Gen Ed Girlhood

While general education (gen ed) courses are commonly created as overviews of disciplines, a girlhood-centric approach celebrates a tightly focused introduction to girl identities as an entry point to critical analysis of gender and associated systems of oppression. I offer a rationale for my Cultural Constructions of Girlhood course and discuss specific assignments and strategies for introducing girlhood as a field of study for university students. This course offers grounding in how important childhood literature is in shaping our concepts of who we are and are allowed to be as well as indicating ways in which the idea of literature may be expanded and updated to include many modes and styles of text by attending to the artifacts of everyday girlhood.