By Middle Childhood, children will continue to be exposed to family diversity as well as gender norms. It is important to continue to combat heterosexist and cis!gender role stereotypes in your classroom and encourage acceptance of all. In addition to focusing on gender identity and family structure, by middle childhood the concept of sexuality will start to become important. It is between middle childhood and adolescence that children start to develop sexual desires and we want to make sure that students know that whatever sexual orientation they identify as and whatever sexual desires they might or might not feel is okay. While we are not encouraging all of our students to go out and have sexual relationships with their peers, we want to ensure that they are aware of the differences and treat each other with respect.
Credit: costumeexpress.com
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Media Literacy: Magazines and Gender-roles/HeterosexismAge/Grade: 9-11, 4th-6th grade
Materials: Magazines (enough for every group to have plenty of options, these will be cut) Scissors Glue/Tape Poster Board Markers, colored pencils, and/or crayons Objectives: Identify typical gender-role norms shown in magazines Define love, attraction, and relationships based on what is found in magazines Understand what "heterosexual assumption" is Work together as a group to gather, generate, and discuss stereotypes This lesson is divided up into approximately three 45-minute long lessons. Part 1: Information Gathering & InferencingSeparate the class into groups of 3-4 and assign each group to one of the following topics:
The amount of students you have will determine how many groups you have doing each topic. Explain to the students that they are going to be looking for pictures and/or advertisements that reflect the topic they are given. There should not be a set number of things they have to find, but encourage them to find as many as possible as it will help them later. After about 20-25 minutes, students will then examine the materials that they found on their topic. Explain to them that they will be discussing as a group what they think a good definition of their topic is based on what they saw in the magazine. Be sure to emphasize to the students that they are not sharing their own opinions/definitions on the words, but instead are supposed to try and infer what they think the word means to the advertisers and photographers. After about 10 minutes, have each group present their findings to the class. Be sure that either you collect each groups clippings, or the groups saves them because they will be used again in part 3. Part 2: Identify Stereotypes and Problematic AdvertisingAsk the class to come up with as many forms of advertising as they can think of and write a list. After about 5-10 minutes, come back together as a class and discuss all the different platforms they were able to come up with and write them down on the board. Once you have finished, ask the class the following questions, being sure to spend plenty of time on each one so that students have time to reflect and think critically about their answers.
Once students have a solid understanding of the topic, have them get back into the same groups from part 1. Provide the group with several magazines (you might have to provide new ones depending on the condition of the ones from part 1) and explain that they will again be looking for pictures and/or advertisements that reflect their topic. However, instead of finding things that stereotypically go with their topic (ie- a man playing football to represent strength) have them try and find something that combats assumptions and stereotypes. Are there any fathers leaning? Any biracial or same-sex couples shown representing love? Have them try and find as many examples as they can, but assure each group that it's okay if they can't find any. Many groups will likely find this assignment difficult, but that's part of the point. After about 20 minutes, have the students stop and collect any clippings that they have found. They will be using these, along with their clippings from part 1, in the next lesson. Part 3: Gather, Present and ReflectHave students get into their groups and provide each group with a poster board, tape and/or glue, and art supplies. If you collected the groups clippings from part 1 and 2, hand those back as well.
Explain to the groups that they will be making a poster board about their topic. The finished poster should both define their topic as well as discuss/combat stereotypes. Inform students that the goal of the poster is to be able to hang it up around school so that other classmates can understand that the real definition of their topic and the media's definition of their topic are not always the same. For the reflection part of this lesson, you have a few options depending on the goals of the classroom.
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Additional LGBTQ Friendly Literature
Unfortunately, some of these books might be banned by your school district if you live in a more conservative area. While these books are in no way inappropriate for children, heterosexism has unfortunately pushed much quality LBGTQ friendly literature out of the classroom. Always check your school's list of banned materials before teaching any lesson. If you think a book has been unfairly banned, we encourage you to bring it to your principal's attention.
Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love by Aylette JennessThis book contains photographic essays on the beautiful diversity found amongst American families today and challenges the idea of a "traditional" family. Each of these thought provoking photos contains excellent conversation pieces for you to talk with your class about the different kids of families and the value found in each one. The kinds of families represented include adoptive, same-sex, biracial, bilingual, extended family, joint custody, single parent, handicapped parents, and more! Crime Against Nature: A More Accurate Telling of What's Natural by Gwenn SeemelGwenn Seemel has created an amazing, artistic book about the differing shows of sexuality, gender, size differences, shows of aggression, and more that occur naturally in the animal world. What this book is able to do is address stereotypes we have for humans and that age old argument that "it's just not natural" to be gay or to go against gender norms. Rather than tell you about how awesome it is, we're going to show you some of the pages so you can see for yourself. All images belong to Gwenn Seemel.
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