Female+vs.+Male+Ideology

I used this as pre-reading discussion strategy as an introduction to "The Wife of Bath's Tale" of //The Canterbury Tales,// but it could be used for any lesson or unit introduction dealing with a themes related to women or men ideology.

I started out drawing a line down the whiteboard to make two columns. I said I wanted the male students to respond to the questions I posed first. Then we would have the females' input. I posed the question:


 * What do women want?**

The males responded, then I had the females agree/disagree, add, delete, edit, give further details and input, etc. It really opened some eyes of both males and females to see what each of them thought about the question. For the males they saw what they had thought versus what was truly wanted (in some cases, in other cases they were right on to the females in the room). I, being a female teacher, gave my input also and helped lead both genders to think of other things to add to the list.

We then again started with the males and I posed the question:


 * What makes a man a gentleman?**

The males first responded again, then I had the females agree/disagree, add, delete, edit, give further details and input, etc. Again I gave input and helped lead the discussion and add to and clarify the list. Again, eyes were opened on the sides of both genders.

Overall we started a discussion about society, expectations, goals, historical aspects that influenced modern ideas, etc. It was a very interesting discussion. We then continued into the tale itself to learn what the Wife of Bath thought about both. After reading the tale we returned to the list and compared the class' ideas to the Wife of Bath (optional).