Women’s Studies J111:  Women in Culture
Group Project #1
Representation Presentations
Due 8 October 2000

Grading and Mechanics

You'll do two group representation presentations this semester. Each group member will receive 50 points for each presentation (100 points for the two over the course of the semester). 40 points of your grade for each presentation will be based on the presentation itself, and 10 points of the grade on your participation in that effort. Each group member will assess the participation of each member of the group, and I will draw conclusions based on those assessments and on my own observations. I am not bound strictly by the assessments of your group members—these are advisory.

You will find your group by clicking the Groups button on the left-hand side of your screen. You'll find a variety of means there by which to communicate with your group, including email, discussion boards, and a chat (your group may arrange to all meet online at a particular time and chat about assignments if you choose). I will appoint one member of each group to be the group facilitator; these students will receive extra participation grades. The second round of presentations, another student may request to be group leader if the original appointee doesn't wish to continue.

Each group should determine the best means by which the members choose to accomplish their work. Each group member will submit to me by email an analysis of all the other group members' participation in the project on completion of the presentation.

Presentations should be submitted to me by the leader either through the digital drop box, by attaching it to an email, or by sending me a URL for a webpage you've designed (I don't think there are group web pages available to you in Blackboard—t least I haven't been able to find them. But if you have a very technically proficient person, please feel free to create a webpage and post it). When the presentations are turned in, I'll make them available to the class.

What is a representation presentation?

By the due date of your presentation, your group will post a URL which displays a cultural representation of gender, female, male, or both genders represented together. The group will then make a written presentation to the class interpreting the images and analyzing how gender expectations and images function in the representation the group has chosen.

How do we choose a representation of gender?

The representation of gender that your group chooses may be any number of things or images—advertisements, magazines, a short video clip, a song or a CD, a poster or postcard, a short story or an article, or a greeting card, among others, all of which may be found online. Be sure that the representation your group chooses to discuss is something specific—a book, for instance, or a movie is too broad a topic for a representation presentation, although you may choose a scene or specific episode to discuss. A good site to look at as an example of a set of images you might choose to discuss is the website for the Milk Mustache advertising campaign , but there are many, many suitable sites. If your group would like to ask about the suitability of a site before beginning writing, please feel free to email me and ask.

The central focus of your presentation

In the presentation, explain how gender (and race or class, if relevant) is represented in the object your group is discussing. The basic question, then:

• How does the object you're analyzing reflect our culture's ideas about gender, sex roles?—does it reinforce traditional attitudes, or does it offer reinterpretations of those ideas? (Remember the distinction between sex and gender: sex is physical biological functions, while gender is cultural definitions of sex-based categories—what is feminine or masculine, for instance?)

And remember that this is the first time I've done group assignments using Blackboard, so if you have ANY difficulties at all, please email me and let me know how I can help.

How do I evaluate my group members?

Each group member will evaluate the participation of all the members in their groups, including themselves.  What I need you to let me know is how much each person contributed to the presentation—loads?  Not much at all?  Also, when you comment on the participation of a member, explain exactly how the member participated (or didn’t)—what did she do for the presentation?  How did he contribute to the discussion?  Discuss this in very specific terms.  If a member did not attend during the group activity, however, just note “did not attend” below that person's name.

Your group members will not see your evaluation.  I am not bound strictly by your evaluations, either, but will use my judgment and my observations of your groups as well.  Students who participated minimally or not at all will receive poor grades on the participation aspect of the assignment AND on the presentation itself, even if the presentation is excellent.

In Blackboard, click on Assignments to download the appropriate evaluation form for your group.  Please return this evaluation to me in the digital drop box on the date that presentations are due. Please save this file with the new name "yournameevaluation.doc."  Remember to evaluate your own performance as well!

Web hosting information

If you want to write a web page for the class, you can use Composer or another web-authoring tool and post the page on one of the services that hosts free web pages for people—a list of free hosts can be found by using the search terms "free web hosting" in Yahoo or some other search engine (leave off the quotation marks when typing them into the search engine window).  As I said, I don't think there's a way to do this in Blackboard. If you have any trouble, let me know, and I'll do what I can to help (although html is not my bag!).