Using Mulan to Teach Gender Stereotypes

I love Disney. 
Honestly, at this point, it’s probably a bit irrational.  My husband doesn’t understand it.  My kids don’t understand it.  But Disney movies in the 90s were the
companion to an only child, i.e. me.  So
anytime I can go back to my happy place I will. 
Therefore, I use a lot of Disney in my teaching.
When I do my big unit on gender stereotypes, I reference
Mulan a lot.  One year, I had almost an
entire student group tell me that they hadn’t seen the movie.  I dreamed that night about all the lessons I
could plan around the movie.  Besides
viewing it as literature, I had the students identify any point in the movie
that supported the idea that gender norms/ stereotypes can be beneficial, and
any point in the movie that supported the idea that gender norms/ stereotypes
are not beneficial.  I had them transfer
those into a graphic organizer that also had a bubble outline for a persuasive essay.  They then had to choose a side and write a
draft using the movie as evidence. 
Pretty easy.
If you’d like the free graphic organizer, you can find it
here.

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