Research Assignment 1. Gendered Toys. Literature & Language Essay

Research Assignment 1 Intro to WGS
This week, you will do quick but quality research to find clarification or more information on one topic that we have learned about in Weeks 1-2 of our course. You should not spend more than a day or two searching for a source to complete this assignment, and you should not write a lot about it. These are not essays or research papers! They are “research notes” on one thing that you’re making for both yourself and your classmates. Your main objective is to create a short, encyclopedia-type note on what you have discovered.
You can be creative in your choice of subject, but be sure you can justify how it fits into the topics, terms, names, or events listed below. Keep the following things in mind: 
1. The challenge in this assignment is to find a “just right” approach to the subject. It shouldn’t be too broad. For example, you don’t want to say “I researched gender”. It also shouldn’t be too narrow, with your entire presentation to your classmates encapsulated in one sentence (ie “Here is X’s definition of gender_______”. 
2. Your sources should be academic or at least from professional source. The goal is to find reliable, instructional content. While blogs, social media posts, and other popular sources have their place in both research and activism, the goal of this exercise is instructional. You are seeking to educate yourself more on a topic, and in turn to educate your classmates on it as well. How do you know this is the best/trusted source on this information? Be sure to have some evidence of the credibility of the source in your presentation. Can you provide a citation? Give us a sentence or two on why it’s trustworthy, or how you found it? You should not exceed 1-2 sources for your information, so they should be top quality. Remember, this is not a “research paper”!
3. You should present this source (or the 2 sources) by creating some text and bulleted info or  1-2 paragraphs maximum that contain the following: 
a. Your objective. “I wanted to find out more about ______” is a good way to begin!
b. Your source or method of searching. How did you go about finding those details? Why did you choose this source or these sources to put together this information? 
c. 1-2 key take-aways from what you’ve read. What did you learn about the topic? What major idea do you want US to know about it? 
d. An image or visual data if possible. What can we look at that will help us understand that major idea you’d like us to remember from your presentation? 
4. You will present this information in one post to the Discussion Board (“Research Assignment” forum, organized by last name) no later than Thursday, June 11th. You should respond to a classmate’s post offering a comment and/or critique no later than Sunday, June 14th. 
What Was Introduced in Weeks 1-2? 
Social Construction Theory
Gender & Neuro-biology 
Gender Conflict Theory
Harriet Martineau 
Gendered Toys
Binary Systems
The Beauty Myth
Kenneth Clark’s “Doll Test”
Simone de Beauvior
Intersectionality
Black Feminist Movements 
Kimberlé Crenshaw
Bechdel Test
Intersectionality Theory
“Blackface”
Social Media & Racist Images 
Gender in Medical and Scientific Research
How Should I Start This? 
Do some digging! Find good sources of information, using these key words as starting points. See if the sources you find help you narrow the topic a bit, finding one or two key ideas that would be helpful for you to know and pass along to your students. Sample and Model assignments will be posted early next week to help you think about how to organize the content before you post them to the class, but be sure to formulate your own thoughts and ideas first, before reviewing the samples.