The overall objective of this lesson is to teach children to be more aware of the kind of bias, stereotyping, and discrimination that is present in school materials.

STANDARD: All students will be able to list strategies to overcome gender bias, stereotyping and discrimination.

GRADE LEVEL: 4-6, Language Arts

OBJECTIVE(S):

1. Students will be able to identify linguistic bias in the school setting.
2. Students will discuss strategies for dealing with these forms of bias, and develop potential strategic action plans that would address or overcome them.

TIME: Two class periods.

MATERIALS: Newspapers, magazines, library books, notices, letters and textbooks. Teacher and students will need to prepare by collecting samples of these items.

1. Clarify the meaning of Gender Equity, bias, stereotyping, and discrimination.
2. Provide some examples. Use Bruner’s Concept Attainment Model to let students deduce the meanings from the examples.
3. Have the students look through any printed material found in the school setting (as listed above in the materials section).
4. Discuss how printed materials can distort gender equity and ask students to list things to look for in the printed material. Ex. remind them to specifically look for the term "he" or "man" used universally. Also, remind students to look at the copyright date.
5. Have students work in pairs to develop suggestions for strategies to address the bias, stereotyping, or discrimination found.
6. Have each team (pair) report out their finding and suggestions for action. Record these. Create a composite list. Have students prioritize this list.
7. Have students work in teams of 4 to develop the suggested actions into their action plans. These plans are to be reported to the class and consensus reached on which plans/strategies to implement.

HINTS: Provide students wfth suggestions to check illustrations, story lines, life styles, relationships between people, heroes, Who’s doing what and who is resolving the problem(s).

EXTENDED ACTIVITIES: