Social and Community Studies - Gender and Identity - How to use cognitive verbs describe and explain

Part of a set of resources created for a senior Social & Community studies class in Australia (QCAA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - Aussie_Resources. Designed for use in 70 minute lessons. The end of term assessment for this unit was a 90 minute short response examination.

A lesson which focuses on developing student ability to define, describe and explain (cognitive verbs which they will need for their upcoming assessment).It also builds student knowledge of how the media perpetuates gender stereotypes. It begins with a revision activity (a match the definitions task).This is followed by looking at what it means to define, describe and explain.Looking at some example questions which use the cognitive verb ‘explain.’ Some sentence starters which can be used for explaining are provided (from Pat Hipwell’s Logon Literacy explain poster). Then, using the Gradual Release of Responsibility method there is a ‘we do’ practice explain question to be done as a whole class and one to be done with their elbow partners (the person sitting beside them). This is followed by a self reflection tool for the student to see how confident they feel at this point. After this, the lesson moves onto practicing some question types similar to those on the exam that we have encountered thus far.There is a set of ‘you do’ questions about a person and what can be inferred from their interests and appearance and whether it is fair to ‘judge a book by its cover.’ This is followed by a look at another question which will require students to unpack an advertisement and “explain the effect the advertisement could have on female and male audiences.” As this is intended for a year 12 class, the advertisements are quite mature. They are derogatory advertisements produced for the men’s fashion brand Suitsupply which was founded in 2000 by Fokke de Jong in Amsterdam. This is meant to generate discussion about the fact that ‘sex sells’ and without rules to curtail advertising companies, some really messed up advertisements can be created. They are to make connections between the sexualisation of women in ads and how this can inadvertently reinforce negative perceptions of women and their value in society. This ties in nicely with our second part of the unit which is about discrimination. After doing the suit supply paragraph together, there is a Madison Avenue advertisement about cooking equipment for the students to analyse on their own and complete a practice response about.