Text Set

An Daly

Topic:

Gender and
Convention

Virginia Standard of Learning: English 9.4

The student will read, comprehend, and analyze a variety of literary texts
including narratives, narrative nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
a)
b)
c)
g)
m)

Identify authors main idea and purpose.

Summarize text relating supporting details.
Identify the characteristics that distinguish literary forms.
Analyze the cultural or social function of a literary text.
Use reading strategies to monitor comprehension throughout the reading process.

Liz Princes TomBoy

9.5g Analyze the cultural or social function of a literary text.

This graphic memoir, published in 2014, highlights the

experiences of a young girl growing up with the
tendency to defy gender roles. She Faces adversity, but
also finds acceptance through her family, friends, and
Self. This text could be used to encourage students to
relate Lizs childhood to their own and understand the
role that assigned gender plays in that.

Fry Readability Level: 7th

grade
Suitability:This text is
an excellent introduction
to the ideas of gender
nonconformity,because the
images and short sentences
keep students engaged.
While the reading itself
may not be very
challenging, the concepts
in the story can build
upon the understanding of
readers of any age.

The Power of Catagories:

Paiges Story
This Invisibilia podcast revolves
around the life of a transgender
individual named Paige who,
throughout the day, find themself
feeling like a woman or a man,
switching without warning. Paige
describes the experience as
shocking and insists that there
is a vast difference between men
and women.

Fry Readability Level: 13 (College Freshman)

Suitability: While the text is challenging, students
will have the ability to both listen to the podcast
and read a copy of the transcript. This should assist
their learning.

Gender Equality is A Myth

In this brief essay, Beyonce Knowles-Carter challenges the idea that we have
reached gender equality in the 21st century. She uses statistics, facts, and
personal experiences to lay out her argument. This reading can bring up many
questions in the classroom such as what role does authorship play in this
essay?
Fry Readability Level: 10th grade
Suitability: An argument involving statistics, facts, and personal
experiences is developed in a way to reach the masses and with
appropriate guidance, is certainly accessible for 9th graders.

9.5a) Identify authors main idea and purpose.

Ada Byron Lovelace and

the Thinking Machine
This picture book tells the story of Ada Byron
Lovelace. Lovelace was the first computer
programmer. This picture book defies the idea
that women do not contribute to science and adds
historic context to the development of gender
roles. .

Fry Readability level: 3rd grade

Suitability: This book, while an easy read, relates to the
topic and allows students to explore the topics discussed in
class in a different historic context and apply that to
other texts. Its a quick way to add an extra example for
understanding.

Multiple Masculinities and the Schooling of Boys

This challenging text is the fruit of a study
performed on the way that the perception of
masculinity affects the education of young men.
The paper is an excellent example of a debatable Text.
It makes claims that Feminism made an assumption
about male privilege that disregards male
suffering and insists that the Focused study of
femininity has limited studies of adolescent boys.

Fry Readability: 11th grade

Suitability:This text, which
challenging for 9th graders, would
be an excellent means of providing
students with contextual vocabulary
study while also helping them
better understand persuasive
strategies.

Gender Roles In SOciety

9.5b Summarize text relating supporting
details.

In this TedTalk, Ria

Chinchankar highlights the
psychological strain that
heavy, rigid gender roles can
place on the shoulders of
individuals. Chinchankar takes
a global approach, pulling
information and statistics from
around the world. She both
explains the problem and
presents the solutions that
people are fighting for around
the world.

Fry Readability: 9th grade

Suitability: This TedTalk, told by someone only a few
years older than 9th graders is a display of a peers
understanding and a guide for high-level thinking.

How Movies Teach Manhood

9.5b Summarize text relating
supporting details.
In this TedTalk, Colin Stokes
shares his opinion that the malecentric film industry is
portraying a negative example of
masculinity. Stokes mentions that
without well-rounded female
characters to balance male ones,
women become objects, faded into
the background. Stokes suggests
viewers seek out films in which a
real man is someone who trusts his
sisters and respects them, and
wants to be on their team, and
stands up against the real bad
guys, who are the men who want to
abuse the women.

Fry Readability: 10th grade

Suitability:As with the podcast, students will have
access to both the video and the transcript, which will
allow them to explore the text in a variety of mediums
for better understanding.

'Art Of Manliness' Is Finding A Balance

Between Tough And Tender
In this interview of Brett McKay
by Audi Cornish, Mckay recommends,
a balance of tough and tender as
a means of being the ideal modern
man. He points to Theodore
Roosevelt as an excellent example
of this duality. He says,
[Roosevelts] son described
Roosevelt as one of the manliness men
he's ever known with the tenderness
of a woman. We call Teddy Roosevelt
the patron saint of the art of
manliness because he embodies what
we're trying to go for.

GraphicaArtis/Corbis

Fry Readability: 8th grade

Suitability: This opinion-based discussion of masculinity used
vocabulary that is accessible to 9th graders. It does an excellent job
prompting further discussion of the role of masculinity.

David Levithans Every Day

David Levithans novel Every Day explores the
question is love blind? in a refreshingly new
light. It tells the story of A, a consciousness that
drifts from body to body. Like most young adults, A
is interested in human intimacy, but As situation
brings many challenges to that.

Fry Readability Level: 9th Grade

Suitability: The characters are only a few years older that 9th
graders and the story is designed for young adults.

Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair

Frida Kahlo, 1943
Kahlo painted Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair shortly after she divorced
her unfaithful husband, the artist Diego Rivera. As a painter of many selfportraits, she had often shown herself wearing a Mexican woman's
traditional dresses and flowing hair; now, in renunciation of Rivera, she
painted herself short haired and in a man's shirt, shoes, and oversized suit
(presumably her former husband's).-Publication excerpt from The
Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of
Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 181

Readability: Not obtainable

Suitability: As one of Frida Kahlos most apparent
gender role defying works, this piece provides a clear
guide for discussion when put in the context of other
texts in this set.

CitationS
Chinchankar, R. (2015, June 22). Gender roles in society. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz-hlV8o3y8
Cornish, A. (2014, January 12). Art of manliness is finding a balance between tough and tender. Retrieved
from
http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/348010240/art-of-manliness-is-finding-a-balance-between-tough-and-tender
Fry, E. (1977). Fry's Readability Graph: Clarifications, Validity, and Extension to Level 17.
Journal of Reading, 21(3), 242252. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40018802
Imms, W. D.. (2000). Multiple Masculinities and the Schooling of Boys. Canadian Journal of
Education / Revue Canadienne De L'ducation, 25(2), 152165.
Kahlo, F. (1943). Self-portrait with cropped hair. [painting]. Retrieved from
http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78333

Knowles-Carter, B. (2014, January 12). Gender equality is a myth. The Shriver Report.
Retrieved from http://shriverreport.org/gender-equality-is-a-myth-beyonce/
Levithan, D. (2013). Every day. New York, NY: Random House Childrens Books.

Citations Extended
Miller, L, Rosin, H, & Spiegel, H. (2015, February 6). The power of categories.Invisabilia.
Podcast retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/384065938/the-power-of-categories

MoMA Highlights. (2004) The Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art.
p. 181
Prinz, L. (2014). Tomboy:A graphic memoir. San Francisco, CA: Zest Books.
Stokes, C. (2012, November). How movies teach manhood. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/colin_stokes_how_movies_teach_manhood
Wallmark, L. (2015). Ada byron lovelace and the thinking machine. New York, NY: Cheston
Books.