Women+-+1920s

Usha's comments in Blue.

Zachary Teitel - 992259541

**__Initial Reading and Assessment of Textbook Treatment of "Women In the 1920's"__**

Name of Gr. 10 Textbook examined: Baldwin, Mahoney, Quinlan, Reed. The Canadian Challenge. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Name of more "scholarly" source examined: Middle Tennessee State University History Department -- http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women/time/wh-20s.html

Thoughts: While The Canadian Challenge does seem to present an "accurate" depiction of "(Canadian) Women in the 1920's", it is undoubtedly an incredibly shallow one. Limited to less than a page, the authors attempt to cover an entire decade of the Women's Movement with lightening speed. They barely scratch the surface on a limited number of topics (within the larger topic): women at work, women at home, women and sport (?), and the legal status of women at the time. In all honesty, I don't consider the book to "cover" the topic, but rather it simply pays lip-service to it. If I were using this textbook in my classroom, I would certainly have to supplement what's found in it regarding this particular topic.

Thanks for your assessment, Zach. I think a lot of teachers feel compelled to use a textbook but, as you point out, it may not only need to be supplemented but perhaps is not the best choice of text in the first place! Thanks, again.

Women in the 1920s -- CRITICAL CHALLENGE, HUZZAH!

__**I Think I'll Write A Letter.....**__

Close your eyes, breathe deeply, count to 10, and reopen them. Do you feel that? You've transformed! You are no longer an early 21st century teenager, but you are now in fact an early 20th century teenager! The year is 1922, and you are living in the same city as you do now: the glorious city of Toronto. However, things are a little different than they are in 2010. Not as many cars, not as many buildings, not as many people, and not as many rights...as in Women's Rights. It's something you have been discussing with your friends, and you've decided that you're going to try to make your voice heard on the subject. You're going to write a letter to the editor of the Toronto Daily Star (known in 2010 simply as The Toronto Star) expressing your thoughts and feelings on Women's Rights (or the lack of them, depending on your viewpoint) in 1922.

Things to consider! What rights do women have right now in 1922? Do you think they are sufficient? How does the "current" (remember - "current" for our challenge means 1922) situation regarding Women's Rights make you feel? Why? What sort of things would you like to see change or remain the same? What would you do if you were in charge?

YOU DON'T HAVE TO ANSWER ALL THOSE QUESTION :) !!!! They're there to prompt you, to get your brain moving. Your "letter" should be 3-5 paragraphs in length and should reference information from at least two of the materials we've used in class.

Good luck! Can't wait to read your letter in tomorrow's edition of the Toronto Daily Star!

I can just picture you doing this in front of a class, Zach! The core of your task "Write a letter to the editor from the perspective of a teenager in the 1920s outlining an argument for or against women's rights" is a sound critical challenge. It is clearly both a "judge the better or the best" and a "design to specs". I know you have also framed some of the scaffolding questions and the potential requirements of the task (e.g. 3-5 paragraphs) - don't worry about these pieces just yet. We'll be talking in class about various ways to scaffold student thinking that will inform the activities you do with students throughout the lesson.

**__ Lesson Design - Initial Planning Stages __**

 * // Identify Key Learning/"Big Idea"/Learning Target: //** Students will gain a general understanding of what role(s) women played in Canadian society circa the 1920's. Consequently, students will also recognize that the current "status" and "power positioning" that women hold within Canadian society are relatively new developments, and moreover came as a result of political struggle and major cultural restructuring. Furthermore, students will have been forced (bad word...I need a better one) to confront their own beliefs surrounding the role women play in society today, through an in-depth analysis and judgment of the changes that have occurred in the past century or so.

**//Frame Critical Challenge//** : Students will have the opportunity upon entering class to examine a variety of newspaper clippings from the Toronto Daily Star circa 1920-1929. They will be asked to examine the articles individually and to make note of anything they think to be of importance or interest. To aid them in this task, prompts will be offered, i.e. What do you see that portrays women differently or similarly to how they are portrayed in the media today? Is there anything you find offensive about how women are portrayed? Is there anything you find to be funny? Are there things you notice that you wish still were the norm today? (Note: this task also hits upon curriculum ideas of "Media Literacy"). After 10 minutes of examination, student will be placed into predetermined small groups and asked to carry out a "Placemat/Round-Robin" activity with segments marked: "Things that surprised me...", "Things that made me laugh...", "Things that made me upset...", "Things that I expected...", and "Things that made me smile..." (Explain that the "smile" and "laugh" categories are different - laugh=things you find humorous, smile=things you find encouraging). Students should be asked to be as specific as possible. This activity should have students "decoding the puzzle" and "critiquing the piece". Sorry I'm only looking at this today (Thursday) - I realize things may have changed since you did the "micro-teaching" on Tuesday. However, I'll still offer a comment. If this is a decode the puzzle, which I think it is, what you will be asking students to do is gather observations/clues and offer an inferences/conclusions. You have outlined some of the scaffolding above (e.g. prompts) but it would probably be helpful to try to frame the critical challenge in single sentence or questions - e.g. "Examine a variety of newspaper clippings and use clues from the article to construct a concise description of life in the 1920s" (or... to assess whether the "Roaring Twenties" were aptly named..." or... "select the most surprising piece of information..."). In this way they are not just gathering information and reflecting on their feelings (a type 2 question) but have to use the evidence to come to a conclusions. Does that make sense?

**//How will this lesson help students build skills they will need for the summative assessment task for the unit?//** :

The lesson will help students build a few different skills:

1st Skill - Engaging with primary sources/documents: In the internet heavy lives people lead today (particularly young people) more often than not, it is secondary and tertiary sources that are accessed (this can range from doing scholastic research, i.e. Wikipedia, to checking up on the latest celeb gossip, i.e. Perez Hilton). Having to utilize primary sources and documents will expose students to the richness and detail that can only be found therein, and make them familiar with media literacy ideas of "going straight to the source" and "filtered bias", as well as using sources from an older time period, and therein dealing with outdated language.

2nd Skill - "Decoding the puzzle": The English language (and nuance within) of the 20's is vastly different than that which students encounter today, nearly 100 years later. With that in mind, it is no stretch to claim that students will have to critically "decode the puzzle" (i.e. the 1920's Canadian-English vernacular) in order to come to any definitive conclusions about what they find as a result. This in turn brings us to the third built skill...

3rd Skill - "Critique the piece": Students are being asked to make judgments on what they find within the articles they read, and to record those judgments on their "Placemat". Through answering the place-mat prompts (which really are a form of "personal preference questions", students are forced to use critical thinking skills of analysis, judgment, and specificity.

**//What dimension of Historical Thinking will students actively engage in during this lesson?//**

Throughout this lesson, students will be actively engaging with the "Historical Thinking Portals" of: continuity and change, historical perspective taking, and to some extent, the moral dimension.

__Intellectual Tools__
//**Background Knowledge:**//

//**Criteria for Judgment: Once you streamline your critical challenge (above), it will be easier to figure out what you need criteria for. For example, if you decide to go with "use clues to develop a plausible picture/narrative/summary of the decade" then you need criteria for a plausible description/summary/conclusion. But if you decide to have them assess whether it is appropriately named, you'll need criteria for what makes an appropriate historical label... **//

//**Habit of Mind:**//

//**Thinking Strategies:**//

//**Critical Thinking Vocabulary:**// Assumption -- Often as "modern-day Canadian citizens", we are comfortable wielding pretty broad assumptions regarding our shared national past. This activity will challenge students one one such commonly held assumption - " Women had little to no rights 'back in the day' "- and expose them to a reality that was much more complex than that. In short, their assumptions will be broken down, and in turn they can learn something about the very nature of "assuming" itself.