Women in Literature and Media

Course Essential Questions:

• In what ways do social, political, and cultural factors influence the roles and representations of women in texts and the reader's interpretation of the text?
• To what extent are there common themes and issues in texts about women across race, class, culture, and time? Where and how are there differences?
• How do authors use literary tools to express ideas and affect their audience?
• What is the relationship between power, society, and the written word?

Course Objectives

• Analyze, compare, and contrast context, topics, and themes across literary and nonfiction texts from a variety of time periods, genres, cultures, and perspectives.
• Analyze an author's point of view or purpose in a text, determining how the author's choice of content, development, and style contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or effect of the text.
• Support claims with strong and thorough text evidence.
• Produce clear and coherent presentations and texts in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• Conduct research to answer a question or investigate an issue, analyze and evaluate evidence and findings, and effectively communicate understanding of the subject under investigation.
• Participate effectively in a range of discussions on course topics, texts, or issues; posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; seeking a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarifying, verifying, or challenging ideas and conclusions; and promoting divergent and creative perspectives.

Unit 1: Society’s Influence (Weeks 1-8)

Week 1: Introduction to Women in Literature and Media

• Understand the rules and policies of the course, and expectations of you as a contributing member of our learning community.
• Begin to build community by sharing important information with your teacher and classmates about yourself and your school, and creating a social contract together for guidelines on interacting throughout the class.
• Develop your skills for navigating the course environment and using the various course tools.
• Participate effectively in discussions by posing and responding to questions and challenging ideas and conclusions.
• Reflect on your own perceptions of gender and current representations of women in society.
• Explain key terms to be used throughout the course.

Week 2: Roles and Representations

• Analyze how the author's choice of literary techniques such as dramatic irony influence the theme.
• Apply literary critical lenses to a short video.
• Draw conclusions about the social, political, and cultural context of Victorian Era texts.
• Use relevant and specific text evidence to support claims.
• Analyze how using different critical lenses affects interpretation.
• Determine how authors use characterization to reflect societal norms.

Week 3: Power Dynamics

• Determine how authors use character relationships to reflect power structures and societal norms.
• Participate effectively in discussions by probing reasoning and evidence and seeking a full range of positions on a topic.
• Analyze how conflicts in a text contribute to the overall message.
• Use relevant, specific, and thorough text evidence to support claims.
• Identify and interpret symbols and their role in developing the message of a text.

Week 4: Breaking Norms

• Examine how dramatic irony is used to develop characters and themes.
• Make a judgment about power in a text and justify your position with text evidence.
• Use relevant, specific, and thorough text evidence to support claims.
• Analyze how time, place, and culture affect the reader's response to a text.
• Narrow a topic for research.
• Reflect on your learning and identify areas for growth.

Week 5: Shifting Norms

• Evaluate the impact of how an author chooses to develop characters.
• Participate effectively in discussions by clarifying, verifying, or challenging ideas.
• Draw conclusions about the social, political, and cultural context of mid-20th century media.
• Compare and contrast the message and tone of two authors writing on the same topic.
• Gather information from multiple print and media sources.

Week 6: What About Today?

• Draw conclusions about the social, political, and cultural context of 21st century media.
• Make connections between points of an author's thesis and personal experience.
• Support a claim about the topic of power with evidence from a visual text.
• Identify patterns in literature about and by women.
• Synthesize multiple sources to create a cohesive presentation about the representations of women in a text type.

Week 7: Current Issues

• Evaluate the impact of the elements of a video's production.
• Identify a current issue for women and illustrate the issue with a text example.
• Analyze how a speaker's choice of content and development contribute to the impact of the message.
• Discuss the impact of an author's stylistic choices on the overall message of a novel.
• Respond to a presentation by offering supporting or alternate evidence, views, or perspectives.

Unit 2: Diverse Voices (Weeks 8-10 )

Week 8: Roles Across Cultures

• Examine how the author's background influences the point of view, message, and tone in a poem.
• Analyze how culture/class play a role in the message of a poem.
• Identify the aspects of culture, class, or race that influence the development of characters or a theme in a novel.
• Outline a claim about the role of culture, race, or class in the development of a novel's theme.
• Reflect on your learning and identify areas for growth.

Week 9: The Reader’s Role

• Analyze how a reader's background influences their interpretation on an image.
• Participate effectively in discussions by promoting divergent perspectives.
• Describe and narrate gender expectations related to your experience.
• Examine how the reader's background influences their interpretation of a text.
• Write an essay that analyzes the role of culture, race, or class in the development of a novel's theme.

Week 10: Common Themes and Issues

• Compare and contrast women's literature across race, class, and culture.
• Determine how an author's use of definition, evidence and point of view affect the message and impact of a text.
• Revise and edit a literary essay for ideas, sentence fluency, and word choice.

Unit 3: Voices for Change (Weeks 11-15)

Week 11: The Power of Words

• Evaluate the evidence provided in a news article.
• Participate effectively in discussions by seeking a full range of positions on a topic and promoting divergent and creative perspectives.
• Analyze and evaluate the development and structure of a speech.
• Evaluate the tone, word choice, and visuals of a song and music video.
• Revise and edit a literary essay.
• Gather relevant information about a female activist from multiple authoritative print and digital sources.

Week 12: Crafting Messages

• Analyze the use of color, text, images, and media to develop a message.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of visuals and graphics in persuading an audience.
• Analyze the development and evidence used in a podcast.
• Choose the development, organization, and style of a persuasive text most appropriate for the task, purpose, and audience.
• Select persuasive text evidence and analyze how it achieves its purpose.

Week 13: Creating Change

• Compare how the topic of gender is treated across texts.
• Participate effectively in discussions by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence.
• How do poets use literary elements to persuade?
• Create an informative presentation that examines the context, power, and persuasion of a female activist's written or spoken work.
• Draft a persuasive text based on consideration of the context and intended audience.

Week 14: A Changing World

• Participate in a discussion by introducing new perspectives, asking questions to probe reasoning, and challenging ideas and conclusions.
• Examine how a text explores and affects the power structure in society.
• Analyze how social, cultural, and political factors influence your own perceptions of gender and the roles and representations of women in society.
• Create a final draft of a persuasive text and explain the rationale for authorial decisions.
• Make connections between common elements of persuasive texts.

Week 15: Reflection

• Discuss the takeaways from the course.
• Answer the course essential questions using examples from a variety of course experiences.
• Reflect on your learning and identify areas of growth.