Each journal entry must be between 250-300 words. The journal .docx

Each journal entry must be between 250-300 words. The journal
entries will
provide an opportunity for students to share their analysis and
reflection of the
assigned readings for that week’s session. The journal entries
will also serve to
enable students to discuss the research materials they are
utilizing for their
signature assignment with their classroom peers.
In each journal post:
● Discuss the main points raised by the authors of the assigned
readings.
What perspectives are the authors putting forward? What are the
authors
seeking to emphasize or focus on?
● How do the readings inform your thinking about LGBTQ
issues in schools
and in education in general?
● What do you believe is the most important point or conclusion
that the
authors are providing? Why do you believe this
point/conclusion to be
important?
Prompt
Malory includes several tales in
Le Morte d’Arthur that explain how some of the most

important Arthurian heroes are begotten, such as King Arthur
and Sir Galahad. How does the manner in which each of these
heroes are conceived affect the representation of both men and
women in the tales? Be certain to use examples and/or quotes
from the text to support your answer.
Guidelines
· Your initial response should be at least 500 words in length
· Use MLA format for any quotations or citations that you use
to support your answer
· King Arthur is likely a legendary figure with whom you are
familiar from movies, or even comic books, and his renown
along with the stories of Lancelot and Guinevere, are ever-
present in cultural mythology today. Hollywood has played a
hand in our understanding and knowledge of Arthur, Lancelot,
Guinevere, and also popular culture surrounding the Knights of
the Roundtable.
· -
· We will necessarily have to wade through the tides of popular
culture and mythology, and then also professional mythologians'
interpretations, and your own views in a combination of culture,
myth, and archaeology, to see what was ' real' and 'true' and
how the mythology has been interpreted, even if perhaps we do
not know what was ' real.'
· -
· So your questions this week reflect both mythology and our
current interpretations of male and female in the legends.
Issues that you may reflect upon include for example: Do the
female protagonists such as Guinevere play a significant role ?
Do they wield power? If so, what type(s) of power? Do they
have an ' image' and ' reputation,' and what would the
mythology and legends of King Arthur be like -- without the
women?
· Is there a strong current of mythology having to do with how
to treat women? Or women and romance? Or knighthood and
obligations towards the female as a courtier? Is there a sense of

values, honor, romance, attached to the stories of King Arthur
and the Knights of the Roundtable? How important are these
values? Are there challenges to the values of the Knights, for
example in Lancelot and Guinevere and the adulterous romance
between them? Or is this considered one and the same with
chivalry?
· There are many aspects of gender that are quite powerfully
and symbolically portrayed in the Legend of King Arthur and
the tales of the Knights of the Round Table!
· Your goal here is to explore the gendered relationships in the
legends, and comment upon these , as relates to the larger
picture of the Arthurian legends and the Knights of the Round
Table.
· Please make sure to include evidence & citations.
My further questions as ideas to think about for your discussion
posts, are highlighted below.
(Not required, but as ' further prompts' to encourage your posts
this week.)
-
Do the female protagonists such as Guinevere play a significant
role ? Do they wield power? If so, what type(s) of power? Do
they have an ' image' and ' reputation,' and what would the
mythology and legends of King Arthur be like -- without the
women?
Given at King Arthur and Lancelot are both in love with
Guinevere, do you think this provides her with a form of power
due to the romantic interests of both the King and his knight,
Lancelot? Or is this not a type of power, in the narrative of the
mythology itself?
Is there a strong current of mythology having to do with how to
treat women? Or women and romance? Or knighthood and
obligations towards the female as a courtier? Is there a sense of
values, honor, romance, attached to the stories of King Arthur
and the Knights of the Roundtable? How important are these

values? Are there challenges to the values of the Knights, for
example in Lancelot and Guinevere and the adulterous romance
between them? Or is this considered one and the same with
chivalry?
What do we know about the 'rules of knighthood' that would
apply to the Arthurian legends? Was Lancelot bound by any
oaths that would have caused conflict over his role in relation to
his King, and his love of Guinevere? Is there a knightly code of
conduct that created a set of rules he had to follow? Did he
break these rules by his ' dual' loyalties - to King and a "shared"
romantic interest?
In the terms of 'chivalry' - is a knight allowed to ' romance' a
woman, and to do knightly deeds to show his courage, win her
favor, and also protect her? And if the romance is with the
same woman with whom his King has an alliance / romance,
does this cause a problem with codes of chivalry regarding
romance? Or in knighthood chivalry is ' all fair in love and
war?' -
Thank you for your posts as our week continues!
I hope the information above is helpful to think about in
creating your posts.
126 R E T H I N K I N G S E X I S M , G E N D E R , A N D
S E X U A L I T Y
Disarming the
Nuclear Family
Creating a classroom book
that reflects the class
By Willow McCormick
Willow McCormick is a 2nd-grade teacher in West Linn,

Oregon. She is an Oregon
Writing Project consultant and a Library of Congress Civil
Rights Institute fellow.
I
have more than 1,000 books in my classroom library, cobbled
together
from garage sales, used bookstores, and the collections of
former students
who have outgrown their picture books. As a social justice
educator, I try
to fill my primary classroom library with books that feature
characters
from a variety of cultures, traditions, classes, and backgrounds.
And yet, despite
my efforts, I’m dismayed by how many of the thoughtful, well-
written books in
my collection feature the nuclear family unit, be it human or
animal. Even my
favorite authors default to the nuke.
Kevin Henkes is a perennial favorite in primary classrooms
across the
country. The mice that populate his books cope with universal
struggles of
young children—separation anxiety, teasing, loneliness,
empathy. Unfortunately,
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EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed
on 5/26/2021 8:54 AM via NEW JERSEY CITY UNIV
AN: 1352083 ; Butler-Wall, Annika, Cosier, Kim, Harper,
Rachel L. S..; Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality
Account: s6220230.main.ehost
C H A P T E R 3 : O U R C U R R I C U L U M

127
Henkes’ books present something else as universal as well: a
doting mother and
father plus a sibling or two waiting at home to soothe and
support the struggler.
Trudy Ludwig has written an excellent collection of books,
including Trouble
Talk and Sorry!, that dig into the power dynamics among
children and offer
strategies on how a child can transition from being a target to a
self-advocate—
with a little help from mom, dad, and brother in a tidy, suburban
home. The
message of empowerment is a noble and essential one, which is
why I read these
books to my class every year. But another message is being
conveyed as well
when these books are read back to back: two-parent
heterosexual families are
the norm.
When a book does acknowledge the existence of other family
structures, the
difference is often the focus of the story—how Addison has two
fancy houses
instead of one in Tamara Schmitz’s Standing on My Own Two
Feet: A Child’s
Affirmation of Love in the Midst of Divorce. If you want to
read a story featur-
ing children in foster care, you’ll have to look long and hard for
anything other
than guides for making the transition in or out of care. It takes a
lot of work to
find books that include same-gender parents, step-parents,

foster or adopted
children, or other nontraditional families as background in an
adventure tale, a
friendship parable, or a holiday romp.
When two-parent, heterosexual families are presented as the
norm in story
after story, year in and year out, an insidious message is
conveyed: Families that
don’t conform to this structure are not normal. And, of course,
the message is
reinforced in the majority of movies and television shows
geared toward chil-
dren. Shame, secrecy, and evasion can result from this incessant
messaging.
I see it play out in my classroom. Two years ago, I had a
student with di-
vorced lesbian moms, step-siblings, half-siblings, and a close-
knit extended fam-
ily. I doubt any children’s book out there includes a family like
hers. They were
a loud and loving family, and Marie was a loud and loving girl.
Yet she rarely
divulged that she had two moms and, in fact, fabricated an
absentee dad at one
point early in the year. Another boy, Andrew, didn’t want
anyone to know he was
adopted, afraid they would think he was “weird.” He said it was
hard enough
having brown skin when his parents and most of his classmates
were white; he
didn’t want kids to think of him as different in another way,
too. I pride myself
on having an accepting and appreciative classroom community,
but the under-

mining effect of the dominant family system in children’s books
and media slips
into our snug community like toxic smoke.
What is a 2nd-grade teacher to do? Dispose of all Kevin Henkes
books, and
deprive 7-year-olds of the pleasure of repeating
“Chrysanthemum, Chrysan-
themum, Chrysanthemum” as they root for the main character to
embrace her
unusual name and accept herself? Give periodic rambling
qualifiers before read-
alouds, trying to explain the heteronormative paradigm in kid-
friendly lan-
guage? Build a library where every family structure is
represented equally, thus
ensuring a library of 100 books or fewer? I’ve considered all of
these scenarios in
moments of exasperation, but nothing seems realistic.
EBSCOhost - printed on 5/26/2021 8:54 AM via NEW JERSEY
CITY UNIV. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-
of-use
128 R E T H I N K I N G S E X I S M , G E N D E R , A N D
S E X U A L I T Y
Susan Kuklin’s Families
Luckily there are resources out there that shine a light on a path
forward. A
few years ago I discovered a beautiful book by Susan Kuklin
simply titled Fam-
ilies. Kuklin puts family structure in a larger context of

diversity of all types. To
create the book, she interviewed children aged 4 to 14 from a
variety of family
structures, mainly in New York City, but also in rural
communities. She then
worked with the children to select a page’s worth of text
describing their family
members, religious traditions, household, hobbies, and studies.
A family portrait
accompanies each page; the children themselves chose the
location, clothing
worn by all family members, pets, and props. The net effect is a
refreshingly
matter-of-fact look at 16 very different families. Ella is a
summer camp aficiona-
do who was adopted by her two fathers as a baby. There’s also
Kira and Matias,
biracial children who live beside a creek and love catching fish
for dinner. Yaa-
kov, Leah, Miriam, and Asher are Orthodox Jews who make
themselves laugh
with goofy invented languages. Chris, Louie, and Adam are
close-knit broth-
ers whose parents come from Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic; they
discuss food and language, only mentioning in passing that
Louie has Down
syndrome.
We Make Our Own Book
Families has all sorts of potential for classroom use. I use it as a
mentor text
for writing our own class book of families. Each day I read
aloud one family
story to the class. The straightforward tone of the book leads

easily to a straight-
forward discussion afterward. I ask the kids to make
connections between the
family we just met in the book and their own families, or the
families of their
friends or neighbors. What do they have in common? What are
some differenc-
es? The class often starts with the goofy languages—they make
up silly words,
too!—or the hobbies or study habits they share with the children
in the book.
But it’s not long before the conversation gets more personal.
Finn mentions
his gay aunts, two children of divorced families compare how
they split up—or
don’t—their time between households, devout Christian Isaiah
notices that he
and a Muslim boy in the book both consider themselves servants
of God.
Over time, we begin to craft our own narratives. First we
brainstorm themes
that come up again and again in the book—food, religion,
traditions, sports and
hobbies, descriptions of family members—and the kids start to
make lists from
their own lives that fit into these categories. Then they write,
each in their own
style. Ramona tells how her cousins came to live with her
family as foster chil-
dren. “My mom wanted to know how long they would be
staying, but now we’re
all glad they came.” Isaiah tells us that religion is the biggest
part of his family’s
life. Marie writes about her two moms, and Rory explains that
he doesn’t have

a dad or siblings, but his uncles and pets fill in, and he and his
mom have an
of-use
C H A P T E R 3 : O U R C U R R I C U L U M
129
extra special relationship because it’s just the two of them.
Andrew, after a few
fretful conferences with a couple of trusted peers and me,
decides to include his
adoption in his narrative:
Hi, I am Andrew. I am 8 years old. I have one sister and no
brothers.
I live in Oregon. I was adopted because my birth mom could not
take care of me. My dad was at work when the phone rang.
Some-
body said into the phone, “Jon, do you want to be a dad?”
“Yes!”
After one day my mom and my dad came to the place where I
was.
My new mom and dad took me home.
The undermining effect of the
dominant family system in children’s
books and media slips into our snug
community like toxic smoke.
Once the narratives are crafted, the kids bring in photos to use
as illustra-

tions, or direct me to photograph them doing things they love at
school. They
paste their narratives and photos on oversized construction
paper to create their
own page in our classroom edition of Families.
To draw the project to a close, I host a writing celebration in
the classroom.
The children lay their pages out carefully on the tables and we
spend the hour
rotating from desk to desk, reading stories and leaving notes of
praise and con-
nection. “My family goes hiking on Easter, too!” “You have two
moms?! You are
sooo lucky!”
At the end of the day, I collect all the pages and bind them
together. Now
there’s at least one book in our classroom library where all of
my students can
find themselves. When I think about how intently the majority
of my students
read and respond to the writing of their peers, I realize that,
even if my class-
room were fully stocked with high-quality literature featuring a
complete spec-
trum of family structures, I’d still want this book, our book, at
the center of my
library. It is satisfying for the students to see themselves
reflected in the books
and other media that surround them. But it is also powerful—
and comforting—
for children to see and be seen by their own peers. Ultimately I
want both for my
students: a world in which they feel they belong, and a
classroom community in

which they feel known.
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