Week 11: Day One The 50s Trophy Wives vs. Today's Trophy Wives

Today's lesson was based on an essay by Deborah Siegal called The New Trophy Wife.

The men were against the women in a comparison-contrast activity that compared trophy spouses of the 50s with trophy spouses of today. The men had to compare and contrast 50's trophy husbands  new trophy husbands today, while the women were asked to compare and contrast trophy wives of the 50s with trophy wives today.

The groups worked as a team of four: researcher, resource person, writer, and researcher/presenter to complete the table, find two graphics and include their sources.


Here is what Mel, Mal, Brittany and Anna Marie submitted.

#	Trophy Wife of Today	Trophy Wife of the 1950s
1	Work and make more or the same amount of money as their husbands	Women stayed home as homemakers and raised their children
2	Men are more willing to marry women with more education than themselves	Men married their wives for their beauty and body
3	Women think men are intimidated by their education and their powered career	Most women graduated high school and were married right after and began having children
4	1 in 3 women make more money than their husbands	2 out of 5 women with husbands and school-age children worked outside of the home
5	“If a woman is powerful, smart, and ambitious, her expectations for her husband, and for the relationship, rise.  Women tend to think that their spouse is not keeping his end of the pact	Women depended on the husband to earn money, support the family and help with all their problems.  Women were always portrayed as helpless and unable to take care of themselves.
6	Successful, educated women on average marry in their thirties	The average age of women getting married was early twenties

Clouse, Barbara Fine. Patterns for a Purpose: a Rhetorical Reader. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.

Roobix Coob. “A Women’s Role in the 1950s” Yahoo.com. Associated Content, 17 Nov.

2005. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.

"Women's Roles in the 1950s." 1950's Lifestyles and Social Trends. Gale Cengage, 1994. eNotes.com. 2006. 1 Nov, 2011 <http://www.enotes.com/1950-lifestyles-social-trends-american-decades/
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 I had to spend about 20-minutes checking students' comprehension of the essay, because people are coming to class unprepared. For example, I asked what the term 'alpha' male meant and no one could answer. 

The Google peer reviews had to be delayed because a lot of the students had their access set to Can View rather than Can Edit. We sorted that out though, so I am hoping the process gets easier the next time around. I ended up putting two peer editing discussion forums up (one in Week 10 and the other in Week 11) which wasn't really necessary since the Google links automatically update when people make changes to them.