Complete course evaluations online and take a screenshot of your confirmation! If you have already completed the survey, just email me! 😀
20 – 40 points:
In a short 2-4 page essay or 5-8 minute video, explain the most valuable course readings and think through our final attempt at person-based research. Explore the following:
What did thinking about the world around you from a social constructionist perspective do for you, particularly? How has tackling issues of identity like gender, sexuality, race, and class been fun, difficult, uncomfortable, empowering?
What type of research (autoethnography, historical and academic, or person-based survey or interview) did you find most interesting or enjoyable?
How, specifically, would you improve or expand each particular research assignment? Would you be interested in learning how to apply for an approved person-based study through the university and work collaboratively to produce a formal research study?
What do you think 104 can do to help build research knowledge and skills for your particular field, major, or future professional work?
I know you’re all super tired, but keep going! The end of this class is near. Here’s everything you need to know about your final presentations:
Once you complete your video, make sure each of you upload it to Youtube and submit your link and final memo to Canvas! (Remember, EACH group member needs to complete a memo, buds!)
In a 2-3 page memo, answer the following questions about your media documentary:
Describe your process using person-based research methods. How did you go about gathering data and how was this experience different from traditional research?
What did you like about this project? What would you do differently?
How and why did you go about building a video documentary? What problems did you encounter? What was most fun or stressful?
How did you use course ideas (social construction theory, etc) and secondary research from your RQ II paper to inform your video project?
What audience do you think this video could reach? Where could you circulate this video and what do you hope viewers think about or do in response to your research?
Use your answers to plan your 10 minute presentation during which you are required to address the following:
Show your mini research documentary to the class
Explain both the original argument AND the process, purpose, and new audience of your qualitative or quantitative research
Reflect on the digital composing practice and what you might do with it in the future
Include a 1-2 page handout (one copy is fine) covering your main points (use images if you can!)
Remember, this presentation should make creative use of course readings, lectures, outside media, etc – to briefly teach the class about the public identity issue your work addresses AND the process of using person based research!
First things first, how are our RQII’s coming along? Ready to submit them? YAY! When you are finished writing and PROOFREADING your final essays, take a few minutes to include a Writer’s Memo answering/exploring the following questions:
What secondary research sources did you find most useful in understanding your primary sources? How did you go about incorporating these secondary sources into your own writing and thinking?
How did social construction theory help (or not) you build knowledge around your popular culture and official sources?
What do you think you did really well in this Research Quest?
How would you improve your work if you had more time?
What do you hope readers might learn, understand, or do after reading this work?
Turn your memo in with your final RQII essay on Canvas (“Research Quest II: Cultural Interrogation”) by Midnight tonight! 😀
After watching these samples, how can we begin to imagine our own project potential for RQIII? Spend some time talking and thinking with potential group members or completing your RQIII proposal on your own!
Now here’s how we go about gathering and producing our data for RQIII:
Today we are going to practice using iMovie or Wevideo (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. software to create a 50 – 90 second movie trailer for the film of our lives. Use your teammates as your cast of characters and choose a genre for your film. Will it be a raunchy all-girl comedy? A tail of tragic romance? What?
Next, use a trailer template in iMovie or a text theme template in Wevideo to help expedite your in-class process here and aid in your invention. What scenes will you want to film? What voice-over narrative will you need? What footage from Youtube might you use, if any?
Make sure you experiment with the following features (I’ll be here to help if you need it):
We’ll probably need to continue this practice through next week, so make sure you are arranging and inventing your own video project in the meantime and always let me know what you need help with!
When you’re done, save your trailer and upload it to Youtube. Next, check your privacy settings and make sure your audience is as restricted as you prefer. Then publish your video via link here as a comment! WOOOOO HOOOO!!
* You are NOT your peer’s copy editor; don’t worry about sentence-level “error” or grammatical “mistakes”. You are not expected to be an expert on mechanics and style of English writing. Neither is your buddy
*You ARE your peer’s reader – and as a reader you can certainly call your peer’s attention to moments where you are confused, entertained, wanting more detail, missing the point, etc.
*You ARE your peer’s colleague in a sense. You are working together to collaborate on how to build better, clearer writing. That being said, be helpful, not critical. Be supportive, but not patronizing. Above all – DO NOT be lazy. The comment “I like this intro, Bro,” is really nice, but also generic and disengaged. Be specific, substantive, and reflective. I promise this will pay off in the quality of feedback your own writing receives!
*This is a social activity! Feel free to dialogue on, discuss, and have fun with your ideas about one another’s work!
Now, here’s what you need to do:
*Read the RQ II drafts of at least three buddies. You MUST address the following questions/notes:
1) What is the thesis? Does this thesis make a clear argument or lay out a relationship between primary sources, social construction, a public issue/identity? What is the argument, exactly?
2)What are the writer’s primary sources and how are they using them in their argument?
3)How is the writer using or planning to use direct quotations from their secondary sources? Do the sources and quotations make sense? Are the sources well-integrated?
4)Check the entire essay/outline for structure. Is there an early, thesis? Does EACH paragraph make a claim and focus on ONE claim only? Does EACH paragraph use source quotations, summary, OR/AND statistics as evidence to support the claim? And does EACH paragraph explain HOW and WHY that evidence “proves” the overall argument of the essay?
5)Finally, look at the RQ II prompt to which your peer is responding. Is the prompt fully addressed through the writing? What could be added, cut, re-structured to help answer the assignment or clarify the ideas?
Submit your notes for each peer to your buddies and to Canvas by Midnight! 😀
Before we make time for finishing our close readings and begin looking for secondary sources, let’s get in our groups and check out this student example of a RQ II argument:
Now, in your group, make a list of the different types of sources the author uses to explore the construction that racial bias driven by social constructions of African Americans leads to racist police brutality and violence.
What is the larger purpose or thesis of the writer’s cultural interrogation?
What are the writer’s primary sources and how does he use them to build her larger argument?
What traditional, academic secondary sources does he use?
How is the writer using personal experience to explore the argument he’s making?
How might you use this essay as an example as you begin writing? What of his approach to the assignment do you like and why?
Today we’re gonna practice making a research agenda from primary and secondary sources we’ve closely read. So let’s take a look at some sources that complicate and inform the conversation about how immigrants from Mexico are socially, legally, and culturally constructed:
Now, get together with your group buds and use what you know about about social construction theory and this collection of texts to answer the following:
Which texts from those listed above are primary and secondary sources?
What argument might you make about how Obama-era vs. Trump-era social understandings of Hispanic immigrants have changed? Try making a thesis statement for a RQII-style paper about Underwater Dreams, DACA, andPresident Trump’s current legislative and social definitions of Mexican immigrants.
Given the thesis statement you’ve crafted, what kind of source might help you explore this particular research quest? Do you need data and statistics? A news source helping readers understand the current immigration debate? Or a scholarly study of Mexican immigrant contributions to American culture?
Now go find a scholarly source! To do this check out OneSearch at Bracken Library. Make sure you’re signed in to your my.bsu login. With your group members, click the filter on the left to only search peer-reviewed sources and try various search terms like “Mexican American immigration” or “DACA” to find a new secondary, scholarly source to help explore your argument. In a discussion thread, record your search terms and link your source!
Ok, so how might we go about looking at this official primary source as a pop culture text? Let’s imagine we want to write about how the use of Blackface constructed and continues to construct a racist version of African American culture and people? How can we use our skills of searching the internet to find out the history of Blackface in the US and how it is regulated or legislated? Where and how is Blackface regulated? Are there any laws, public speeches, institutional rules, or judicial rulings that we can find to read alongside the film or show Dear White People?
Obama in his 2004 Democratic Convention speech decried “the slander that says that if a black youth walks around with a book in his hand, he is acting white.”
-John McWhorter, Forbes
On a biological level, “less than 1 percent of the human genome accounts for visible characteristics such as skin color. In terms of our genetic blue print, we are more than 99 percent the same.”
-Maia Szalavitz, Race and the Human Genome: The Howard University Human Genome Center
Think about how the above quotations help support the notion that racial difference is less biology and more sociology? How and why have Westerners insisted so vehemently on the empirical “truth” of race? And how do socially constructed notions of racial identities affect policy to enact social control and racial supremacy?
Imagine the following excerpt of the 1915 film Birth of a Nation is our media artifact:
Now pair this with the 1896 Supreme Court ruling in the famous Plessy vs. Ferguson case.
What research steps do we take to build cultural and historical context for these texts? How do pop culture texts like film affect social control and legal policies?
First, recognize that research can be fun.
There, I said it. Now before you have me committed, take a moment to think about the online “research” in which you already engage – what does it begin with? A question. A question that makes you curious to discover information – makes you want to “research”? Is Betty White still alive? What WAS the name of that Ben Affleck movie with Jennifer Lopez? Weren’t they married for a minute? What exactly does “exigence” mean again? This is really all you need to find in order to make Inquiry I an intellectual fiesta! No? You don’t believe me now, but you will.
Choose any ONE question to explore. Use any outline and notes you have prepared and make sure you do your best to answer the entire question:
1. This 1960’s advertisement for men’s hair grooming products relies on notions of gender to sell a product to consumers. How does it reflect and perpetuate constructions of what it means to be masculine and feminine before the women’s movement of the 1970’s? How does it rely on and perpetuate warrior masculinity? Do you think these constructions of men and women still surface today? Why? In what kinds of examples?
2. Check out the following comic by Barry Deutsch.How does Deutsch make the case that masculinity is socially constructed? Do you agree with this perspective? How does his comic reflect the ideas Palahniuk explores through his male characters in Fight Club? What do you think his comic and Tyler Durden have to do with male violence and school shootings, if anything?
3. In a recent New York Times opinion piece, comedian Michael Ian Black argues that:
“The past 50 years have redefined what it means to be female in America. Girls today are told that they can do anything, be anyone. They’ve absorbed the message: They’re outperforming boys in school at every level. But it isn’t just about performance. To be a girl today is to be the beneficiary of decades of conversation about the complexities of womanhood, its many forms and expressions. . .Men feel isolated, confused and conflicted about their natures. Many feel that the very qualities that used to define them — their strength, aggression and competitiveness — are no longer wanted or needed; many others never felt strong or aggressive or competitive to begin with. We don’t know how to be, and we’re terrified.”
How (and where in the novel and/or film) does Palahniuk also build this same perspective in Fight Club? Do you agree or disagree with both writer’s takes on how masculinity is socially constructed? What kinds of social constructions might help boys and men understand masculinity differently?
4. Check out this anti-suffragette poster of the early 1900’s below. How is it socially constructing female people? How did this piece of propaganda discourage and control women who might have wanted to advocate for equal voting rights? Use what you know about this part of American history and social construction theory to think about how social constructions can become social control over marginalized groups. Do we still see social control of women through advertisements today? If so, where and why?
5. Take a look at this Bud Light ad below. How do the makers of this beer and the ad agency they’ve hired construct a potential gay male consumer? In what ways is this ad empowering? How is it not? How do Ennis and Jack in Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” influence ads like this one and how did they help challenge common popular culture representations of gay men? How are popular representations of gay men problematic? How are they empowering?
6. Take a few minutes to watch this short video:
What argument is artist, Eli Rezkallah attempting to make with her work? How are the original ads constructing femininity and masculinity during the 1950’s and 60’s? How are those constructions still dominant in our culture today? And how might art like Rezkallah’s change social constructions of men and women?
7. Think about what you’ve learned about advertising, social construction, and gender and embark on our future considerations of race as socially constructed. How does the below pancake mix advertisement from 1941 reflect and construct black women’s social role and value? Use what you know about this part of American history – pre-women’s movement and pre-civil rights act – and social construction theory to think about how social constructions can become social control over marginalized groups. Do we still see this kind of social control of women (and men) of color through advertisements today? If so, where and why? What examples can you think of in advertising, popular culture, and politics that perpetuate or challenge these long-standing constructions of black women (and men) as “help” for white people?
8. Relying on what you know about social construction theory and common constructions of female and male gender, how does this Ok Cupid ad address and construct a lesbian consumer? What assumptions about lesbian identity and female identity do these advertisers make and why do you think they make those assumptions? What other popular depictions of lesbian women help construct what our culture assumes about lesbians and how are these constructions empowering or disempowering?
Use one or more of his photographs below to closely read and answer the following questions. What argument is Buck trying to make with this image or images? What social constructions of white women does he attempt to highlight? And what constructions of women of color is he making commentary on? How might art like Buck’s photo essay work to change social constructions of women and race?
10. Take a moment to watch this short video introducing a new line of dolls from Mattel, the makers of Barbie.
Closely reading these new dolls and how Mattel’s toymakers and designers explain their potential role in children’s lives, how do these dolls participate in socially constructing gender in ways that reflect larger cultural changes in our understandings and definitions of gender? The designers mention that these dolls might be met with challenge from certain populations. Why do you think they make that assertion? Do you agree or disagree and what evidence from our current cultural moment informs your perspectives?
Think about how the above film trailer for “Brokeback Mountain” differs from the short story. How does the film/book use traditional notions of masculinity to explore the “alternative” identity of the gay male. Now, take a look at the readings for today. In groups, think about how constructions of gay masculinity – and gay identity in general – shape American policy. Discuss the following questions:
What is Zack Rosen’s argument? Why do you think he is irritated by the stereotypes he explores? What are the dangers in them? What examples can we come up with for how gay masculinity is portrayed?
How does Rosen’s argument relate to what we know about social constructions of masculinity in Fight Club? How might “Brokeback Mountain” challenge popular representations of gay men?
Check out DADT. How does the language of the bill reinforce notions of the popular “gay” identity? How has the reversal related to changing cultural ideas about gay masculinity?
Think about the cultural context for either DADT or it’s Obama-era reversal, using examples from popular culture to support your claims about how gay male identity is viewed.
Let’s talk about how to ace this little Midterm. To do that, we first have to watch some snowboarding Slopestyle runs:
Ok, so our Midterm is pretty much an intellectual Slopestyle. You will all run the course differently and with your own unique style and choices – but there are a few elements and moves all of you need to incorporate in your writing. Here they are:
The Drop In: Focus and Structure
You must make a thesis statement for your close reading. This thesis statement must include the text or texts you are reading, the claim/s about gender that you want to make, and the historical or cultural context you are thinking through in the short response.
Like the rails, you get to decide how you ride this element. But you can’t skip it, or you definitely will not medal. This means you need to carefully review Social Construction and Lorber’s Essay.
You need to substantively address social construction in whatever question you choose to answer by using the ideas and vocabularies of this theory. Show off what you’ve practiced in this course – how to focus research on the relationships between texts and social/cultural attitudes about gender, sexuality, and identity.
The Jumps: Texts, Contexts, Personal Experience
Jump tricks are where you face the most choice in Slopestyle and that’s true for this Midterm obstacle course as well. You’ll be able to address the gender, sexuality, and even racial identity with which you most connect. There will be questions focused on femininity, masculinity, gay masculinity, lesbian identity, and one focused on non-white femininity. To prepare for drawing on your strengths in this trick section, take a look at this handy study guide:
STUDY ALL THE THINGS (in the area of your choice:):
Social Construction of Women and Women of Color and Lesbian Identity:
For this element of the Midterm, you can get creative with some impressive Autoethnography twists – draw on your personal experience to build your argument if you want!
Crossing the Finish Line: Conclusion
If you have time, bring it all home to the podium with a stellar conclusion that draws on the ideas of the Deductive Structure Guide conclusion tips. Why should I care about your answer? Why does this social construction analysis matter for us as a culture?
Groups 1 & 4. Why do you think the narrator needs to attend the testicular cancer support group in order to sleep? Why can’t he cry when Marla is present? Why can he cry with Bob and how does this interaction explore the notion of masculinity? What do you think Palahniuk is trying to say here? Use plenty of evidence from the novel or our readings – Lorber in particular – for your analysis.
Groups 2 & 5. Think back to the Gibson and Beato articles we read. What evidence do we see in the first three chapters that Palahnuik’s book might be exploring similar claims about how urbanization, the women’s movement, and modern culture are changing “warrior masculinity”? Consider the narrator’s occupation, the character Bob, the testicular cancer group name – or any other details that you think might support this connection. Use evidence from the novel and articles to support your claims.
Groups 3 & 6. What kind of feminine identities does Palahniuk construct through Chloe and Marla?. Do we think they work to interrogate or transgress traditional constructions of femininity? How? Use social construction wiki, Lorber’s essay, and evidence from the novel to support your answer!
That’s right – time to be a super hero; it’s peer workshop day!
Alright, hear me out. I know many of you groan when you hear the words “peer workshop” or that famous English teacher phrase, “now you get to respond to classmates’ writing.” I think this is because for most of us, writing has always been a very solitary, isolated act. Writing can a social process, a collaboration between, at the very least, audience and rhetor. Today you’ll practice engaging with the ideas and rhetoric of your peers and in turn gaining their insights about your thinking. Peer workshop days can be very productive, social, I dare say fun – if we all adopt the understanding that public response to our writing and thinking is always helpful in becoming better writers (and thinkers). Alright, so I’m going to break it down: here’s what you’ll need to keep in mind:
* You are NOT your peer’s copy editor; don’t worry about sentence-level “error” or grammatical “mistakes”. You are not expected to be an expert on mechanics and style of English writing. Neither is your buddy
*You ARE your peer’s reader – and as a reader you can certainly call your peer’s attention to moments where you are confused, entertained, wanting more detail, missing the point, etc.
*You ARE your peer’s colleague in a sense. You are working together to collaborate on how to build better, clearer writing. That being said, be helpful, not critical. Be supportive, but not patronizing. Above all – DO NOT be lazy. The comment “I like this intro, Bro,” is really nice, but also generic and disengaged. Be specific, substantive, and reflective. I promise this will pay off in the quality of feedback your own writing receives!
*This is a social activity! Feel free to dialogue on, discuss, and have fun with your ideas about one another’s work!
Now, here’s what you need to do:
*Read the RQI draft of you peer (or peers if there is time). Make notes on the specific moments in the piece that are enjoyable, clear, lack clarity, etc. These comments and notes can be simple reactions to, questions about, or compliments about the text.
You MUST address the following questions:
1) What is the gender identity or identities being examined? Is it clear what “text” being closely read?
2)Does the essay have a unifying purpose? What is is? Where does the writer reveal this? (introduction, conclusion, etc?)
3)How is the writer using direct quotations and details from the “text” to support the thesis and purpose of the essay? Are there enough quotations? Too many?
4)Are there any moments in the essay where, as a reader, you feel curious to know more or wish the writer had developed his/her ideas more fully? Any moments of confusion? If so, where are they and how might the writer help be more clear or thorough?
5)Finally, look at the prompt to which your peer is responding. Is the prompt fully addressed through the writing? What could be added, cut, re-structured to help answer the assignment or clarify the ideas?
Post your answers to the questions above along with your initial reaction comments and notes in Canvas. (RQI: Peer Workshop Notes).
Today is all about preparing for greatness. To this, let’s first get in our groups and read the following student examples of close reading heuristics and autoethnographies:
The Illusion of Power All Women Matter The Kissing Booth
Now choose your favorite example and think about how this student used their heuristic to help build a final paper:
What are the evidence/examples and claims that the writer makes use of in order to show us how their primary source socially constructs notions of gender in their own life?
What kind of evidence does the writer use to support their larger claim that the show, movie, or advertisement affected them?
What voice and tone does the writer use? Why do you think they makes these choices?
How might you use this particular autoethnography as a model? What do you like about it? What do you think could improve in the writing?
As you begin drafting your final paper for this Research Quest, remember to check out the guide to Structuring Your Ideas to help you as you outline and organize your knowledge.
“Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.”
-Norman Mailer
Before we jump into Bro Day 1, let’s review last week’s ideas:
How do social constructions of female identities affect policy?
How have women (and men, too) challenged those policies and constructions?
How can interrogating and testing inferences help us evaluate texts that construct identity?
Now, in your groups, examine the readings for today to answer the following questions:
Gibson concludes what about the Vietnam War and “paramilitary” culture?
Beato draws a similar conclusion to Gibson about the cultural cause for practical joke/fraternity popularity in the early 19th century – how might this relate to college fraternities?
Do you know someone who has a man cave? What is in it and how does it represent that man’s masculine identity? Do women have “caves” or spaces where they escape their familial roles and hang out with only other women? What spaces would these be?
I think I could write a pretty strong argument in favor of female suffrage, but I do not want to do it. I never want to see the women voting, and gabbling about politics, and electioneering. There is something revolting in the thought. It would shock me inexpressibly for an angel to come down from above and ask me to take a drink with him (though I should doubtless consent); but it would shock me still more to see one of our blessed earthly angels peddling election tickets among a mob of shabby scoundrels she never saw before. – Letter to St. Louis Missouri Democrat, March 1867
Women, go your ways! Seek not to beguile us of our imperial privileges. Content yourself with your little feminine trifles — your babies, your benevolent societies and your knitting–and let your natural bosses do the voting. Stand back — you will be wanting to go to war next. We will let you teach school as much as you want to, and we will pay you half wages for it, too, but beware! we don’t want you to crowd us too much. – Letter to St. Louis Missouri Democrat, March 1867
Both of the above quotations are from American writer, Mark Twain. Later, as the suffrage movement continued – Twain changed his attitude and began writing and speaking in favor of the 19th amendment. Consider the popular inferences made about all women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries:
Women were naturally vain
Women were innately incapable of reason and rational thought
Women were “adult children” who needed guidance and protection
Women were simply property of their fathers and husbands
Women were created to be “angels in the house” – or passive moral compasses for naturally “bad” husbands
Women were instinctively willing obedient servants to husbands who represented God head in the household
Often, women did (and still do) help to legitimize these “truths” with their behavior and writings. So, in many ways these inferences looked reliable to anti-suffragists. With your groups, think about the “number of different explanations” for these inferences made about the “nature” of female humans.
How reliable are these inferences?
What possible explanations might we find for female behavior and choices that helped perpetuate these “truths”?
How did the inferences about women lead to judgments?
What relationship can we find between cultural constructions, often inferences, and social and legal judgments?
Use Sojourners Truth’s ‘Aint I a Woman to discuss how can rhetors change judgments by helping to present facts that question the reliability of inferences?
And finally, because you are awesome students – I leave you with this:
Now that we have collaborative groups, let’s think about some stuff, shall we? Get together with your group members, open up the assigned readings for last Friday, and answer the following questions with your buddies. One group member can post answers in your Canvas discussion board:
What connection do you see between the social construction of certain identities and bias?
What evidence can we think of in our own childhood that helps support Riley’s rant about toys? What negative effects might we consider when thinking about the way our toys and the marketers who sold them gendered us?
Share your Gender Bias Test Result with your buds. How did you all do?
Check out the photo above. That’s a picture of Billy Tipton, a famous jazz musician of the 1930’s and 40’s. How does his story help make the case that gender is something different from sex?
Let’s finish meeting everybody and see if there’s any questions about our course syllabus!
Today we’ll be thinking about the ideas Lorber explores in her article and how closely reading the world around us for gendered messages can help us become better researchers and intellectuals.
First things first:
Let’s make some teams because everything is better with a crew. Introduce yourselves to your new besties and discuss the following questions:
What exactly is social construction theory? Explain it in your own words.
What examples or evidence does Lorber use to support and “prove” that gender is socially constructed?
Do we buy Lorber’s argument? What evidence can we think of in our own childhood that helps support or works to refute her claims?
Here’s a bit about the larger goals of our time in this AWESOME class:
“College learners pass through three stages of intellectual development before becoming sophisticated critical thinkers.”
a) Dualism.
tend to see the world in polar terms: black and white, good and bad, and so on.
have what Perry calls a “cognitive egocentrism” – that is, they find it difficult to entertain points of view other than the ones they themselves embrace.
tend to ally themselves absolutely to whatever authority they find appealing.
At this stage in their development, students believe that there is a “right” side, and they want to be on it. They believe that their arguments are undermined by the consideration of other points of view.
b) Relativism.
understand that there often is no single right answer to a problem, and that some questions have no answers.
beginning to contextualize knowledge and to understand the complexities of any intellectual position.
students in this phase sometimes give themselves over to a kind of skepticism. For the young relativist, if there is no Truth, then every opinion is as good as another.
At its worst, relativism leads students to believe that opinion is attached to nothing but the person who has it, and that evidence, logic, and clarity have little to do with an argument’s value.
c) Reflectivism.
eventually come to see that, indeed, some opinions are better than others.
begin to be interested in what makes one argument better than another. Is it well reasoned? Well supported? Balanced? Sufficiently complex?
When students learn to evaluate others’ points of view, they will begin to evaluate their own. In the end, they will be able to commit themselves to a point of view that is objective, well reasoned, sophisticated – one that, in short, meets all the requirements of an academic argument.
– William Perry’s Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme (1970)
Part of what this course is designed to do is move you all from dualism, PAST SCARY RELATIVISM, and to reflectivism – and one of the best ways to begin this process is to dive into examining gender, sexuality, race, class, and even hipsterism – to see how our culture socially constructs these identities.
Because we all have one, we’ll start of with gender. Take a look at this excerpt from a Season 2 episode of Parks and Rec:
How does Leslie Knope use the gender biases and constructions of what is “female” to her advantage? What of these constructions do we believe?
English 104 
