Quebec Competencies Chart - Prejudice and Body Image

Author: Teacher's Resource Kit: A Teacher's Lesson Plan Kit for the Prevention of Eating Disorders
Level: Elementary Cycles Two and Three
Subject Area: English Language Arts, Personal Development
Lesson Link: Prejudice and Body Image

Description: This lesson lets students take a good look at our society's pressures to conform to standards of beauty - particularly to be thin - and the related prejudice against being "overweight." Through class discussion and activities, students begin to recognize how the media pressure us to achieve a certain looks and how media images may lead to prejudice against those who don't conform to their standards of attractiveness.

This lesson satisfies the following English Language Arts Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

Competency 1: To Read and Listen to Literary, Popular and Information-Based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

• Uses prior knowledge and personal experience of the content of a text
• Questions and talk with others to clarify and enrich interpretations
• Makes predictions, confirmations and inferences, when prompted by the teacher
• Makes connections to prior knowledge or to other texts
• Uses different reading strategies according to the text type
• Reads, listens to and views a range of self-selected and personally relevant texts that include:
  • Use of personal, social and cultural background and experiences to interpret texts
• Develops a personal response process in the context of a community of readers through:
  • Discussion of responses with others individually, on small groups and in the whole class
  • Recount of the story and, with guidance, outline of information in a text
  • Development of opinions on literary or popular texts
  • Sharing of responses with others to clarify meaning and enrich interpretation
  • Comparing own responses with those of others at a beginner's level
  • Discussing own response process at a beginners level
• Moves beyond the initial response through:
  • Responses to texts in a variety of ways that include talking, writing, the Arts, Media
  • Early attempts to explain own views of a text
  • Support for own views with references to the text in small and large group discussions
  • Discussions of structures and features of text and their impact on the reader
  • Discussion of the structures and features of a text and their influence on the meaning of a text
  • Returning to a text to confirm interpretations and understandings in discussions with peers
  • Adjustment of own interpretations in the light of the responses of others at a beginner's level
• Sees a text as a construction through:
  • Suggestion of alternative endings or actions in a literary or popular text
  • Plausibility of events, characters, opinions and/or information in a text in relation to own values and experiences
• Begins to identify the view of the world presented in a text through:
  • Making of inferences, when prompted, about the view of the world presented by the text
  • Discussions, with guidance, of whose voices are heard and whose are missing in a text
  • Comparison, with guidance, of own values with some of the social, cultural and historical values in a literary text in teacher and peer discussions
• Recognizes self as a member of a reading audience

Competency 2: To Write Self-expressive, Narrative and Information-based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

• Writes to a familiar audience in order to express meaning(s):
  • Specific structures and features of familiar texts incorporated into own writing
  • Selection of ways to influence a familiar audience in self-expressive and narrative texts
• Experiments with familiar structures and features of different text types in own writing:
  • Based on wide repertoire of texts read, viewed in the media and encountered in her/his community
  • To suit own purpose and audience
• Develops concept of writer's craft:
  • Guided discussion and questioning of texts read, listened to and produced in order to discover how the text works
• Develops personal contribution to the development of a writing community in the classroom through:
  • Criteria for "good" writing discovered and developed from texts read, viewed and listened to
  • Criteria for "good" writing related to text type, purpose and audience

Competency 3: To Represent Her/His Literacy in Different Media

Essential Knowledges:

• Uses the familiar images, signs, symbols and logos in his/her environment:
  • Recognition that they are made by people for different purposes
  • Recognition that they have meanings/messages
  • Identification of how these images contribute to the messages/meanings of various media texts
• Uses a repertoire of strategies to unlock messages/meanings in various media texts:
  • Use own questions in order to predict and confirm
  • Draw on prior experience with familiar media texts to understand how they are constructed
  • Rereads/looks again in order to clarify and extend understanding of a text
• Uses structures and features of texts:
  • Compare structures and features of familiar media texts
  • Uses visual texts to communicate information in group productions of media texts
  • Applies her/his understanding of the structures and features of a range of familiar (media) texts to unlock their messages/meanings
• Makes meaning of a media text by:
  • brainstorming
  • drawing on prior knowledge
  • sharing responses with peers
  • making connections to own experiences
  • considering some of the functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
  • Using structures and features of the medium and text type in order to clarify meaning and explain her/his response, in collaboration with peers
  • Identifying and discussing some of the ways in which pictures, illustrations, popular symbols and signs and images enhance the messages/meanings in media texts designed for young viewers
  • Using text to support interpretation of characters' points of view in narrative and popular texts
• Consider some of the functions of the media through:
  • Collaboration with peers in pairs, small groups and whole class to clarify, decode and respond to media texts
  • Identifying her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of familiar media texts
  • Looking at some functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
• Understands that texts are social and cultural products through:
  • Own response and responses of others:
    • Compares own response with those of peers in order to support and enrich own understanding
    • Investigates, with teacher's guidance, how different media text types construct reality for us
    • Explores, with guidance, some of the structures and features for communicating and presenting information in age-appropriate popular and information-based media texts
• Real and Imaginary Worlds
  • Explores, through discussion, how characters, incidents and/or events in media texts that tell a story relate to her/his personal experiences

Competency 4: To Use Language to Communicate and Learn

Essential Knowledges:

• Shares information with peers and teacher
• Talks about responses and point of view with peers and teacher
• Asks and answers questions from peers and teacher
• Responds to the ideas and points of view of others with sensitivity and interest
• Talks through new ideas and information
• Examining of alternative points of view and providing reasons for choosing one over the other
• Listens critically