Beyond the HOTS: A
Computerized Unit on
Gender
Rawia Hayik
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Why address gender
issues?
Male-dominated society
http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?feature=endscreen&NR
=1&v=O4BxGtWvsvo
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Theoretical Framework
Critical literacy theory
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Freire (1970) encourages teachers
to introduce social issues to the
classroom and help students’ critical
introspection into these issues. After
all, “language and reality are
dynamically intertwined.” As a
result, children and adults learn to
“read the word” through “reading
the world” and vice versa (Freire,
1983, p. 5).
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Luke and Freebody (2000) define literacy
education broadly as not just a matter of “skill
acquisition or knowledge transmission.”
Rather, determining how to teach literacy
should “involve a moral, political, and cultural
decision about the kind of literate practices
needed to enhance both peoples’ agency over
their life trajectories and communities’
intellectual, cultural, and semiotic resources in
multimediated economies” (p. 48-9).
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The four dimensions framework of
critical literacy (Lewison et al., 2008):
Disrupting the common place
Considering multiple viewpoints
Moving from the personal to the
sociopolitical
Taking action to promote social justice
(p. 7-13)
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Disrupting the commonplace
 involves making the unconscious conscious
through introspectively examining one’s beliefs
and assumptions, challenging the taken-forgranted practices, developing and using
language of critique (Shannon, 1995) to disrupt
what is considered normal through asking
different questions and interrogating the status
quo, viewing the world through new lenses,
problematizing reality and visualizing a different
reality, and examining the social norms that
popular culture communicates and how these
messages position individuals/groups and shape
their
identities.
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Considering multiple viewpoints
 involves becoming cognizant of the voices of the
silenced or marginalized, trying to understand
experience and text from others’ viewpoints in
addition to ones’ own perspective concurrently,
reflecting on and making sense of multiple
perspectives of a problem, juxtaposing multiple
and contradictory aspects of the text/event and
asking “whose voices are heard and whose are
missing?” (Luke & Freebody, 1997), and
scrutinizing competing narratives or writing
counternarratives
to dominant discourses.
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Focusing on the sociopolitical
What characterizes this domain is moving
beyond the personal to examine the
sociopolitical systems in society. It involves
raising awareness of historical practices and
cultural systems of meaning; questioning
the legitimacy of unequal power relations;
investigating oppression, privilege, and
status; and using literacy as a means to
participate in the politics of daily life.
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Taking action to promote social justice
 Transforming the world into a better one (Freire,
1972) is achieved when students “use literacy to
compose their own narratives, counternarratives,
letters, essays, reports, poems, commercials,
posters, plays, and webpages to promote social
change, … use the arts to express critical
understandings and to get messages of justice and
democracy out into the world, … rewrite their
identities as social activists who challenge the status
quo and demand change, develop powerful voices
and … speak out collectively against injustice”
(Lewison et al, 2008, p. 12).
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Enacting critical literacy
involves going beyond the
text to address sociocultural/political issues
and aim for social justice
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The ICT plan on Cinderella
Grade: 6-7
Time allotment: Three
lessons
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21st Century Skills
Accessing wide variety of
media (YouTube)
Using ICT Tools like WORD or
PowerPoint
Filling in a GoogleDocs form
Application of Higher-Order
Thinking Skills
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Domains
Access to information
Social interaction
Presentation
Appreciation of literature
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Purpose of Activity
To raise students’ awareness to
gender bias in fairy tales
To encourage them to take
action for social change
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Description of Activity
In the beginning of my unit, I
introduce the fairy tale Cinderella to
my students through the YouTube
link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
mTDryAiIQRc&feature=fvst.
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Brainstorming descriptions of Cinderella
(a bubble map of Cinderella’s
character). Students are invited to
come to the front and type their
descriptions on my laptop that is
projected on the board.
Kind
Blonde
Blue eyes
Cinderella
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Beautiful
Second viewing
During the second watching of the clip, I
stop the clip in minute 1.14 (when the
step-mother viciously tells Cinderella she
can’t go to the ball) and ask:
How do you feel? What would you do if
you were in Cinderella's place?
(Students responses can be listed on the
board for further discussion at the end)
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After the second viewing, students
are asked to sequence events
according to the story in the
worksheet downloaded from
http://www.abcteach.com/free/c/cind
erellasequencecards.pdf.
Students then watch the clip again to
check their answers.
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Follow-Up:
 As a homework, students survey adults about
how women are portrayed in fairy tales. The
survey includes the following question: Tell me
three words that describe any/each of these
characters: Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping
Beauty. When they have interviewed three people
each, they enter their results in a Google doc
through the link
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?f
ormkey=dHBTMkJodndVemtBZmRTYmxxZllHbWc
6MQ
 I present the results of their surveys in class the
following lesson.
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The bubble map and survey graph can induce to
critical discussions, with the following questions
possibly asked:
 How are female characters portrayed here?
 What is this book saying about females? Is
this true about all females? If yes, why are
they this way?
 Who benefits from such stories being
told/written like this?
This may open the discussion to the fact that
the disempowerment of some groups empowers
others, in addition to the commercial benefits
companies gain through having girls
preoccupied with their appearance.
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Taking action through either
1) rewriting the fairy tale to make it
emancipatory, or
2) writing a letter to the author that can
include questions/comments they would
like to ask/tell the author.
These activities can be done in groups using
Word or PowerPoint to encourage students
become computer-literate.
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Students' Outcomes
Students rewrite the traditional
fairy tale or write a letter to the
author
Students become more aware
of gender messages
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Follow-Up
Groups present their stories
or letters to the whole class
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Optional Homework
A word search and crossword
puzzle on Cinderella downloaded
from
http://www.abcteach.com/free/f/
fairy_cinderella.pdf
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Some students’ work
Dear author,
We read your story "A Dreams For a Princess", it’s a
nice story, and makes little girls believe that there's
always a happy ending, but in the other side it
makes little girl dreams to have a rich princes.
We think that this isn't good, because it isn't
realistic.
And Cinderella depended on magic and on others ,
that’s not good because that teaches children to be
passive.
We hope that you will accept our criticism in good
sports.
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Thank You!
Dear Melissa
We read your story "a dream for a princess" and we have a few things
to criticize:
1) You focused on the outside beauty of Cinderella and not on her
personality which is more important.
2) We read between the lines that marriage and fortune bring
happiness, which is a wrong belief.
3) You used the fairy to make it possible for Cinderella to go to the
ball instead of showing Cinderella's abilities to make it on her own.
4) Cinderella was pictured as a weak woman who counts on others.
5) There was a lot of fantasy in the story instead of realistic events,
and in reality there is no magic to make everything perfect.
All that we mentioned above have a bad influence on children because
it creates pre-conceived ideas about how girls should behave and live
their lives.
It's a great story actually that children liked, but they are not aware of
all the bad sides of the story.
We hope you consider our criticisms and make a positive change in
your upcoming stories.
Good luck.
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Luna and Reem
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Freire, P. (1983). The importance of the act of
reading. Journal of Education, 165, 5-11.
 Friere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New
York: Continuum. Translated from Portoguesse.
 Lewison, M., Leland, C., and Harste, J. C. (2008).
Creating critical classrooms: K-8 reading and
writing with an edge. New York, New York: Taylor
and Francis Group.
 Luke, A. and Freedody, P. (2000). Further notes on
the Four Resources Model. In Critical Literacy.
NCTE Reading Innitiative.
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