Lesson 3 - Gender Roles in Music and Video Games
1. Activities
a. In groups, brainstorm non-obscence slang terms for the opposite sex (ex: chick).
b. Using http://www.visuwords.com/, research the definitions of the words generated by your group. Pay close attention to the connection words.
c. Participate in class discussion.
c. Answer the essential questions.
d. Complete a learning journal entry. Make sure to include, with the summary of what you have learned today, why you think popular artists write or agree to sing lyrics that perpetuate gender roles? Why do you think popular artists agree to perpetuate gender roles in their music videos?
Assessments
a. Generates a gender role vocabulary list with each word's definition and connections words.
b. Answers the essential questions.
c. Writes a learning journal entry.
Homework
a. Complete any unfinished essential questions at home.
b. Continue preparing Prezi presentation (due on NEXT class - Lesson 4).
c. Collect a minimum 10 magazine advertisements which depict gender roles and bring them to the next class.
d. Do a general research on how media impacts mental health
e. Continue daily viewing of video clips and television.
Understanding by Design:
Established Goals: By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Explain how music and video games perpetuate gender roles.
Understanding(s): Students will be able to understand that...
- music lyrics and video clips contribute equally to the storytelling of both male and female gender roles.
- male and female artists are responsible for perpetuating gender roles in music.
- music that reaches the greatest amount of people generally contains more gender-biased language and ideals.
- video games also play a significant role in perpetuating gender roles.
- some slang terms used to refer to the opposite sex have unexpected roots.
Essential Question(s):
Part A:
- Using http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100#/charts/hot-100, identify the top ten most popular songs in radio air play. Research the lyrics of each song in the top 10. In a paragraph, analyze the lyrics of each song. Do the song lyrics contain any of the vocabulary words generated from your list? Does the song perpetuate gender roles? If so, explain how.
- Out of 10, how many song lyrics touched upon gender roles? How many songs contained words from your vocabulary list?
- Select the page showing the songs ranked 91 to 100. Research the lyrics of each song in this list. In a paragraph, analyze the song lyrics. Do the song lyrics contain any vocabulary words generated from your list? Does the song perpetuate gender roles? If so, explain how.
- Out of 10, how many song lyrics touched upon gender roles? How many songs contained words from your vocabulary list?
- Did a difference in standings have a significant impact in the number of songs touching upon gender issues?
- Did a difference in standings have a significant change in the number of songs using gender-biased language?
- In a greater context, what does this difference in content and vocabulary or absence of difference in content and vocabulary mean?
- Using http://www.youtube.com/, watch any four music videos in this week's top 100 songs (two from a male artist and two from a female artist). In a paragraph, explain how the music video perpetuates gender roles. What specific messages are being portrayed about men? About women?
- Why do you think music that perpetuates gender issues is popular in our society?
- Do you think women and men are equally contributing and suffering from gender roles perpetuated in the media?
Part B:
- Go to http://www.addictinggames.com/action-games/jungle-jim-game.jsp. Play Jungle Jim for a few minutes. Make sure to watch the introduction. The inspiration for this video game is Alex Raymond's fictional character named Jim Bradley in the comic book series named Jungle Jim.
- Explain the evolution of Jim Bradley's body from the comic strip to the character in the video game.
- Who do you think is the target audience for this video game? Why do you think the creators of this video game chose to make these modifications, given its target audience?
- Why do you think Jungle Jim is shown urinating in the introduction? Is this an example of hypermasculinity?
- What stories about men and women are the creators of this video game creating?
- Name five video games you are familiar with that perpetuate gender roles. How is each of these video games perpetuating gender roles?
Students will know...
- The roots of slang used to refer to the opposite sex.
- Key facts about how media develops and normalizes gender roles in music and video games.
Students will be able to...
- Analyze poetry.
- Use research skills to find the definition and connecting words to slang used to refer to the opposite sex.
- Recognize slang used to refer to the opposite sex in different sources of media.
- Recognize in media they consume how a story is being transmitted about gender roles.
- Express their thoughts and answers to the Essential Questions orally and in writing.
- Identify video games they are familiar with that perpetuate gender roles.
Performance Task(s):
- Brainstorm a list of slang used to refer to the opposite sex.
- Research the meaning of slang words generated and their connection words.
- Express (orally and in writing) his/her findings in the essential questions, analysis of the message transmitted by poetry and video games about gender roles, opinion on the usage of commonly used slang to refer to the opposite sex, and opinion of the motives of popular artists and video game creators in perpetuating gender roles in their work.
Other Evidence:
- In-class participation
Learning Plan:
Where are your students headed? Where have they been? How will you make sure the students know where they are going?
In the past two lessons, our students have been learning how television and film perpetuate gender roles. In this lesson, our students explore how other forms of media (music and video games) also perpetuate gender roles. In order to make sure that our students know where they are going, we have created clear, guided activities. Furthermore, we have included a class discussion in our lesson in order to make sure that everyone understand the purpose of today's lesson.
How will you hook students at the beginning of the unit?
We will hook our students at the beginning of this unit by asking them to be active and to think on their feet as soon as the class begins. By asking them to generate words in a group at the beginning of the lesson, we are ensuring that they are engaged in the lesson's activities from the start.
What events will help students experience and explore the big idea and questions in the unit? How
will you equip them with needed skills and knowledge?
The event that will help our students explore the big ideas and questions in the unit the most is when they will be answering the essential questions and creating their learning journal entry. The questions we ask the students to answer in these two activities pushes the students to really think critically about media. In the past two lessons, we have been slowly equipping our students with the necessary skills and knowledge to critically analyze media. The scaffolding process continues as we continue to ask our students questions to guide them in their analysis.
How will you cause students to reflect and rethink? How will you guide them in rehearsing, revising, and refining their work?
We will cause our students to reflect and rethink in the essential questions and in the learning journal questions by asking questions that build on (ie. are more complex) questions asked in the previous lessons. This will encourage our students to revise their positions and rethink because these more complex questions may not be answered through the students' past understandings and knowledge construction of how media perpetuates gender roles. Therefore, with these more complex questions, students might need to refine their past understanding.
How will you help students to exhibit and self-evaluate their growing skills, knowledge, and understanding
throughout the unit?
We will help our students exhibit and self-evaluate their growing skills, knowledge, and understanding throughout the unit by asking students to write entries in their learning journals.
How will you tailor and otherwise personalize the learning plan to optimize the engagement and effectiveness of ALL students, without compromising the goals of the unit?
We will personalize our learning plan in order to optimize the engagement and effectiveness of all students by, firstly, asking students to generate slang for the opposite sex with peers of their own sex. This way, students who are shy will feel more comfortable to generate slang for the opposite sex without offending peers of the opposite sex. If we notice that some groups are having more trouble generating words than others, we will be walking around the classroom in order to help these groups. Secondly, as done in Lesson 2, we have tailored to various learning styles by creating many short activities to keep students as engaged as possible. Finally, we have optimized engagement in this learning plan by including group work and the use of technology. By allowing students to work together, we are ensuring that they are creating knowledge together based on everyone's varied experiences. By allowing students to use technology, such as Visuwords and YouTube, we are attempting to make looking words and viewing video clips more active and thus more interesting.
How will you organize and sequence the learning activities to optimize the engagement and achievement
of ALL students?
We have organized the learning activities in a way to optimize the engagement and achievement of all students by starting with a warm-up activity to get the students thinking: a brainstorm of words. This brainstorm becomes meaningful to the students in the second activity: researching the definitions and connections to the words generated in the brainstorm. After these two activities, students are now prepared to effectively think critically about media's influence on gender roles. This is why we have then scheduled the most difficult activities: a short class discussion followed by the answering of the essential questions. Before class ends, students can feel reassured and confident about their learning by completing a learning journal entry. The learning journal is also a great way to encourage students to ponder about certain questions outside the classroom and to discuss more complex questions with friends and family.
- Who do you think is the target audience for this video game? Why do you think the creators of this video game chose to make these modifications, given its target audience?
- Why do you think Jungle Jim is shown urinating in the introduction? Is this an example of hypermasculinity?
- What stories about men and women are the creators of this video game creating?
- Name five video games you are familiar with that perpetuate gender roles. How is each of these video games perpetuating gender roles?
Students will know...
- The roots of slang used to refer to the opposite sex.
- Key facts about how media develops and normalizes gender roles in music and video games.
Students will be able to...
- Analyze poetry.
- Use research skills to find the definition and connecting words to slang used to refer to the opposite sex.
- Recognize slang used to refer to the opposite sex in different sources of media.
- Recognize in media they consume how a story is being transmitted about gender roles.
- Express their thoughts and answers to the Essential Questions orally and in writing.
- Identify video games they are familiar with that perpetuate gender roles.
Performance Task(s):
- Brainstorm a list of slang used to refer to the opposite sex.
- Research the meaning of slang words generated and their connection words.
- Express (orally and in writing) his/her findings in the essential questions, analysis of the message transmitted by poetry and video games about gender roles, opinion on the usage of commonly used slang to refer to the opposite sex, and opinion of the motives of popular artists and video game creators in perpetuating gender roles in their work.
Other Evidence:
- In-class participation
Learning Plan:
Where are your students headed? Where have they been? How will you make sure the students know where they are going?
In the past two lessons, our students have been learning how television and film perpetuate gender roles. In this lesson, our students explore how other forms of media (music and video games) also perpetuate gender roles. In order to make sure that our students know where they are going, we have created clear, guided activities. Furthermore, we have included a class discussion in our lesson in order to make sure that everyone understand the purpose of today's lesson.
How will you hook students at the beginning of the unit?
We will hook our students at the beginning of this unit by asking them to be active and to think on their feet as soon as the class begins. By asking them to generate words in a group at the beginning of the lesson, we are ensuring that they are engaged in the lesson's activities from the start.
What events will help students experience and explore the big idea and questions in the unit? How
will you equip them with needed skills and knowledge?
The event that will help our students explore the big ideas and questions in the unit the most is when they will be answering the essential questions and creating their learning journal entry. The questions we ask the students to answer in these two activities pushes the students to really think critically about media. In the past two lessons, we have been slowly equipping our students with the necessary skills and knowledge to critically analyze media. The scaffolding process continues as we continue to ask our students questions to guide them in their analysis.
How will you cause students to reflect and rethink? How will you guide them in rehearsing, revising, and refining their work?
We will cause our students to reflect and rethink in the essential questions and in the learning journal questions by asking questions that build on (ie. are more complex) questions asked in the previous lessons. This will encourage our students to revise their positions and rethink because these more complex questions may not be answered through the students' past understandings and knowledge construction of how media perpetuates gender roles. Therefore, with these more complex questions, students might need to refine their past understanding.
How will you help students to exhibit and self-evaluate their growing skills, knowledge, and understanding
throughout the unit?
We will help our students exhibit and self-evaluate their growing skills, knowledge, and understanding throughout the unit by asking students to write entries in their learning journals.
How will you tailor and otherwise personalize the learning plan to optimize the engagement and effectiveness of ALL students, without compromising the goals of the unit?
We will personalize our learning plan in order to optimize the engagement and effectiveness of all students by, firstly, asking students to generate slang for the opposite sex with peers of their own sex. This way, students who are shy will feel more comfortable to generate slang for the opposite sex without offending peers of the opposite sex. If we notice that some groups are having more trouble generating words than others, we will be walking around the classroom in order to help these groups. Secondly, as done in Lesson 2, we have tailored to various learning styles by creating many short activities to keep students as engaged as possible. Finally, we have optimized engagement in this learning plan by including group work and the use of technology. By allowing students to work together, we are ensuring that they are creating knowledge together based on everyone's varied experiences. By allowing students to use technology, such as Visuwords and YouTube, we are attempting to make looking words and viewing video clips more active and thus more interesting.
How will you organize and sequence the learning activities to optimize the engagement and achievement
of ALL students?
We have organized the learning activities in a way to optimize the engagement and achievement of all students by starting with a warm-up activity to get the students thinking: a brainstorm of words. This brainstorm becomes meaningful to the students in the second activity: researching the definitions and connections to the words generated in the brainstorm. After these two activities, students are now prepared to effectively think critically about media's influence on gender roles. This is why we have then scheduled the most difficult activities: a short class discussion followed by the answering of the essential questions. Before class ends, students can feel reassured and confident about their learning by completing a learning journal entry. The learning journal is also a great way to encourage students to ponder about certain questions outside the classroom and to discuss more complex questions with friends and family.