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Exploring Gender with Fairy Tales
March is National Women’s
History Month, making this an excellent time to explore questions of
gender and diversity
in literature. This collection of resources focuses on fairy tales and their
representations of women and girls.
“Cinderella Meets Ulysses” (E)
Investigate how characters and gender roles in folktales and other traditional
stories influence the ways students see the world in this Language Arts article. Adapt
the researcher’s questions about heroes and heroines to ask elementary
students to think about the roles that gender plays in stories.
“If Only I Was Like Barbie” (E)
Examine how young girls in a multi-aged primary classroom constructed gendered
identities and meanings with this Language Arts article, which includes an
examination of Tatterhood, the story of a modern heroine within a traditional
tale. She’s no damsel in distress!
Promoting
Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action (M)
In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students examine the library collections and campaign
for balanced readings by creating booklists and brochures. Extend this lesson
plan to other grade levels by focusing on text sets from your own library. The
introductory session that explores three different fairy tale princesses can
be easily modified for any grade level.
He
Said/She Said: Analyzing Gender Roles
through Dialogue (M-S)
Use the analytical techniques in this ReadWriteThink lesson to explore
well-known fairy tales as well as folktales then extend the exploration to
longer readings.
Exploring
Satire with Shrek (S)
Shrek, which satirizes fairy tale traditions, serves as an introduction
to the satirical techniques in this ReadWriteThink lesson plan. Adapt
this lesson for younger students by focusing on a comparison of movie scenes
to well-known fairy
tales, touching on the satirical definitions as appropriate.
“Reading as Resistance: Gendered
Messages in Literature and Media” (S)
Explore the social construction of gendered messages in this English Journal
article. The unit describe in the article includes an analysis of Disney’s
Cinderella. The activities could be adapted for the college classroom.
“Gender 101: Helping Students Become Aware of Stereotypes of Gender
and Language” (C)
This article from Teaching English
in the Two-Year College invites students to draw from their own knowledge
of gender to become more aware of stereotypes of gender and
language. After completing the workshops explained in this article,
ask students to apply similar analysis to well-known fairy tales and
folktales to draw conclusions on how these cultural texts shape our
beliefs about gender.
NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this Inbox is provided
for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available
to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 03-15-2005.
Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary,
M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, G=General).
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