Submitted by Olga Livshin

Objectives:

Content:
Students will...

• identify the character traits that constitute the stereotypical American idea of masculinity and those that constitute the stereotypical American idea of femininity
• become aware that many Russian stereotypical ideas about men and women coincide with the American stereotypical ideas about men and women 
• make conjectures about how widespread gender stereotypes are in Russia on the basis of descriptions of clothes for small children with a strong stereotypical gender dimension
• identify behaviors and character traits in a Russian personality quiz as representing stereotypical masculinity and stereotypical femininity
• identify the attitude of the author of a Russian personality quiz as biodeterminism
• become aware that unlike in many areas of the American culture, in Russia certain qualities (assertiveness, compassion, etc.) are openly identified as masculine or feminine
• become aware that Russia did not have a strong feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s and thus did not experience the social changes experienced in the U.S. and several European countries (such as the move to eradicate gender stereotyping)
• become aware that many Russians are biodeterminists

Cultural:
Students will...

• compare the ways in which traditionally gender-specific character traits are discussed in a Russian website advertising children's clothes and how they are discussed (if any) on an analogous American website
• compare the extent to which gender stereotypes are present in the American culture and in the Russian culture

Language: Content Obligatory
Students will... (new vocabulary items and language chunks are underlined)

• use the nouns signifying character traits, such as хладнокровие (composure) and нежность (tenderness) in the singular form, nominative case, to make two lists identifying personal qualities that pertain to the stereotypical American idea of a man and those that pertain to the stereotypical American idea of a woman in order to correlate these ideas with the Russian stereotypical masculinity and femininity later in the lesson
• use the expression, стереотипы мужественности (the stereotypes of masculinity) and стереотипы женственности (femininity) in the nominative case to make headings for the lists identifying personal qualities that pertain to the stereotypical American idea of masculinity and those that pertain to the stereotypical American idea of femininity, in order to correlate these ideas with the Russian stereotypical masculinity and femininity later in the lesson 
• use the nouns signifying character traits, such as хладнокровие (composure), in the singular form, prepositional case, with the preposition o, to identify the qualities that are being suggested in a personality quiz as pertaining to the traditional (Russian and American ideas) of masculinity or femininity in order to articulate what constitutes traditional masculinity and femininity according to this quiz
• use the nouns мужественность (masculinity) and женственность (femininity) in the singular form, instrumental case, with the preposition o, to identify the qualities that are being suggested in a personality quiz as pertaining to the traditional (Russian and American) ideas of masculinity or femininity in order to articulate what constitutes traditional masculinity and femininity according to this quiz
• use the expression гендерные стереотипы (gender stereotypes) to state their opinions on whether gender stereotypes exist in the U.S. in order to compare the extent to which gender stereotypes are present in the American culture and in the Russian culture
• use the noun, "биодетерминизм" (biodeterminism; recycled from Lesson 1) to characterize the attitude of the author of a personality quiz towards the presence of a "subconscious femininity or masculinity" in every human being in order to identify the attitude of the author of a Russian personality quiz as biodeterminism

Language: Content Compatible
Students will...

• use the expression, "широко распространенный" (widespread) in the nominative case, short adjective form, plural, in order to say what we can tell about how widespread gender stereotypes are in Russia from descriptions of small children's clothing in order to make conjectures about how widespread gender stereotypes are in Russia
• use the expressions, "Я согласен/согласна" (I agree) and "Я не согласен/ не согласна" (recycled from prior learning) to agree and disagree with each other about whether gender stereotypes have been eradicated in the U.S. in order to compare the presence of gender stereotypes in the American culture and in the Russian culture
• use the expression, "речь идет о [the issue is] + noun or pronoun in the instrumental case" (recycled from recent prior learning -- introduced in the 4th year) to identify the behaviors and personal qualities in a personality quiz as representing character traits, in order to be able to identify the recommended personal characteristics in an advice literature text later in the unit
• use the introductory clause, "Как нам кажется,..." (We believe...), recycled from prior learning, to identify qualities / character traits in the personality quiz in order to be able to identify the recommended personal characteristics in an advice literature text later in the unit

Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will...

• use their knowledge of Russian stems to guess the meanings of the nouns мужественность and женственность in order to activate their comprehension of the Russian language
• work cooperatively in small groups to identify the behaviors and personal qualities in the quiz as representing character traits and as pertaining to stereotypical masculinity or femininity
• develop their presentational skills by presenting the findings of their group discussions in front of the class

Time Frame:

2 50-minute periods

Materials Needed:

Day 1

• Homework handout for Day 1
• Transparency for Day 1
• Access to the Internet for all students outside class (i.e., at home, in the computer lab, at the library, etc.).
• In-class access to computers of at least one computer per two students, so that students' computer skills can be tested.
  • If this is not possible, ask the students about their ability to perform the computer-related tasks. For those who do not know how to perform a certain task, offer help on an individual/small group basis in a computer environment outside class (e.g., in your office or a computer lab)

Day 2

• Homework handout
• Transparency for Day 2
• Access to the Internet for all students outside class (i.e., at home, in the computer lab, at the university library or a public library, etc.)
• In-class access to the Internet at two computer stations
  • If access to the Internet in class is not possible, the instructor can skip the part of the Task in which students verify the quiz answers.
• Slips of paper with group discussion questions (each of the three groups gets its own questions; provide a slip  for each student so that students can refer to the questions with ease)

Description of Assessment (Performance Project):

Day 1

In Preparation for the Final Presentation

For their presentations, students will need to know how to use PowerPoint software and how to obtain visual material to incorporate into their presentations.  In general, some undergraduate students know how to put together computer-based presentations and obtain visual materials, while others do not and will need to be trained.  To plan accordingly, in the beginning of this period take a few minutes to evaluate whether students know how to do the following (either by asking students or, if access to computers is available, verifying that students can do this by testing whether students can perform these tasks):

• put together PowerPoint presentations, including the ability to work with the PowerPoint presentations in different "View" modes (for example, "outline view"), so that students can work out of an outline for their comparative analysis;
• obtain ClipArt within PowerPoint software and incorporate it into their presentations;
• obtain visual images elsewhere (e.g., off the Web or by scanning print material or by taking digital photos).

On the basis of this information, you can make the decision to spend the PowerPoint Tutorial/Group Work Day (see Lesson 4) on either training students in these skills (for which you may need to reserve a computer lab in advance) or conferences with student pairs with regard to their final presentation (while students not in conferences work on their presentations). Note: If one or two students lack the skills in question, you can pair them with students who have these skills or have one pair that has PowerPoint/visuals skills act as a "peer tutor" to the pair that does not have the skills.

Pre-task 1

Write the word "стереотип" (stereotype) on the board and practice pronouncing the word with the students (this is a cognate that sounds very much like "stereotype," but the stress in the Russian word falls on и). Teach the students also the adjective стереотипный (stereotypical). Tell the students that the qualities comprising gender stereotypes (гендерные стереотипы) are very similar in the U.S. and Russia. So what are these qualities?

Write two columns on the board. Label one, "стереотипный образ женщины" and the other, "стереотипный образ мужчины." Introduce the word "oбраз," image. Thus, the column headings are "the stereotypical image of a woman" and "the stereotypical image of a man." Ask students to suggest qualities to put in each of the columns. Students should use nouns; they may refer to their list of qualities/character traits in their homework. Make as complete a list as possible. Ask students to copy down the list and hold on to it; we will be returning to it later in the unit.

Then ask students if they notice anything about these two lists (for this question, as an exception you may want to allow students to speak English, since they may lack vocabulary to respond to this question). An interesting distinguishing feature of these lists is that the qualities are each other's opposites: for example, a stereotypical man is resolute, while a woman is indecisive. The Russian word for opposites is противоположности.

Pre-Task 2

Gender stereotypes are similar in different cultures. Something that is different about cultures, however, is how they handle these stereotypes. One question we can ask is whether gender stereotypes are widespread in a country. Teach the students the expression for widespread, (широко распространенный). Point out that this expression is related to the noun распространение (spread or distribution) from the reading for Lesson 1. For example, in some countries, feminists have worked to eliminate ("уничтожить") gender stereotypes. (Note: teach the students the word for feminists, феминистки, while speaking about these matters; students should be able to recognize this word, since it is a cognate). As a result, changes (перемены) were made in some societies; in other societies, this did not happen.

We can learn about how widespread stereotypes are from reading texts from the culture studied, seeing how certain daily activities are handled with relation to gender stereotypes. Have students debrief on the homework questions on pages 2 and 3, as follows: 

• Ask one student to read off a response to one question, ask the rest of the class if they have anything to add, and ask another student the next question.
• When students read adjectives describing little boys and girls' clothing, ask students to convert them to nouns for extra vocabulary practice (students can refer to the list of character traits if needed).
• Emphasize the way that children are described on the Russian website to the adult readers as little men and women -- in texts written for adult men and women (the last question on page 2). Ask the students a guiding question:
  • What can we learn about this about how widespread gender stereotypes are in Russia? ("Что мы можем узнать из этого о том, насколько широко распространены гендерные стереотипы в России?")
• Emphasize the question on the differences between the descriptions of girls' and of boys' clothing on American websites (page 3). Students will have different responses according to the different sites that they saw. Therefore, on this question, ask multiple students. Then ask the students as a group, afterwards, to summarize what we have learned about whether or not boys' and girls' items are described similarly on the American websites.
• After all the questions have been answered, ask students as a group a guiding question:
  • Based on what we saw, in which culture are the gender stereotypes (гендерные стереотипы) more widespread?  ("На основании этих текстов, скажите, в какой из культур более широко распространены гендерные стереотипы?")

Task 1

Tell the students that you would like to expand our knowledge of gender stereotypes in this country. Ask students to get into groups of about four. Ask them to discuss the following questions (in Russian оn the Transparency for Day 1); walk the students through the questions and make sure that all students understand them well:

• Do gender stereotypes exist in the U.S.?  ("Гендерные стереотипы существуют в США?")
  • If you think there are not, how/ by what means do you think gender stereotypes became eradicated? (Did this happen in society? Inside each person?) When did this happen?  ("Если нет, то каким образом их уничтожили? (Было ли это в обществе? В самих людях?) Когда это произошло?")
  • If you think that gender stereotypes still exist in the U.S., did the stereotypes remain the same as they were in the 1950s - 1960s? If not, what stereotypical qualities have been eradicated? Which ones are still there? Where in the U.S. do you think gender stereotypes are widespread? ("Eсли вы считаете, что гендерные стереотипы существуют в США, то oстались ли они такими, какими были в 1950-х – 1960-х? Если нет, то каких качеств не стало? А какие качества остались в стереотипах? В каких частях Америки гендерные стереотипы широко распространены?)

Before students begin discussing, let them know that they don't necessarily have to take one position or the other. What matters is a good explanation that they give when presenting their opinion. Students are asked to discuss in Russian, using the expressions for agreement / disagreement that they already know: "Я согласен/согласна" (I agree) and "Я не согласен / не согласна". Let the students know that they will be presenting their group's point of view to the rest of the class. When they present, they are to precede their presentation with the expression, "Нам кажется, что..." ("It seems to our group that.../ Our groups thinks that...")

Give students 12 - 15 minutes to discuss the questions. Then have one representative from each group present their point of view. After each presentation, give the group a round of applause. Go on to the next group. After all groups have presented, as the class as a group to summarize the gist of what has been said with regard to whether gender stereotypes have been eradicated in this country.

Post-Task 

For Part II their Homework for Day 2, students are asked to think over and write down an essay-form response, two paragraphs long, to the following questions: 

• What needs to happen so that gender stereotypes would stop to exist? Is it changes to society? In people themselves? Why?
• Do you think that gender stereotypes will ever cease to exist in the world?

Homework for Day 2:
Pass out the homework for Day 2 with any explanations needed. (See Attachments and Day 2 Pre-Tasks)

Day 2

Pre-Task

Part III of the Homework for Day 2 is a pre-reading and reading activity with a personality quiz.

In class, begin the period by reminding students that today we will be talking about the relationship between gender stereotypes and masculinity and femininity.  Point out that one of the required features in the students' final presentation will be to identify whether an author of a text is speaking about masculinity or femininity and then identify what kind of masculinity/femininity it is (stereotypical or a revised/ liberalized view of femininity/ masculinity).

Ask students to debrief on their last question of Part III, wherein students say if they saw any differences between this quiz and the questions they would have expected to see on an analogous American quiz. Then ask students what qualities (качества; a word that students will use in the Task) are sometimes  remembered when people speak about men in the U.S. and what qualities are sometimes remembered when speaking about women in the U.S.

Task

Break students into groups of 3-5 students each (fewer or more depending on the number of students; there should be three groups total). Hand out slips of paper with questions (see Attachments for the questions and their English translation) to each group. The questions lead students to find out the quality emphasized by each quiz question and on whether this quality is masculine or feminine. Ask students to discuss the questions in Russian only and come up with answers. Have a tape recorder running near each group to ensure that students use Russian. Tell students that they will be presenting the questions to the rest of the class; for this purpose, encourage them strongly to be writing down all that they intend to be saying (about 7 minutes for the discussion).

Students present their findings on the quality emphasized by each quiz question and on whether this quality is masculine or feminine, as follows:

• After each quiz question is presented upon, check for accuracy; correct any errors (pronunciation and usage); ask the class if they have any alternative answers about the qualities.
• Ask two students to volunteer to be conducting the "verifiers" of our hypotheses as to what this tests for as masculinity and femininity. The students will sit at the computers throughout the presentations. For each question identified as testing for a masculine quality, have one student, the "absolute man," enter into the quiz question the answer "yes" (as corresponds to his quality) and the other student, "the absolute woman," enter on the computer the answer "no" and vice versa. At the end, the volunteers ask the quiz for a grade. If the students' identifications of the questions as testing masculine and feminine qualities are right, the "absolute man" and "absolute woman" are identified as such by the quiz. After the presentations, verify the correctness of the student identifications of the questions as those testing masculinity and those testing femininity by seeing how close we got to the "absolute man" and the "absolute woman" in our responses.

Then ask students if it was easy or difficult to tell "masculinity" questions from "femininity" questions. Lead a class-wide discussion.

• If students say it was easy, ask why. ("Почему было легко?"). Students may say that the qualities in the quiz questions correspond closely to either the stereotype of masculinity or the stereotype of femininity. If so, ask which qualities were particularly similar to the stereotypical qualities of men and women. ("Какие качества на тесте особенно похожи на стереотипные качества мужчин и женщин?")
• If it was difficult, ask why it was difficult. ("Почему было трудно?") Which qualities on the quiz were not easy to recognize as masculinity or femininity? ("Какие качества было трудно узнать как мужественность или женственность?") For example, do you think there was a time in the U.S. when only women were considered to be the only ones that loved romance? When was this?  "Как вы думаете, было ли время в США, когда женщин считали единственными, кто любит романтику? Когда это было?"
• On the basis of what you found out, which culture -- Russian or American -- is more open about about linking men and women to stereotypical masculinity and femininity? ("На основании того, что вы узнали, какая из культур - американская или русская - более открыта к связыванию мужчин и женщин со стереотипной женственностью и мужественностью?")

Post-Task

Аsk the students:

• What would you guess if you were asked whether or not Russia has a strong feminist movement (introduce the expression, феминистическое движение)? ("Kaк вы думаете, в России было сильное феминистическое движение?) Briefly let the students know that in Russia in the 1960s and 1970s, no feminist movement analogous to the American one happened. As a result, there are very clear cultural differences between the two cultures; a lot of people think that men and women correspond to gender stereotypes. There is a feminist movement now, after the fall of the Soviet Union; but it is not very strong, as people firmly believe in gender stereotypes.

If Russia did not experience a strong feminist movement, then what are the beliefs that many Russians hold? We can understand some of this from the instructions to the quiz. Display the Transparency for the Lesson 2 Day 2, which contains these instructions. Ask one volunteer from the students to read the instructions. Then ask the class the following questions:

• What is "subconscious femininity/masculinity"? Do all men and women have? (Yes: the quiz offers us to become assured of the presence of masculinity/ femininity in each of us).
• What do we call this attitude? Where have you seen it before? (This idea is known as biodeterminism (биодетерминизм), because it says that one's biological sex (биологический пол) determines the most important qualities of one's personality. In the U.S., some people believe in biodeterminism as well. They include those who believe in the theory of Sigmund Freud (Зигмунд Фрейд) and those who believe in what John Gray (Джон Грэй) writes in his book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (i.e., that every man, deep down, is a man -- a different creature than a woman, with certain definite qualities).
• Thus, despite the fact that the author says that "in reality, it varies," does he or she believe that we all have, biologically, a masculinity or a femininity?

Let the students know that many Russians are, in fact, biodeterminists. They believe that men and women are different creatures  in their social roles and psychological characteristics. There are also some Americans who believe in this.

(If there are students in the class who you think may believe in biodeterminism for religious or other reasons, tell students the following. In this unit we are looking at the differences between men and women from the perspective of gender studies, i.e. taking the perspective that men and women do not have character traits according to their sex differences. On the other hand, many people both in the US and in Russia believe in biodeterminism (the idea that biological sex determines key psychological characteristics and spheres of activity). This is a position that many religious people take. Let the students know that you respect their preference for any beliefs they take, but that this unit takes the point of view of gender studies. Mention that it can be worthwhile for the students to consider this position. If it doesn't coincide with their views, ask them to use tolerance as we consider a position alternate to their views.)

Homework for Lesson 3:
Pass out the homework for Lesson 3, Day 1 with any explanations needed. (See Lesson 3 for Attachments and Pre-task explanations)

In Preparation for the Final Presentation

Part of the homework was to read the description of the final presentation guidelines and the rubric. At the end of the class, allot 10 minutes to any questions that students may have on the rubric for the final presentation.

Emphasize these points about the presentation to the students:

• Students are encouraged to choose websites to be analyzed from the list on the Website for this unit. If they would like to work on sites other than those specified, they must get them approved with the instructor before beginning to work on them.
• Beyond providing the basic knowledge about these two texts (for example, whether each site emphasizes stereotypical masculinity or femininity or departs from the stereotype in some way), students will need to pick a question or theme that will be central to their presentations. The presentation will be focused on that question or theme: compare and contrast how the texts treat this question or theme. Contrast can be due to two authors' contrasting points of view or two dissimilar milieus where gender is understood differently, or both. The idea is to get several varying perspectives on areas of gender in the contemporary Russian society. For example, a presentation can focus on the differences in the behaviors recommended in a text from a Christian site and from a popular advice site to a man in a situation involving extramarital relationships.
• In the comparative analysis, comparisons and contrasts should be concrete, showing work with the actual texts, rather than students' existing ideas about, for example, what a religious group would say about a certain question. The comparisons and contrasts should be made in a meaningful manner, to support the points about the main differences between the sites. Students should specify the importance of the specific comparisons and contrasts to the main points.

Assessment:

1. Homework is graded credit/no credit, with errors corrected.
2. Throughout the lesson, the teacher informally assesses student participation (including work in small groups) and monitors comprehension and accurate, meaningful language use.

References and Resources:

• Anonymous, "Психологический тест 'Познакомьтесь с собой (мужественность и женственность)" [Personality Quiz: Get to Know Yourself [Masculinity and Femininity]). Online at http://internetelite.ru/dosug/test/test_6.phtml, viewed January 3, 2005.
• Descriptions of clothing for young children. The website for a clothing company called Matushka Gusynya. Online at http://www.matushka.ru/index.php?op=cat&sec=4, viewed January 4, 2005.

Attachments:

NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)

• Homework for Lesson 2 (2_Homework_D1.pdf)
• Translation of the Homework for Lesson 2 (2_HomeworkD1_EN), pdf)
• Transparency with the question for small-group discussion on Day 1 (2_Transparency_D1), created in Adobe Acrobat 
• Translation of the Transparency with the question for small-group discussion on Day 1 (2_TranspcyD1EN), created in Adobe Acrobat 
• Homework for Lesson 2 Day 2 (2_HomeworkD2), created in Adobe Acrobat
• English translation of the Homework for Lesson 2 Day 2 (2_HomeworkD2_EN), created in Adobe Acrobat
• Translation of the personality quiz (the reading for the Day 2 homework) into English (2_Quiz_EN), created in Adobe Acrobat
• Questions for group discussion (2_Discussion_Qs), created in Adobe Acrobat
• English translation of the questions for group discussion (2_Discuss_Q_EN),  created in Adobe Acrobat
• Transparency with the instructions for the quiz (2_D2_Transparency), created in Adobe Acrobat
• English translation of the Transparency with the instructions for the quiz (2_D2_Transparency_EN), created in Adobe Acrobat

A Lesson from the CoBaLTT Project
/cobaltt
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota