Yousman, Gender, Race, and Class in Media 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Course Projects
Part V: Representing Sexualities
1. Deconstructing a Video Advertisement: In this article, students are to select and
analyze a video advertisement of their selection. The instructor can specify if the
analysis should be focused on gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and so on. Remind
2. Creating Prezi/PowerPoint Presentations: Students create research-based
presentations using either Prezi or PowerPoint around the following topics. The
associated readings from the text are designed to get students started on the topic.
From there, they will need to gather more scholarly and popular press research to build
the content of their presentations. The topics are fairly broad, so students can narrow
down the focus as they deem relevant and interesting. Place students in groups and
assign topics/readings. Presentations should be between 10 and 20 min and the
3. Creative Writing: This assignment asks students to illustrate 12–15 claims/facts from
class materials through a short story, poem(s), play, or song(s) of their own creation. It
builds on the Identifying Claims/Facts assignment from Part I.
In creative writing, students may support or contradict the claims/facts. The claims/facts
can be included in creative writing explicitly if the piece can maintain its artistic integrity.
However, it is often the case that explicit references and analysis interfere with the
artistic integrity of the creative artifact. In these cases, students should provide a
separate analysis of their creative writing to describe how it challenges or illustrates
each of the claims/facts.
Yousman, Gender, Race, and Class in Media 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
4. Personal Reflection Journal: This project which could last a few weeks or an entire
semester calls on students to reflect on their own thoughts and ideas surrounding the
media’s representation of gay people. Ask students to keep a regular journal based on
their own experiences with the LGBTQ+ community (either as members or allies or…?)
and their encounters how media texts reflect those experiences. Are their own
5. Hindi Cinema 101: Many American students have not had a strong introduction to
Hindi cinema despite the plethora of Indian cinema available on Netflix (and the fact that
Bollywood churns out more films per year than Hollywood). This project requires
students to have access to Netflix. Like other films, Netflix organizes Indian cinema by
genre. Ask students to each pick one film and watch it over a designated period. Explain