Video from the Honor Betrayed series, about sexual trauma in the military.
The mission of this blog is to suggest ways to teach and learn with The New York Times. But, because The Times has been publishing since 1851, and we’ve been making lesson plans out of those materials since 1998, when it comes time for annual celebrations like Black History Month or Poetry Month, we have a staggering number of relevant resources we can recommend.
Sometimes less is more.
For March’s Women’s History Month, instead of a traditional lesson plan like this one, we thought we’d post a simple idea you can do right now, in as little as one class period:
Read a day or week’s worth of The New York Times with a pen in hand, or with fingers ready to click, and make a note of every article, essay, review, photograph or video that you think significantly comments on women’s lives and roles in the world. Then — in pairs, in groups or as a whole class — write, discuss or create using the questions below:
- What do the pieces you chose have in common? What patterns did you notice?
- What do they say about the lives and roles of women in our culture? In the world at large? What’s missing?
- What connections (PDF) can you make to one or more of the pieces you chose and your own life?
- Why does any of this matter?
If you’d done this exercise over the last week, you would have found, among other pieces…
The Honor Betrayed series, about sexual trauma in the military, including “Attacked at 19 by an Air Force Trainer, and Speaking Out,”and “Trauma Sets Female Veterans Adrift Back Home.”
“A Titan’s How-To on Breaking the Glass Ceiling.” On “Lean In,” the new “book-slash-manifesto” on women in the workplace by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.
“Academy Award Show Raises Ratings and Hackles,” about, in part, the reaction to the host Seth MacFarlane’s song-and-dance routine about female nudity in film.
“Statue of Rosa Parks Is Unveiled at the Capitol.” Ms. Parks has become the first black woman to be honored with a life-size statue in the Capitol.
“House Republicans Clear Path for Renewal of Violence Against Women... House Republican leaders bowed to pressure from within their own party to pass this legislation.
Happy Women’s History Month — and, of course, if you’d like to go further, we have a full-to-bursting page of resources that includes everything from a Times article from 1920 on the passage of the 19th amendment to current multimedia on Title IX.
