Essay 3 Information
- Due: at the end of the semester
- Length: essay/brochure section: approx. 4 pp. (1000 words)
- List of items for display: approx. 3 pp.
- Final reflection: ½–1 p. (125–250 words)
Assignment: A WGS Museum Exhibit
This assignment provides a rich opportunity to visually present your knowledge about women’s and gender issues as museum artifacts, and create an informational essay/brochure, drawing from course materials, to orient viewers. Assume, for this assignment, that you are designing a gender studies museum exhibit for an audience of teens and adults around one of these two topic areas:
- From 1848 Onward: The Struggle for Gender Equality in the U.S. (historical and contemporary focus)
- Gender, Work, and Families (more contemporary focus)
Write a short informative essay/guide (4 pp. / 1000 words) to orient viewers to the gender issues and critical questions in the exhibit, drawing explicitly upon at least six course readings. (The essay addresses a popular readership; include a thesis or “mapping” statement previewing central issues/questions of the exhibit.) Envision yourself as a museum educator or curator; the essay should motivate engagement with the exhibit. In your essay/guide, pose critical questions to open up new ways of thinking about gender, sexuality, work, and families, rather than explicitly advocating specific position(s). Imagine this essay as a brochure accompanying a visual exhibit, which may be online or in a museum building.
Following the essay, list at least ten different items to display (in order) with a brief interpretive caption (1–2 lines) for each (approx. 3 pp.). (Display items can include timelines, charts/graphs, ads, clips from films or TV shows, short quotes from course readings or newspaper articles, photos, etc. Include images from the Internet, if you can.) Your focus may be global as well as U.S.-based. The essay/guide should refer explicitly to some, but not necessarily all, items on display; aim for at least five. Depending on which option you choose, there are many different gender issues that you might cover in your museum exhibit. Feel free to focus your museum exhibit on a particular topic, e.g., gender issues for African-American women in the first wave and second and later waves of women’s rights activism; same-sex couples and gender/work/family issues; or work/family and other gender issues for women in STEM fields.
Note: Draw examples from readings (and films) to support your points; use parenthetical citations to document sources (see citation handout). Feel free to use material from your first and second essays, as well as oral presentations. Be sure to introduce quotes adequately, creating smooth transitions between your writing and that of sources.
Final Reflection
Due with Essay 3
In what ways has WGS. 101: Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies—readings, films, lectures, discussions, your own essays/presentations—influenced your thinking about gender and women’s roles in society and in your own
life? Name two or three questions this course has generated for you (½–1 p.).
