News stories are pervasive in our lives – we see them on television, we read them in newspapers and magazines, we receive them via social media platforms. However, how likely are we to stop and consider who is featured (or not) in news stories? This lesson aims to raise learners' awareness of who is featured on newspaper front pages, with specific attention drawn to the representation of different genders.
Note: 'Gender' here refers to how people understand themselves and how society perceives people as women, girls, men, boys or other gender identities. 'Other gender identities' could include non-binary or gender-fluid people.
'Gender' is different from 'sex', which refers to biological and physiological characteristics such as organs, chromosomes and hormones. Sex is often categorised as male, female or intersex.
Lesson outcomes
All learners will:
- develop their critical-reading skills
- raise their awareness of gender representation on newspaper front pages
- enhance their text analytical skills.
Materials
- Lesson plan
- Student worksheet
- PowerPoint presentation
Procedure
- Ask learners what they think are the top news stories in UK newspapers today and write their suggestions on the board (Slide 2).
Note: If learners do not have internet access, you will need to provide a selection of English-language newspapers for them to work with.
- Invite learners to visit https://en.kiosko.net/uk/. If learners are working on computers or laptops, this is best done in pairs, but can be done individually if working on smartphones.
- Explain to learners that they are going to look at the front pages of some British newspapers to see if their predictions were correct (Slide 3). They only need to check the headlines at this stage.
Note: At this stage you can highlight the different types of newspapers that are available (broadsheet, tabloid, economic, sports, etc.) and elicit/explain the differences between them.
- Ask learners to report back to the class whether they found any stories related to their suggestions in the lead-in.
- Show Slides 4 and 5 and/or give each learner a copy of the student worksheet. You can ask them to complete this activity individually or in pairs, depending on their reading ability.
- Explain to learners that they are going to read the stories in a more detailed way now to complete the table on the worksheet (step 3). You can give them the option of choosing a UK paper or an English-language paper from another country that might be more interesting for their context. Ideally, they should be able to identify between two and four shorter top stories rather than one long story.
Note: If you think this might be challenging for your learners, you can do an example with them or show them the example on Slide 6. Draw their attention to the use of cowboy and husband and wife (husband is written before wife, even though the wife's name appears first).
- Give them a fixed time to complete the activity (25 minutes). Monitor and support any learners who seem to be having difficulty in completing the worksheet. Early finishers can choose an additional story from another newspaper.
- Ask learners to compare their analyses with a partner or another pair (10 minutes).
- Hold a class discussion to highlight any interesting observations from the learners' analyses of the representation of gender. Putting the following questions on the board may help to focus the discussion (Slide 7):
- Was there an equal number of stories related to men and women?
- Were men and women described in positive or negative terms?
- Were gender-neutral terms used when describing people's occupations?
- Were there any examples of gender bias or misrepresentation of gender?
- Invite learners to consider what could be done to address any imbalanced representation of genders. Some suggestions could be:
- use gender-neutral terms (e.g. firefighter, instead of fireman)
- avoid using 'male' or 'female' before occupations (e.g. male nurse, female doctor)
- avoid using gender stereotypes (e.g. boys don't cry, girls play with dolls)
- avoid using gender-specific pronouns.
Note: The following links provide useful information on the subject of gender bias related to language:
https://wmich.edu/writing/genderbias
- Ask learners to redo the analysis by looking at the same stories in another newspaper in a different language – either from Kiosko.net or from their own context (e.g. a local publication). This way, they will be able to compare the choices made by two different news outlets (Slide 8).
- Ask learners to do a visual analysis of a newspaper's front page. This could be the same front page they looked at in class or a different one. Ask them to identify who is portrayed in the images, who is left out of the images (e.g. a person who is mentioned in the story but does not appear visually on the first pages), what the balance is of the different genders and how people of different genders are shown (Slide 8).