Session Name: Stella Schools Ambassador Workshop
Audience: Secondary students, senior secondary
Description:
- 57% of children’s books published each year have male protagonists; 31% have female protagonists
- Over its 59-year history, the Miles Franklin Literary Award has been won only 17 times by a woman
- 61% of the Victorian Year 12 English Prescribed Texts for 2016 are by male authors
We often discuss literature as a mirror in which readers can see their lives reflected back at them, or as a window through which we can glimpse and start to understand the lives of others. But what happens when you can’t see yourself at all in the reflection? Or, as is often the case for boys, all you see out the window are others just like you?
Stella Schools Ambassadors work with students on their own writing, looking specifically at issues of gender when it comes to creating characters, and discussing whether stories written by male or female authors and featuring male or female main characters are received differently by readers of both genders.
The Stella Schools Ambassador Workshops will explore these issues with students in a hands-on way. Do they tend to write stories featuring only male or female characters? Do these characters behave in authentic and original ways or according to stereotypes? Are girl characters the heroes just as often as boys?
By looking at their own reading and writing habits, these workshops encourage students to broaden their own critical and creative horizons.
Topics covered:
- Creativity
- Stereotyping
- Why readers need to see people like themselves and unlike themselves in books
- The limitations of gendered reading
- The impact on both boys and girls of gender-specific marketing
- Hands-on writing advice
- Critical reading/thinking
- Text suggestions
Duration: 50-60 minutes
Requirements: Data Projector, whiteboard.
Will bring presentation on a USB and own laptop.
Stella speakers will contact the schools directly to discuss specific tech requirements.
See a full list of speakers available to visit schools here.
To enquire about booking a Stella Schools Ambassador workshop, contact Schools Manager Bec Kavanagh: schools@thestellaprize.com.au
For more information on the Stella Schools Program or to request a copy of the free education resource kit, email: schools@thestellaprize.com.au
