Lesson plan on advertising and gender representations

1. BIG PICTURE
A focus on representations of
gender in advertising
KEYWORDS
Representations – Analysis –
Preferred, Oppositional and
Negotiated Readings
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Develop skills in reading media texts and taking
focused notes about specific issues
SUCCESS CRITERIA
• Answers to questions on gendered
advertising
Take your seat. Bag under your desk.
Have your equipment and planner out.
Unit 1 - Representations
• What different kinds
of toys would you
expect to be played
with by boys and
girls?
• Why?

2. TELL ME
STUFF!
TAKE ME
THROUGH
IT…
LET ME
HAVE A
GO…
DO I GET
IT?
1 2 3 4 5 6
SETTING THE
SCENE
JOINING UP
LEARNING
LINKS TO LAST
TIME
PASSING ON
KNOWLEDGE
GUIDED PRACTICE
& MODELLING
INDEPENDENT
PRACTICE –
APPLYING THE
SKILLS TO NEW
SITUATIONS
ASSESSMENT &
FEEDBACK
PULL IT TOGETHER
JOINING UP
LEARNING
LINKS TO NEXT
TIME

3. We are generalising here. We are talking about what tends
to happen, and how things tend to be interpreted. We are
talking about Dominant Readings as a starting point
• Dominant Readings are culturally and historically
specific. If you made a UK film about terrorists 25
years ago your terrorist characters would very
probably be Irish.
• Preferred Readings ask you to think about what the
creators of the text are trying to do – what can you
work out about what they want you to think?
• Oppositional Readings deliberately ignore what
you think they want you to think because it's up to
you as the consumer/ audience and you know
better.
• Negotiated Readings are a bit of both – I get what
they're trying to do here but I can't help bring my
own point of view to this when I look at it.
There are a number
of different ways of
thinking about how
media texts make
meaning and about
the big question of
what meanings they
are most likely to
make

4. Sex is biological. Gender is a personal and social
construct.
These are big issues in society at the moment
It's an interesting time to be studying
representations of gender (and of race, for similar
but different specific reasons)
Some of you might have very clear ideas about what
all of this means but for the purposes of the course
I'd like to be clear that we're talking about the above
difference between 'Sex' and 'Gender' as a starting
point, and that we're fundamentally talking about
Gender all of the time in this work
You might be asked to think about representations of
gender...
• Created through still images or moving images in
films, tv, video games, photographs, posters and
so on
• Created through the use of narrative – through
the things that happen in stories, through the
way that characters have or lack agency, through
the way they relate to other characters and to
their actual, their stereotypical and their
archtypical roles in narratives

5. Look at the magazine covers and the print
advertisements in the presentation on the
powerpoint
I'd like you to choose two of them
and to write in detail about what
they're doing in terms of
representations of gender and about
how they do what they do
Take your time
Look at the models in the
presentation
Attention to detail is really
important

6. 1. Can you identify a non-typical
representation of gender in a media
text you like and know?
2. 'Gender' doesn't just mean talking
about women. Can you identify and
discuss some interesting non-typical
representations of masculinity in a
media text you know and like?

7. BIG
PICTURE
MY
LEARNING
How did this
lesson fit into
your other
lessons?
What is my
top take- away
from the
lesson?
Have you contributed to the lesson? Will you be able to improve
next lesson? Do you know what you need to go away and do?
o Keep up with new vocabulary
o Keep looking and watching as
students as well as fans – what
are you starting to notice when
you watch films or TV, or play
games, or watch music video...