Matt Johnston

ENG 296 Dr. Lillge

3/5/20

Annotated Bibliography

Essential Questions: How can/do we give a voice and empower women?

What is the societal value in gender equality?

Choice Text:

Clark P. Djèlí. The Haunting of Tram Car 015. A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2019.

This will be a required text for all students to read. The summary of it, is a story of two detectives who
are charged with solving the case of a haunted tram car in 1912 Cairo, Egypt in a historical fantasy story
where imperialism hasn’t touched North Africa and the Middle East. This novel exposes the detectives to
many new worlds in Cairo, exposing themselves to suffragettes, robots, magic, and much more that are
pivotal in the story. It is a very great compact short story and is an informative and useful novel. This
book deals with two different views on feminism and equal rights, so it shows an array of perspectives
that will feed into students’ perspectives. This novel is highly valued in the text set because it shows us
real views of women, traditional and progressive, while also showing correct responses to social change
and how to legally spark social change. There are many components to analyze in this short novel and the
novel although new, is popularized for it’s alluring world and character building with a YA audience.

Milner Digital Sources:

I Was a Teenage Feminist: A documentary about redefining the F-word. Directed by Therese Shechter,
performance by Gloria Steinem. Production by Trixie Films and Up Front Entertainment, 2005.

This is a new aged story of working and dealing with feminism from a female’s perspective, that shows
us the issues and uncomfortableness involved with labeling yourself as a feminist. It is a light-heart,
funny, and real story of a women’s journey through feminism, and what it means for her, and many others
in today’s society. This is valuable in the classroom because of the journey, perspective, and full
experience of what it is like in modern society to be a feminist.

The Grey Area- Feminism Behind Bars. Directed by Noga Ashkenazi, performance by prison inmates.
Production by Women Make Movies, 2012. Kanopy, https://illstu.kanopy.com/video/grey-area-feminism-
behind-bars

This is a great resourceful documentary examining many societal issues with women in prison. The
discussion involves a number of society issues, mainly centering around women and feminism. This
video offers a completely different and unique perspective of women, some of which have been
completely oppressed and taken into an unfair system. The value of the text, is the uniqueness of the
perspective it offers, students will be exposed to a new line of thinking from seeing the devastation that
happens when women don’t get a voice. It will also show students a new problem they haven’t not been
exposed to and is similar to “The 13th” documentary on Netflix in a similar sense.

Print Milner Sources:

DiPucchio, Kelly, and LeUyen Pham. Grace For President. Disney-Hyperion, 2012.

This is a great picture book, describing a young girl’s journey to becoming class president, and has many
stereotypical issues women in politics face in the book. This is a great text for young children, but serves
a completely different purpose reading through it at an older age. The value in this text is showing the
obstacles, stereotypes, and common patriarchal systems that women must face to even be heard politically
and socially. It has many valuable take-away life lessons embedded within the text that students will find
useful.

Pitman, Gayle E. Feminism From A to Z. Magination PR, 2017.

This is a fantastic text that offers feminism from A to Z. It defines and talks through an array of different
elements, components, and issues that women face, A-Z. The entire text wouldn’t be used, only the intro,
outro, M is for Media, N is for No, Z is for zero. The work this does with my essential questions is high,
there are many good sections that relate and talk about feminism and issues of equality that students can
work with. All of the sections I have selected from the text are vital and relatable to students, as these are
all assumptions, challenges, and stereotypes they have heard about feminism and it dispels these and
inspires a new way of thought.

Instructional resources:

English Speeches. “Emma Watson: Gender Equality (English Subtitles)”. Online video clip. Youtube.
Youtube, 22 June. 2017. Web. 5 March. 2020.

This is a great and powerful recent speech on feminism and what feminism truly is. In the clip, Emma
Watson details her own experiences with feminism, the problems with it from all sides, and then offers
some critiques and challenges to people who watch the video. This fits in very well with my essential
questions and text set because it directly talks about feminism, but in a more recent time. This also offers
the ideal and celebrity promotion of feminism, one of which is followed and promoted by many
individuals, so it will be import for students to see this perspective and view on the issue in comparison to
the average feminist and how their views differ amongst other things.

Kalanadi. “The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark | Review”. Online video clip. Youtube.
Youtube, 19 Feb. 2019. Web. 5 March. 2020.

This resource is something that students will be working with later on in this unit, giving a book/text talk.
While this serves as a great introduction to the text, it doubles as an example that students will model
their collaborative book talk later on. This video touches on many of the important elements in the novel,
and even discussing the representation of women in the novel and their role, exposing students to this
prominent theme in the novel. This could be useful for discussion about the novel and to learn about
giving a book talk.

Randunu, Thisari. “The Feminist Paradox”. TED. Dec. 2017. Lecture.

In this recent Ted Talk, Thisari talks about the paradox of feminism, detailing the good and bad that
comes with it. In addition to the implications and labels that are forced on people who decide to call
themselves feminists, for both genders. This is a very relevant and real talk that connects today culture to
feminism, which makes this a very valued text. I would imagine using this after showing documentaries
to build the view of feminism now with the students.

Story Map Activity/guide for The Haunting of Tram Car 015

https://www.teachingbooks.net/content/StoryMap_level4_sample.pdf

This is a resource that coincides with the text everyone will read, The Haunting of Tram Car 015. This is
a tool for students to use to organize their thoughts and findings when reading the text. This serves a great
purpose for students to start thinking about the essential questions that the unit covers. This will promote
students to think about a list of different elements and inquiry questions that will inspire them to deeply
read the text.

Choice text students pick from:

Each of these texts below is a offered as a choice to students, they will pick stories based off the title and
a short summary. They can choose any of the three texts, all which center around historical feminism and
views of women through American history.

Franklin, Benjamin, and Geoffrey Spencer. The Speech of Miss Polly Baker. Bookworm's Press, 2002.

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-speech-of-miss-polly-baker/

This is a great text centering around the rights women had in the days of 1700’s in America. This text
walks us through the tedious and unfair life of a fictional character created by a founding father to
criticize oppressive American system against women. I would imagine that using this full text in the class
would be very successful, this is a popular short story from Benjamin Franklin, and is renowned for its
progressive stances for women. The value of the text is that it provides a full picture of feminism over the
years in American and also offers insights to the obstacles and patriarchy women faced.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Rain City Projects, 2003.

This text is one of the most popular feminist short stories. It has great representations of patriarchal
systems in families and about a woman’s voice and power. The summary of this, is a “bed-ridden sick”
woman, who is married to a doctor and it goes through her “sickness” and experience being confined to a
single room with yellow wallpaper and her interactions with it. It is popularized for its symbolic
expressions of the domestic life that traps so many women. This text would be highly valued in the fact
that it directly deals with feminism and a woman’s voice, but in a subtle, symbolic way. The whole text
would be used as it is a choice selection short story for students. This text would be very successfully
paired with a number of other texts in this set.

Seward, Anna. Amelia: Or The Faithless Briton. W. Spotiswood, and C.P. Wayne, 1798.

This text offers amazing insights to the foundation of chivalry, the problems with it, along with themes of
abandonment, feminism, and the voice of women. This is a tale of a twisted love story, in which a woman
disobeys her father’s orders and suffers the consequences. The value of this text is high, it shows readers
many of the core values which we view women with and the problems with it. It would be used in full
text as it is a short story where students can work with a number of different elements.