What the work shows

Angela, Annie, Emma, Sophie R., Margaux, Amanda, Sharon, and Sophie K. were able to investigate and discuss media influences on personal body image. Their bumper stickers encapsulate their ideas and demonstrate their ability to investigate societal influences on well-being.

Progress Indicator

Societal attitudes and beliefs

Investigates and discusses the ways societal influences have an impact on the well-being of student communities

Teacher-student reflection (1)

The teacher guided the groups' learning by asking them to develop bumper sticker messages and images that drew on the class discussions and any new understandings the students had gained about body image. She then asked them to explain to the class how they were challenging media influences on body image and how they had connected their ideas from previous activities to produce their bumper stickers.

When brainstorming possible messages for their bumper sticker, Angela, Annie, Emma, and Sophie R. drew on their new understandings resulting from the video and the related discussion of influences on body image. In particular, they were interested in the idea that everyone is judged by the way they look: 'You realise you are judged. You don't realise you're judging other people, but you are.' They connected this idea to the images of the eyes and mouths by pointing out: 'People judge you by seeing you – they need their eyes to see you.' Similarly, the girls explained the connection with mouths by stating: 'Because we speak through our mouths and say judgmental things about others, why not just be happy with who we are and don't bother passing judgment on others?' Their challenge to the influence of media images on body image was about 'not seeing people and judging only on their appearance but to get to know the person'.

Teacher-student reflection (2)

Margaux explained that she, Amanda, and Sharon got this idea from a local billboard advertisement for a car that could seat a family of five. During their discussion to decide on a message, they worked on the idea of using this as a visual image along with using something about supermodels, a focus inspired by some of the earlier exploratory work. The new connection for them was to view supermodels as 'not human': 'They're all fake', 'They're computer modified', 'They can't eat like normal people', and 'They're like skeletons – that's why you can fit so many of them in the car.' Their challenge to the media messages was that 'You don't have to be that thin and so 'un-human''.

Sophie K. explained that the idea for her bumper sticker came from connecting ideas from previous discussions about fashion dolls, cosmetic surgery, and how 'plastic' and artificial it all was. The message she finally decided upon was inspired by the selection of photos she found in magazines. She likened people who undergo significant changes in appearance to being 'like plastic dolls', having 'unnatural proportions and looks', and being 'artificial and not real'. Sophie intended the message 'Don't base your life on a doll' to be self-explanatory. She wanted it to simply express: 'We don't have to be plastic and artificial like that.'

For her collage, Sophie chose images that included clothing store mannequins, child beauty queens, underwear models, pop and rock idols, brides, animated characters, and high-profile people who have undergone cosmetic surgery. Because of intellectual property and privacy issues, her collage cannot be shown here.

Print version of this exemplar (PDF, 99.4kb)

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