Intro
This page is an analysis of my process for creating the podcast/microsite in the theme of Disney Films & Gender Social Norms and a reflection of my progress toward course objectives. Podcast/microsite assignment is a group work with five people contained our opinions about how Disney films represent social constructions of gender roles. We talked about it together in the podcast and made a microsite that included the podcast’s background information and group members ’ basic information to display our podcast. From making this podcast, I deeply learned the “Understand the importance of having a process when you are composing a sophisticated text” section in course objectives since many elements are included in the final microsite. The most important task is to collect sources from broadening my horizon and enhancing my knowledge reserve of Disney films in the first five weeks. Then from week six, I began to consolidate information from past assignments, and at week seven, I finished the final microsite. Obviously, the process of making a microsite greatly tells me how to break a sophisticated task into small pieces and complete them one by one.
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Pre-Production: Preparation and Planning
Model Podcast Annotations (Thursday) - Group 6
This image is a summary part of the annotation model podcast assignment. By thinking about what Eric said and writing my own feedback, I learned the Openness section of Habit of Mind. I have never thought about whether Belle truly plays the heroine’s role in the film until I read his perspective. Therefore, his idea taught me to open my mind and think more freely and not be limited to the fixed thoughts that the movie transmits to us.
Week 3 Exploratory Writing: Beauty & the Beast and Gender Codes
This image annotates the words supporting characters said in the film Beauty and the Beast (2017). From doing this assignment, I learned how to Apply these reading skills to various kinds of texts because I need to focus on every character’s words and thinking about how their words can connect to the final theme I want to write about. Unlike reading a normal article, listening is more important in video form. Thus, catching the main point and analyzing sentence structure became more necessary. By the way, the content of this part obviously represents how gender roles are displayed in Disney films.
Outline/Script for Podcast (Sunday) - Group 6
This image is an annotation about the words said by leading female Gamora in the film Guardians of Galaxy (2014). This is a good example of proving that females can also be brave enough to save others rather than just waiting like earlier Disney princesses. From all of these annotations, I learned the annotation part of Improve your written literacy, digital literacy, and overall communication skills across several media in the course objectives. With annotating, I can have a deeper understanding of the film or an article.
Production--Creating the Podcast and Microsite
Outline/Script for Podcast (Sunday) - Group 6
This image is an outline of my part in our group’s podcast, concluded three main ideas I plan to talk about, and a series of examples correlated with topics. From outlining, I learn the Develop effective habits for your own writing process part in course objectives because I find it efficient to write a brief manuscript after writing an outline. Also, this outline sufficiently helps to focus on the topic. After that, I decided to write an outline before writing every longer article to ensure that I always focus on the topic.
Microsite of Group 6
I am the microsite editor, and this image is about our group’s microsite background part. For this section, I put a video as the background instead of just an image, which made this microsite page look more attractive. Also, I think everyone who has watched Disney films before would know this short cut of movie so it can resonate with readers. From this part, I learned “Practice communication skills by reading, speaking, and composing in different types of media” in the course objectives because this is the first time that I record a radio such as a podcast with others. It made me realize that there are so many interesting ways to improve writing ability, and it is not just a single article writing.
Group's script in Google. docs
This is some of part in the script of our group’s podcast. Since the podcast is not simply reading the article, we need to make connections. I learned the “Practice collaboration and learn how to be an effective collaborator” part of the course objectives because from listening to other group members’ ideas and correlated with my ideas, I need to modify my script many times for keeping the theme as consistent as possible and sound coherent and smooth.
Looking Ahead in Three Paragraphs
In personal homework： Week 5 Exploratory Writing, I did not read the homework requirements carefully, which caused me to omit a summary of each part's analysis characters. At that time, I thought I only needed to analyze the statements, does, and looks one by one, but after reading the requirements carefully, I found that it turned out to be a need for everyone. I discovered this problem when I submitted my homework to do peer review by other people, so I added four small summaries to the end by replying to myself. I learned from this practice that I must read the homework requirements by myself. Even if it is similar to the previous homework, I can't rush to complete the homework according to my own ideas without fully understanding the requirements.
This is an image of my ridiculous "extra" summary.
By recording podcasts with group members, I learned that in a group, there must be a qualified leader who will lead everyone to hand in assignments on time and make decisions when needed or propose solutions to problems. I am pleased that the members of the group are very active in completing the homework. With everyone taking the initiative, we have more time to discuss how to make our podcast more complete. There is plenty of time to modify it repeatedly, instead of simply meeting the minimum requirements and coping with homework. As a result, harmony between the group members is also essential. When a group member is not actively involved in the work, take the initiative to drive her to participate, instead of waiting for her to start the job until the deadline, so there is neither a good group relationship nor excellent job quality. Besides, the principles of fairness and justice should be taken into consideration when making decisions. For example, when setting the theme of our podcast, people who have ideas say their own ideas and then vote. The final theme is the one with more votes. This is both fair and satisfies most people's requirements.
This is a screenshot of the chatbox in Zoom when we decided on our thesis statement. After typing the ideal statement in our minds, we vote to select the two favorite topics. For example, if you like the second and the fourth, enter 2, 4 in the chat, and the topic with more votes is the final topic.
I focused on toxic masculinity in the podcast and did not discuss feminism in-depth but mentioned it briefly. In the next essay, I want to focus on gender roles about females, such as low feminism in Disney films. One of my favorite points about Beauty and the Beast is that Belle is not a real heroine. This is a very new and thought-provoking point of view. Because indeed, Belle seems to be the heroine, but after careful thinking, you will find that, indeed, all Belle's decisions are about others. The changing status of women's rights in Disney films has also been a topic I am very interested in. Because in recent years, there have been more and more heroines and fewer princess movies. It's no longer the days when we were crazy about princesses in our childhood because we gradually discovered the contemplative and terrifying aspects of princess fairy tales, that is, extremely low feminism, contempt for women, and wireless advocacy masculinity. Although recent heroine movies still have inherent ideas about women, for example, most heroines wear tights and look very beautiful and attract the attention of enemies through their looks. But what is gradually changing is that women gradually become independent and can help others be brave. They are no longer princesses who only pick wild fruits, talk to birds, and wait to be kissed by the prince. It's not difficult to see that we are optimistic about the change in women's attitudes