According to Vivian Vasquez's article titled "Our Way: Using the Everyday to create a Critical Literacy Curriculum," teachers have to be more cognizant of the various social issues that occur in the classroom. She states, "not recognizing Power Ranger stories prevented me from being able to use this text to get at some deeper underlying issues such as gender, power, control, racism, and cultural stereotyping." This particular statement resonates with me because it relates to some of the texts I plan on teaching my students during this last advisory. Gender is a important but convoluted word because of the unique cultural perceptions our students have about the opposite sex as well as different power struggles that exist in the books they read.
As a result, I have decided that this advisory, I will make an effort to teach texts that will give me a better understanding of my students' perspective on gender and how it affects their personal lives. Since most of my students are 9th and 10th graders, I want them to be able to identify and analyze some of the gender biases and disparities that exists in the books we read. Among one of the books I look forward to reading with my students is Speak, which is a novel about a high school teenage girl who gets raped at a party, but is unable to disclose the issue and the assailant to anyone, including her parents and her close friends for fear of alienation. This is an issue all of them are familiar with, but it is also an issue that is hardly spoken about. In addition, I hope to help my students discover some of the control issues that teenagers, especially girls experience in their young lives.
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5 comments:
It sounds like you are hitting on some critical topics with your students. It will be interesting to see what comes out of reading SPEAK. Some of your students may have been directly or indirectly involved in a similar situation, which will make classroom discussion sensitive, yet relevant. I wonder how if the boys and girls in your class will react differently.
Erin
I agree with Erin, you are most definitely hitting on some critical often 'unspeakable' topics with your students. I think these topics are ones that could be very transformative for you students. You'll have to keep up this blog and keep us posted.
thanks
vivian
Sounds like a good idea, because not only are you opening up discussions on issues that students will definitely take interest in (very relevant in their lives since they are hormonal etc..) but also students will be given some good examples of how gender roles should / should not be...often times students and their developing minds see media, tv, radio, everything around them making jokes about gender issues and leaving false impressions so that it's no wonder that students are disrespectful to each other. It's powerful to be able to shape that and foster students to be open, sensitive, and aware of these crucial issues in our society.
i think that your time spent with the class reading Speak will yield more than a handful of great discussions. just to play the devil's advocate, i wonder how you'll draw in the male students in the classroom. after listening to one of Dr. Vasquez's podcasts about the power and positioning of words, i start to analyze language anew. for instance, the word and event "rape" are powerful. however, they may have two very different connotations for the females and males in the room. what connotations does society attach to "rape"? how do these feelings change if we use other words associated with rape - sexual assault, violation, etc.? if a man rapes a woman as it happens in Speak, how does the event position the two people during and after it occurs? changing context, how would you feel if the victim or rapist were jane doe vs. a friend vs. your best friend vs. a sibling or family member? how does society treat rape victims and rapists? how would all of these questions change if the rape was between two women, two men, or if a woman raped a man? hmmmmm....
I think your efforts to look at gender in your class sounds like a great idea, and I'm sure Speak will be a great way to do that. The book does a great job of raising other issues that are faced by teenagers, issues that may be difficult to address in other ways. I wonder how the students responded to some of the topics in the book that usually aren't discussed. I'd love to hear the results and hear about the conversations that took place.
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