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How can I utilize a critical feminist lens to produce ELA curriculum that attends to intersectional understandings of gossip in young adult literature, media, and the classroom?

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Essential Question 1: How can we reframe current negative perceptions of gossip through a feminist lens?  

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Essential Question 1: How can we reframe current negative perceptions of gossip through a feminist lens?  

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Essential Question 2: How can we empower and utilize gossip as a meaning-making process through recognizing it as a foundation of female friendship? 

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Essential Question 2: How can we empower and utilize gossip as a meaning-making process through recognizing it as a foundation of female friendship? 

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Podcast episode to listen to

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Shows importance of gossip over history.

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This probably is not appropriate to show in schools, but lyrics or parts of the video could be clipped!

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Lizzo - Rumors feat. Cardi B [Official Video]

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Short film depicting gossip in rural Indonesia. Shows gossip in other cultures, as well as race/ethnic groups.

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Got a hot news tip? Have photos or video of a breaking story? Be sure to include the following information: Your name, phone number, e-mail address, hometown, and a short caption that describes what is happening in your video/photo/audio and where and when it was taken.

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Taken from Pinterest

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TV Show- Could be used to display positive female friendships in adulthood.

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Information spread and indigenous communities

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To disrupt

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To disrupt

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One of Us Is Lying is a riveting young adult mystery following a gang of detention-goers after one student doesn't make it out alive. This novel is another great example of how gossip is particularly useful as a plot device to keep characters doubtful and in suspense. Additionally, this book shows how talk can frame different people in positive and negative lights. We could approach this book from a feminist point of view in which we analyze why gossip and rumors are believed about some, but not about others.

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This young adult television series closely follows four girls after the mysterious death of their close friend. These girls toil with gossip, secrets, and most apparently, lies. This text could be a positive example of gossip as a foundation of trust and strength in female friendships, especially in the face of another anonymous texter, "A". This would pair particularly well with Ace of Spaces.

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This young adult novel, Ace of Spades, would work well as a disruptive text that reframes gossip in a new context: one that pushes the story forward. This novel takes place in a private school in which two students are continuously contacted by an anonymous and threatening number. As the story unfolds, the characters encounter gossip, secrets, and more.

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This novel follows one of the first plus-size women ready to hit the reality television scene. Following the setting of a reality tv show similar to "The Bachelor," everyone is a-buzz with the new, body-diverse cast. This book will be a great example of how reality television utilizes gossip as a plot device.

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In this young adult novel, the protagonist Claire goes through a huge change moving from home and going to college in the US. She has a newfound freedom and must navigate both the good and the bad experiences. This story focuses on building friendships to get through these tribulations, so, as a class we could analyze the foundations of friendship and trust and what role gossip might have to play in one's freshman year of college.

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In this infographic, a comparison takes place between venting and gossiping. Utilizing this infographic, I would likely conduct a class discussion as to why this information is up for interpretation and should not necessarily be taken as fact. In this discussion, we will look at the post through a feminist lens and attempt to dig deeper to try to understand why "gossiping" is demonized, even in feminist spaces such as this instagram account. We will also look into the comment section and discuss comments that might stick out to us.

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This novel is a high school drama that involves the classic gossip-stricken students and prom chatter, but with a twist. Shara Wheeler goes missing and people must come together and spill secrets in order to untangle the mystery of her disappearance. This would be a wonderful novel to teach that involves both relatable settings, yet also intrigue and a plot driven along by gossip as a meaning-making process.

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This young adult novel features the ins and outs of female friendship from many different perspectives. This book would serve as an amazing introduction to positive female friendship building and the ways in which these women characters are trusting and caring of one another. It would be interesting to analyze this book through a feminist lens to find moments of "gossip" that could be equated to establishing common grounds and/or looking out for one another.

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This novel, Loveless, follows a girl in her first year of university, pairing well with Parachute. This novel focuses on female friendship and navigating both external and internal challenges of sexuality, partying, and simply having a roommate for the first time ever. This novel would feature a positive example of gossip and could invoke discussion as to whether or not any conversation could be labelled as "gossiping." I might pose the question "what is the criteria for gossip?" in discussion of this book and the female friendships featured within.

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This style of pop art in which two women are sharing secrets with one another is actually quite common, and this is just one possible example of many. Utilizing this image, I could get conversations started about why gossip is considered an overwhelmingly feminine activity. We could also examine the stylistic choices of the art itself, for example, noting the feminine features of lipstick and earrings.

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Survivor is a television series in which people compete in challenges in the wilderness for an eventual cash prize. This show features a lot of "gossip" in the form of strategy--it is an essential element of the game that could work for or against a player. This would be an interesting show to analyze to understand, once again, how gossip could be an essential method of meaning-making to both players and viewers.

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More specifically, I would analyze the trio of songs "cardigan," "betty," and "august" through a critical gossip lens with my students. As a trio, these songs weave together a complex high school tail of love, cheating, and rumors spread. The three songs represent different perspectives of a love triangle with two women--named Betty and Augustine/August--and a boy named James.

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Mixing it up from the cult classic movie, I would show instead the Broadway edition of Mean Girls. This show involves more high school trials and tribulations filled with all sorts of rumors, lies, and secrets. Through a feminist lens, we could examine the female friendships between Cady and the other characters, as well as seek to understand the difference between "gossiping" and "sh*t-talking".

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The novel, These Witches Don't Burn, features elements of female friendship, drama, LGBTQ+ relationships, and some fantasy to top it all off. This book follows a queer coven of witches in Salem and their secrets of magic, blood rituals, and more. This would be an excellent book to view through a feminist lens to better understand the intricacies of female friendship and relationships. Additionally, we could seek to understand how gossip and secrets aid in pushing the narrative forward.

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In this gossip-based unit, we could do an activity featuring different tabloid magazine covers (above is just one example of many possibilities) in which we analyze common features and why these features might be used. We could approach this activity through a feminist lens, attempting to understand the negative images and consequences of public gossip. We could discuss the differences between "gossip" in the news and tabloids, and what it means to gossip between friends. This could help inform some of our YA Lit readings about female friendship, as well.

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In this suspenseful interactive fiction game, the narrative is completely pushed forward utilizing dialogue. A group of high school seniors essentially have to solve a mystery and come out alive on an island night-trip gone wrong. We could use this as an exercise to understand how gossip--particularly what people choose to believe or not--has an effect on a story.

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Gossip column - Lady Whistledown. Could be an interesting activity to do with students and a good example of gossip moving the plot forward and offering female agency.

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To disrupt

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I found this clip of The Office on Tik Tok with the header "this scene summarizes how gossip works". I would love to use this quick clip as a conversation starter to see what students notice about gossip. In this instance, we could analyze how gossip feeds into the friendships on the show.

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79.9K Likes, 72 Comments. TikTok video from The office quote.s (@theofficequote.s): "UNBELIEVABLE!S08 E16 "After Hours #theofficequotes". original sound - The office quote.s.