Your engaging assignment analysis for Caster Semenya isn't a paper. You could answer the questions for each example with brief responses (you could even use bullet points). Don't worry so much about the word length on this, just focus on keeping it to 1.5 pages.
Here's one way to approach it:
from the assignment: first answer these questions for each of the three items:- How do each of the news items that you selected describe the case of Caster Semenya
- How do they define "sex" and "gender"? Does sexuality ever get discussed?
- How do the images of Semenya that they use shape our understandings of who Semenya is?
example one: Article on NBC ( http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/32477147/ns/sports-olympic_sports)
- Caster Semenya must undergo gender testing to prove she is eligible to race as a woman. The article first discusses her father's response to the charge that she is not a woman and then describes how/why Semenya must undergo the gender testing.
- The article uses the term "gender" to stand in for sex throughout almost the entire article. At the end it mentions "sexual ambiguity" once.
- The image shows off a very muscular image of Semenya which seems to reinforce that she is more masculine than feminine.
Do this for all three examples--your response to the questions can be this brief. Your three examples should only take up about 2/3 to 3/4 of a page. In the second part of the assignment (putting them into conversation), you should be able to draw some conclusions about how sex/gender are functioning in media representations and what we can learn from the media examples (and bring in one reading) in a few paragraphs. Remember, you don't have to do a comprehensive analysis here. The point of this assignment is to give you chance to look at several media examples and to document your thoughts about how these examples connect with our discussions of sex and gender.
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