Syllabus

Gender & Women’s Studies 251

Coming of Age: Gender and Culture

Instructor: Adriane Brown

Email: brown.2997@osu.edu

Virtual office hours (D2L chat): Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-3:00 Central Time.

Accommodations: MSU provides students with disabilities reasonable accommodation to participate in educational programs, activities, or services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodation to participate in class activities or meet course requirements should first register with the Office of Disability Services, located in 0132 Memorial Library, telephone 389-2825, TDD 711, and then contact me as soon as possible.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the representation of another's works or ideas as one's own; it includes the unacknowledged word for word use and/or paraphrasing of another person's work, and/or the inappropriate unacknowledged use of another person's ideas. Plagiarism is one of the most serious offenses that can be committed in an academic community; as such, it is the obligation of this department and its instructors to report all cases of suspected plagiarism to the department chair and to the appropriate university channels for adjudication. Although the existence of the Internet makes it relatively easy to plagiarize, it also makes it even easier for instructors to find evidence of plagiarism. It is obvious to most teachers when a student turns in work that is not his or her own and plagiarism search engines make documenting the offense very simple.

Always cite your sources. Always ask questions before you turn in an assignment if you are uncertain about what constitutes plagiarism. Always see your professor if you are having difficulty with an assignment. To preserve the integrity of MSU,M as an institution of higher learning, to maintain your own integrity, and to avoid jeopardizing your future, do not plagiarize!

Course Description: In this course, we will explore the coming of age experience, considering questions such as: What are the different cultural meanings attached to the coming of age experience? How do these experiences vary with respect to gender, race, class, religion, sexuality, and geographic location? What can we learn from reading, viewing, hearing, and writing “coming of age” stories? What issues are discussed and revealed in these narratives? How and in what contexts are these stories told? How does popular culture represent and shape coming-of-age experiences? We will explore these issues through articles, memoirs, websites, films, television shows, and our own personal narratives.

Requirements

Discussion Boards: Participating on the discussion boards is a vital part of your grade. Each week, I will post questions regarding the assigned readings, and you are required to post a response to each topic that I post. Your responses should be thoughtful, well-considered, and clearly reflect your knowledge of the assigned readings. Each response should be about 100 words. Additionally, there is a general thread for you to post comments about the readings that aren’t directly related to the questions, to share reflections on your own coming of age experiences, or to share news stories and pop culture items related to the class. This board is optional, but participating on this board will help your overall grade if you’ve missed one or two required questions.

Blogs: You will be required to keep a blog for this class on blogspot.com and to keep up with blogs posted by other people in the class. There is a class blog set up at http://gws251comingofage.blogspot.com/. You need to set up an account on Blogspot and follow the class blog. Please send me an email with the URL to your blog so that I can follow it. All blog entries should be public.

There will be two blog assignments with a 500-word requirement each. Additionally, for each assignment, you will be required to read and comment on 2 other students’ blogs (for a total of 4 comments). Comments have a 100-word requirement.

Expectations:

--Blog entries:

--Address the prompt fully.

--Appropriate grammar/spelling: Although the blog format enables you to be more casual, please use actual words (“you” as opposed to “u”) and complete sentences.

--Coherent organization: I recommend that you write an outline so that your claims are structured in an organized, clear manner.

--Engagement with readings & course concepts. You MUST specifically reference course materials in your blog. They need to help STRUCTURE your entry—they shouldn’t just be add-ons.

--Address specific ideas in the article/PowerPoint.

--Use the ideas in the article/PowerPoint to analyze your pop culture text.

--Be sure to follow proper citation guidelines. You may use any style manual you want (MLA, Chicago, APA), but be sure to properly cite your sources!!!

--Use of the internet as a resource (i.e., using hyperlinks, different kinds of media).

--Response to other people’s blog entries:

--Address only ONE major idea. It’s a very short piece of writing, so you should just cover one point fully.

--Appropriate grammar/spelling.

--Engagement with their ideas.

--Engagement with course concepts.

--Substantive contribution of your own idea(s), not just “I agree” or “I disagree.”

Add a different perspective.

Creative Project: Create a project that highlights a particular moment or moments in your own coming-of-age story. The project should include two components: (1) A visual/auditory component (select 2 or more of the following: photographs, magazine clippings, images, song lyrics, poems, video, etc.) and (2) a 300-500 word write-up about why these items depict a moment / rite of passage / significant experience in your life. The creative project should be posted as an entry on your blog site (thus, if you want to use a photo or something you have a hard copy of, be sure to plan ahead so that you can scan it into your computer).

Final Exam: There will be an essay-based final exam covering readings and media. It will be released on D2L on Monday, May 2 at 5 pm and will be due on Tuesday, May 3 at 5 pm.

Grade Distribution

Discussion Boards: 15 weeks @ 2% each week 30%

Blogs: 2 @ 15% each 30%

Blog Comments: 4 @ 2.5% each 10%

Creative Project 10%

Final Exam 20%

100%

Late work will not be accepted except in the case of documented emergencies.

Reading Schedule

*Readings are due at the end of the week for which they are assigned. Each week, discussion boards will open at the beginning of the week and close at the beginning of the following week, when the new topic will become available. When media is listed, that is part of your assigned “reading” for the week. If it’s a website, you should follow the link and examine the website. If it’s another kind of media, instructions for viewing it will be sent via email at the beginning of the week.

Unit I: Coming of Age: Critical and Historical Perspectives

Week of January 10 Perspectives on the Study of Adolescence

Driscoll, “Introduction: Toward a Genealogy of Girlhood” (1-12)

Raby, “Across a Great Gulf? Conducting Research With Adolescents” (D2L)

Pipher, Excerpt from Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (D2L)

Week of January 17 Girlhood in Historical Context

Driscoll, “The Girl of the Period” 15-46

Kearney, “Delightful Employment: Girls’ Cultural Production Prior to the Late Twentieth Century” (D2L)

Week of January 24 Working Class Childhoods

Readings from Without a Net: “Introduction”; Allison (15-20); Hernandez (49-58); Polyestra (67-74); Varian (161-166); Piepzna-Samarasinha (199-206). Additionally, read at least one other essay of your choice from the book.

Week of January 31 Coming of Age in Times of Conflict

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. Marjane Satrapi.

Unit II: The Body & Sexuality in Adolescence

Week of February 7 Body Image and the Media

Bordo, “Never Just Pictures”

Brumberg, Excerpt from The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

Media: http://www.about-face.org/

Week of February 14

Fat Girl: A True Story. Judith Moore. Plume.

***Blog #1 due February 13; Comments for blog #1 due February 15

Week of February 21 Good Girls, Bad Girls: Teenage Girls & Sexual Desire

Readings: Excerpt from Valenti, The Purity Myth; Excerpt from Tolman, Dilemmas of Desire

Website: http://www.lifeway.com/tlw/

Film: The Education of Shelby Knox

Week of February 28 Growing up LGBT

Readings: Selections from Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian

Media: http://www.lambda.org/youth.htm; http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ (suggested videos: Pixar employees http://www.itgetsbetter.org/video/entry/4a4mr8oi_b8/; Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns http://www.itgetsbetter.org/#ax96cghOnY4; Google employees http://www.itgetsbetter.org/#pYLs4NCgvNU )

Week of March 7 SPRING BREAK

Unit III: “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”: Boys Come of Age

Week of March 14 Concepts in the Study of Masculinity

Reading: Selections from Men and Masculinity: A Text-Reader

***Blog #2 due March 20, Comments for blog #2 due March 22

Week of March 21 Adolescence, Masculinity, and Heterosexuality

Reading: Pascoe, Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School (Be familiar with 1-15; 52-113)

Week of March 28 Growing up Guy

Reading: Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Unit IV: Youth & Pop Culture

Week of April 4

Readings: Hentges, Excerpt from Pictures of Girlhood

Zack, “Bella Swan and Sarah Palin”

Erzen, “The Religion of Twilight” http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/08/tanya-erzen-the-religion-of-twilight/

WATCH: clips from Twilight

Week of April 11

Reading: Excerpt from Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out

Media: Look through various sections (articles, article comments, community forums, etc.) of the following websites: http://www.gurl.com/; http://www.scarleteen.com/; http://www.theseventeenmagazineproject.com/; http://thefbomb.org/

Week of April 18 Constructing the At-Risk Girl

Reading: Harris, Excerpt from Future Girl

Media: Select any episode of Sixteen & Pregnant from MTV.com and watch it; Also watch Bristol Palin’s abstinence PSA at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHlztPeHf8

***Creative project due April 24

Week of April 25 Youth-Produced Culture

Reading: Kearney, “Producing Girls: Rethinking the Study of Female Youth Culture”

Media: Music videos TBA

Week of May 2

Exam released on D2L on Monday, May 2 at 5 pm; Due on Tuesday, May 3 at 5 pm.