Ideal+Beauty+in+the+Media

=Created By Jen Wiley=

contact me: jennifer.l.wiley@wmich.edu
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The students of my class will be in the 10th grade. They will primarily be white, middle class students, with a few being of lower-middle class standing or falling below the poverty line. A small minority, perhaps 15% of the class, will be of ethnic background other than Caucasian, including African American and Asian American.
 * The grade level of your students, and their social and economic situation. **

Event- Unrealistic expectations of feminine beauty and masculinity in American culture and media. Students will engage in observation and discussion of beauty standards in literature, advertisements and other forms of media and analyze the problem of unrealistic beauty expectations. Students will observe the causes and key players of this problem, taking on the roles of these players, and generating a possible solution to the problem.
 * The "event" itself and why it will matter to your students. **

This topic will resonate with students at the high school level because of the pressures put on young people of this age bracket to look unachievably flawless. These pressures are put on the students by both media and their peers, and are experienced by young people of all ethnicities.

Possible identities include: -Female in the white majority -Female in the ethnic minority -Male body-builder -Model -Doctor/ Psychiatrist -Fashion/ Beauty Industry Representative -Magazine/ Fashion Photo Editor
 * What "identities" will your students need to assume/take on to participate in this event? **

-Students will first be made aware of the problem of image distortion in the media. The instructor will provide examples of images in advertising that distort women’s bodies and de-naturalize the look of women.
 * Given these identities, how will your students "frame" or understand the activity? **

And might also introduce the problem of muscle dysmorphia, occurring primarily in men.



-Students will be asked to look at the problem trough the role of different people who play a part in this issue. -A student who chooses to play the role of a “female in the white majority” might represent the largest number of their peers. This person would frame their experiences in this activity as the victim of the pressures put on by the media and their peers. -Similarly, a student who chooses to frame their experience through the role of a female in a cultural minority will observe the pressures of society’s beauty standards, but with the added pressure of changing their image to imitate the white beauty ideal. -A student who frames their experience as a model might understand the pressures of the beauty industry while also depending on that industry for their living. -A doctor or psychiatrist might be able to stand apart from the issue and observe the long-lasting personal complications that these societal pressures can leave a woman burdened with. - A fashion representative or fashion photo editor looks at these problems from the point of view of someone who needs to play off of these issues in order to retain their livelihood. -As the students take on these roles, they will naturally develop differences in opinion and opposing stances on the matter that will lead to generation of interest and the ability to effectively explore the issue at hand from a multitude of angles. -The students should interact with each other about class materials through the lens of their chosen role.

-Students will initially be asked to meet in small groups and discuss their own experiences with peer pressure and being expected to fit an ideal standard of beauty. Both male and female students must work together to turn a critical eye to the expectations of feminine beauty in the media and in the halls of their own school in order to identify the signs of conformity to a standard beauty ideal. -After students select the role from which they would like to frame their experience in examining the topic, they can be asked to partner with someone of a different role and to discuss the discrepancies in their opinions on the matter through the lens of that played role. -As more diverse materials are introduced throughout the term, students can continue to meet with partners to discuss how the inclusion of the ideas in these new materials may have altered their previous viewpoint and opinions. -Students should routinely be asked to step outside of their chosen role and to look at the issue through their own eyes, juxtaposing the opinions generated by their framed experience with their own personal opinions. -Students will be periodically called upon to share their opinions with the class as a whole. The instructor will be responsible for bringing the class together as a unit and writing the ideas generated by each of the small groups on the board. These ideas might then be combined into one general thesis for the class’s study focus. This thesis can alter over time and as opinions change with the introduction of materials.
 * How will they relate to and collaborate with others? **


 * What reading will be involved and how will the event involve sythesizing and connecting texts? **

Scott Westerfeld-[| __Uglies__]
 * -Literature- **

Sharon G. Flake- __[|The Skin I’m In]__

These are some basic suggestions for reading material, but it could be very beneficial in this class to allow the students to choose some of their own reading! This would foster diversity of texts and would be more intriguing and hands-on for the students. It might be especially beneficial for the male students in the class. Much of the available material for discussing and analyzing ideal beauty is female-focused, and the guys might be interested in looking for some sort of literature that addresses these issues from a male perspective. These books might focus on topics such as muscle dysmorphia or stereotypes of masculinity through sports, or even of stereotyped male homosexuality.

-**Advertisements**- Dove campaign for real beauty media type="youtube" key="iswiKQbtwXQ" width="560" height="315"

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“Students at Texas High School Plan ‘No Makeup’ Day”- []
 * -Article and related video- **

Students will be asked to draw connections between these sources. In what ways can we see the desire for beauty and the challenge of high beauty expectations playing a role in each of the materials? How does this connect to the students’ personal experiences? How would it connect to the experience of the identity that they have chosen to play throughout the course of this lesson?

-Students will be asked to keep a journal of the role that they elect to play, as a teenage girl, fashion editor, etc. On one side of each page set, students will record their thoughts about the current material or a question posed by the instructor through the role of the person that they play. On the opposite page, they will record their thoughts on the same issues as themselves. They will observe through these journals the difference in opinion between the varying roles being played out in this social issue. The reflective writing that they do in these journals will teach both personal writing and writing from an outside perspective. Students might even format their journal entries as a narrative piece written about the role that they are playing. -Students will be asked to write a script for an advertisement that effectively promotes healthy beauty ideals. In an effort to make this project multimodal, students can be asked to record these advertisements and present them in front of the class or the entire school body as a final project, culminating all of the concepts and ideas that they have formed on the issue of ideal beauty throughout the school term.
 * What kinds of writing will students engage in? How might some of that writing be multimodal? **

- The event will involve students in thinking critically about the way that men women are portrayed in media and whether these portrayals are realistic. -This event can be examined in relation to American culture and the standards set for women in this country specifically. Students can be asked to examine how expectations of beauty for women in America are different than expectations set for women in other cultures, as well as how women of other cultures are asked to fit the American ideal. -Research of this issue can lead to better understanding of the psychological effects that these social pressures might have, including leading to eating disorders, body dismorphic disorder, etc. -Understanding the consequences of these issues can lead students to desire and instigate change for the better in their schools, their communities, and beyond.
 * How will the event involve critical thinking and social change? (might include addressing historical, institutional, cultural, psychological, economic perspectives) **

As the students play and reflect on their chosen role in this event, they will be asked to reflect not only on the situation as that identity, but to reflect on their own reactions to the event in juxtaposition to their played identity. This will get the students thinking on the differences in their own thought processes when switching between roles, and will teach them that thinking about the same topic can play out and have very different consequences between people of varying situations.
 * How will students engage in "metacognition"? **

Asking the students to make their own advertisements also encourages metacognition. The students will have to identify the problems that they have found in the media’s portrayals of beauty and formulate their own solutions for the problems that they have identified.


 * What Common Core Standards will be addressed? **

** -Reading- **
[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2] Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3] Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.6] Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.


 * -Writing-**

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.1] Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.4] Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.6] Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.10] Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.