With over a month under our belt, PLP students are slowly adjusting to these strange times. Our humanities class has now switched from the hybrid (half online, half face-to-face) instruction model to being fully in school and things are beginning to feel more normal. Of course, I am using the PLP definition of normal, which means studying highly inappropriate television shows to explore woman’s suffrage. Let this post be the official introduction to my learning journey through our newest project, Shrew You!

On our first day of “switched” PLP we sat in the classic PLP room and began to catch up with classmates we hadn’t seen in months. We also discussed our summer reading assignment, in which we were given a choice of classic books to read and reflect on. From here, we were tasked with writing a short reflection on what we thought made our chosen books a classic in reference to this article. When reading my book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I used a strategy which I had developed in grade 11 to take notes. It involved creating a criteria document with sections listing all of the things we were encouraged to take notes on and I would refer to this document every 2-3 pages. By doing this, I was able to categorize my thoughts and gain a much more comprehensive understanding of the characters, story and themes. This, along with the external research I did into the themes, proved quite useful during this writing exercise as I was able to pull out full fledged ideas simply from these notes. 

Writing this paragraph taught me to useful skill of how to condense an entire month’s worth of notes into a 40 minute writing session, but it also taught me the value of balancing big picture with specific examples. I have always aimed to do this in my work, but due to the fact that many of our projects are universally completed (e.g. every student in every grade completes the same project), I often found that I didn’t need to explain the little details for people to understand my writing. However, as we all read different books for this assignment, I learned that there is value in explaining simple details (such as naming the protagonist instead of just saying “the protagonist”) as external audiences will be feeling just as in the dark as people who didn’t read the book.  

Another thing we recently have been working on is expanding our vocabulary through the use of the site Commonlit. We are regularly assigned readings from texts of the present and past through here where we need to write responses and answer questions. At first, I found these readings challenging as I would often lose my train of thought when encountering a word a didn’t know. I then remembered that I had recently learned I was an external processor and decided to try to use the strategies of talking to myself and debating the ideas of the text with my parents. This worked quite well in increasing my level of understanding and I feel I was able to produce better responses because of it. 

Now all of the examples above seem like your typical English class. Things only became really PLP when we started watching Sex in the City. Don’t worry, we didn’t spend our whole class time watching Sex in the City, we spent most of it talking about the word slut. Actually, that doesn’t sound much better, but it was an interesting discussion. We explored a number of examples in the media of this word being used historically and in modern day, each providing a glimpse into the view of women at that time. What I found quite useful in understanding the context of the word was looking at how it was being used as a tool. In the older examples, such as this infamous SNL clip, it was used as a tool for humour and thus proved that people took offending women a lot less seriously. In more recent sources however, such as this clip from Sex in the City, we can tell the word is being used as a serious plot device and this proves how women’s struggles are being given a lot more gravity.

The Golden Girls is sometimes considered a feminist show due to how it handles progressive women’s issues.

Seeing how the treatment of this word changed so much over such a short period of time made me wonder if it had changed since its historical origins. The answer to this was yes, as according to an article by the Jakarta Post, the word slut was once used to describe an untidy man, as in this quote from Geoffrey Chaucer’s book The Canterbury Tales: “Why is thy lord so sluttish, I thee pray, And is of power better clothes to bey.” (Chaucer 1793). This then changed to predominantly describe untidy women and eventually gained the ties to sexuality which we know today. I found this interesting to learn as it proved the word itself wasn’t innately bad, but became inappropriate through its use as a device to usurp the power of women. This got me thinking about a universal way to define if any inappropriate humour is too far; by seeing if it takes power away from another, and I voiced this idea in class as I felt it could be relevant to further consider. 

Overall, I have found this project launch quite interesting. Through the Commonlit readings I have increased my vocabulary and a fervent love for reading has been sparked within me. I have also learned the importance of including small details and how I can better comprehend texts by using external processing methods. I think the most fascinating topic we learned about however is the continuity and change of the lives of women over the years. Despite the public respect for women changing from being able to casually toss around the word slut to women’s issues being seriously addressed in media, women still have to fight against authority to be taken seriously and secure their rights. For example, PayScale.com states that the wage gap between women and men is currently 19%, but searching up “wage gap isn’t real” gives you several sources claiming it to be a myth. I find this interesting as I can draw parallels to what we explored in the civil rights movement last year and how people such as Donald Trump claim that systemic racism doesn’t exist. 

With this project just kicking off, there is still so much more to learn and I am excited to tackle whatever topics are in store for the future.

Works Cited:

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Penguin, 2003.

Giphy. “The Taming Of The Shrew GIFs – Get the Best GIF on GIPHY.” GIPHY, https://giphy.com/explore/the-taming-of-the-shrew. Accessed 23 Oct. 2020.

Jaswani , Jaanam. “The Word ‘Slut’, Then and Now.” The Jakarta Post, 26 July 2016, https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2016/07/26/the-word-slut-then-and-now.html.

Jones, Malcolm. “The Surprising Roots of the Word ‘Slut.’” The Daily Beast, 21 Mar. 2015, https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/21/the-surprising-roots-of-the-word-slut.

Ross, Tracey. “30 Years Later, ‘The Golden Girls’ Is Still the Most Progressive Show on Television.” Medium, 23 Dec. 2015, https://medium.com/@traceylross/30-years-later-the-golden-girls-is-still-the-most-progressive-show-on-television-b63aadd2edec.

“The Jakarta Post – Media Bias/Fact Check.” Media Bias/Fact Check, 19 Oct. 2020, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-jakarta-post/.