the Prezi project, students are instructed to either analyze a movie of their choice or re-create an episode of any television show they enjoy that has gender role issues in it. We also chose these specific assessment methods because they appeal to various learning styles and student capabilities. Finally, we chose our unit plan's specific assessment methods because we believe that they worked in accordance to Bloom's taxonomy of learning domains (ie. going from understanding how the media perpetuates gender roles to analyzing how media perpetuates gender roles to creating media that counteracts gender role issues).
We believe that our unit plan is particularly effective and interesting because we expect that, given the progress in women's rights in history, that the vast majority of our students believe that gender stereotypes are no longer an issue in our society. We hope that with this unit plan will encourage our students to continue being critical about media's messages about gender roles.
The purpose of this unit plan is to analyze media in an attempt to have our students realize the extent to which media perpetuates and maintains gender role stereotypes. It is also our desire for our students to be aware of any emotions they feel throughout this unit in the hope that any anger or sadness they feel will inspire them to create media to counteract gender role issues.
Little attention is given to the emotional effects of media's perpetuation of gender roles; this problem will be addressed in our unit plan. Many males and females suffer from low self-esteem due to the comparisons they draw between themselves and the unattainable images they see in the media. The harming effects of the perpetuation of gender roles in media was our primary motivator in creating this unit plan.
This unit's big idea is not only to educate students on the importance of critical media analysis but to also highlight the emotional dangers of media, encourage self-confidence, and foster positive self-esteem, all important in the holistic approach to teaching. Group work and discussions are also encouraged as we value the social nature of learning. We believe in the social constructivist theory of learning, and we have done our best to foster a sense of community and democratic participation in our classroom in this unit plan.
All the materials needed have been uploaded within the various lesson pages on this website. Moreover, the links and technologies used in our lessons are easily accessible and free. Therefore, the only resource required for this unit plan is a computer laboratory with internet access.
We chose the specific assessment methods mentionned in our unit plan because we believe that they will maintain our students' interest, as they are allowed to choose what they would like to focus on based on their individual interests. For example, for the Prezi project, students are instructed to either analyze a movie of their choice or re-create an episode of any television show they enjoy that has gender role issues in it. We also chose these specific assessment methods because they appeal to various learning styles and student capabilities. Finally, we chose our unit plan's specific assessment methods because we believe that they worked in accordance to Bloom's taxonomy of learning domains (ie. going from understanding how the media perpetuates gender roles to analyzing how media perpetuates gender roles to creating media that counteracts gender role issues).
We believe that our unit plan is particularly effective and interesting because we expect that, given the progress in women's rights in history, that the vast majority of our students believe that gender stereotypes are no longer an issue in our society. We hope that with this unit plan will encourage our students to continue being critical about media's messages about gender roles.