He Said, She Said - Intermediate Relationships and Friendships Inquiry UnitTeacher TipsThis unit title suggests a gender focus, but is intended to go beyond gender and look at differences in general. "Relationships" in this unit is intended to pertain to friendships, school groups, and romantic relationships. Students will construct responses, administer surveys, and summarize findings to two sets of questions. The first set/survey is conducted in the classroom to keep the discussion about teenagers’ sexual relationships in the classroom and give practice with constructing, administering, and summarizing the finds from a survey. If students have already had survey research experience and/or the sexual relationship discussions are not permitted within your school, this part of the inquiry may be eliminated. All of the discussions in this inquiry are going to be sensitive and, at times, controversial. Establish rules of discussion for the whole group that are also applied within the small groups. Select ROPES that seem to be essential in your group. You will want to select one rule for each letter in ROPES, for a total of five rules. More than five is too many for everyone to remember and implement. You may give the list to the students in the class to select the most important ROPES from their point of view. Groups of four are assigned to conduct this inquiry. As you assign the groups of four, also assign two groups of two in each group. The two-groups are responsible for sections of the project, and will convene as four-groups to check on each others’ progress, review each others’ work, and answer one another’s questions. Students first go to their four-group with any questions before asking the teacher; if no one within the four-group can answer the question, the whole four-group seeks assistance together. Practical Problem-Solving in this inquiry may need some mini-lessons if the students have no experience with the process. Students may use the REASON handout to assist their thinking and problem solving. The Practical Problem Holistic Rubric (see assessment) is used for scoring the Practical Problem-Solving . If students need research assistance, look at Levine’s Cool Lessons (referenced above) for guidance in conducting research, or have the school librarian help the students get started. He Said, She Said is a romantic comedy from 1991 starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins. This movie reflects two perspectives on news stories from their male and female points of view. Use He Said, She Said or Gray’s book title, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, as a way to promote and build excitement for this unit. Start to talk about it ahead of time so students get excited about studying relationships and communication in a real context. Students need to submit their article to the school paper or create a classroom newspaper that is shared in the school as hard copy or electronic copy. Have the articles reviewed by the school counselor or a community counselor before publishing. Let students know ahead of time who will be reviewing their articles to set a high standard of expectation.
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