Women in Media

We've been talking a lot about the role of women in literature and media in IB Lang & Lit this year, and BTHS junior Mia S. wrote a great post about women in the media. This post was inspired by a class discussion about Merida's makeover when she was sworn in as a Disney Princess.

Please take a few moments to read the post entitled The Lack of Women in the Media!

"One Book, One Community" Summer Reading at CHS

This short video explains the reasoning behind the new summer reading initiative at CHS as well as how it will work when we come back to school in Fall 2013. Thanks to all the students who were interviewed specially Reanna Penn who spent a lot of time and effort editing, re-editing, rendering, and listening to Courtney say "jazz" during the making of this video!
 

HTHS Freshmen Participate in #coverflip!

In English class the HTHS freshmen read Maureen Johnson’s awesome essay, “The Gender Coverup“, wherein she takes a look at gendered book covers and calls to task those who think there are  ”boy” books and “girl” books.

After reading the article and viewing the slideshow, the students were challenged to attempt their own #coverflip.

From Maureen Johnson's Tumblr.   

1. Take a well-known book. (It’s up to you to define well-known.)

2. Imagine that book was written by an author of the OPPOSITE GENDER. Or a genderqueer author. Imagine all the things you think of when you think GIRL book or BOY book or GENDERLESS book (do they EXIST?). And I’m not saying that these categorizations are RIGHT—but make no mistake, they’re there.

3. Now, COVERFLIP! Make the new cover and put it online. Tweet or Tumbl it with the tag #coverflip. 

In groups, the students decided on a book that they felt had a cover that appealed more to one gender than necessary.  Then, they searched for Creative Commons images that they could use to create a new cover.  In photoshop, they designed their new book cover with either a more neutral cover or one that appealed to gender stereotypes.  Take a look at what they came up with!

National History Day

Please spend the next nine minutes watching BTHS junior Grace Huang's documentary about the impact that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves had on the animation industry. Grace made this documentary as part of National History Day. She participates in this competition on her own, with no supervision from teachers; it is a true independent project. What's even more impressive is that even without an official school sponsorship, Grace moved on to states with this video! This is just one more example of how awesome MCVSD students are!