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What difference do the clothes we wear make to us and to people on the other side of the world?
Students will:
STARTER 1. Ask the students all to stand up. Explain that you are going to read through a list of things, and that you want them to remain standing if they would, theoretically, be willing to go without each one for several weeks or months. Would they be able to live, thrive and survive without the things. After each item, you could invite some of the students to give their reasons why they remained standing or returned to their seats. Get all the students to stand up again before reading each separate item. Use some or all of the following list, but make sure to finish on 'New clothes'.
Explain that in today's lesson you are going to be thinking about a modern twist on the Christian practice of fasting - giving up food for a short time for spiritual purposes. Before you get to that, you want the students to think about the fashion industry. MAIN ACTIVITIES 2. Introduce the clip from The Devil Wears Prada (Fox 2000 Pictures, 2006, certificate 12). Click here to buy the DVD online. Explain that Andy (Anne Hathaway) works at prestigious fashion magazine Runway. In this scene, she is meeting a group of her old friends one evening after work. Ask the students to pay particular attention to what the various characters say about fashion, and about how they react to the free gifts that Andy has brought for them. Start time: 0.35.34 (in chapter 13 of the DVD) End time: 0.38.04 Clip length: Two minutes and 30 seconds The clip starts with a montage of Andy going to work in a variety of high-fashion outfits. It finishes with one of her friends saying, 'Looks like someone's been drinking the cool-aid.' Be sure to stop the clip promptly as there is an instance of swearing shortly afterwards. Ask the students if they thought that Andy's friends' reactions to her gifts were lifelike and realistic. Do they think that real people (rather than fictional characters in a film) would react like that? If not, would they expect a more enthusiastic, or a more measured response? Remind the students of what one of Andy's friends said: 'Fashion is not about utility. An accessory is merely a piece of iconography, used to express individual identity.' To what extent do the students agree with that statement? (You may need to help them to unpack the statement so that they all understand what it means.) Do they think that you can express individual identity by buying products that are so widely available for so many people? To what extent do the students think that, rather than using fashion to express our identity, our lives are shaped and influence by the fashion industry? 3. Remind the students of the cost of some of the products Andy gave to her friends. How do the students react to the idea that a phone could be worth $1100 (approx £715), or that a handbag could cost $1900 (£1235)? Ask how the students think that people living in developing nations might react to the idea of a £700 phone, or a £1200 handbag. If you have Internet access in the classroom for your students, you could direct them to www.tearfund.org/en/what_we_do_and_where/issues to discover some of the issues arising from poverty in the developing world. Ask how the students feel about the wide disparity in disposable income between people in the developed and the developing worlds. Is it fair that some people spend such large amounts on fashion items, while others struggle to earn enough money to feed their families, or to afford an adequate supply of clean water? Ask the students to read the following Bible passages, making notes about what each passage suggests about the attitude that Christians should have towards issues of social justice and global economic imbalance.
4. Tell the students that a group of Christians have responded to the problems of global economic injustice and the influence of materialism in the developed world with a campaign for people to 'fast' (abstain) from buying new clothes for a period of time. If you have Internet access in the classroom, direct the students to www.summermadness.co.uk/2012/?page_id=238 . If you are unable to view the site during the lesson, print out this page and distribute copies to the students. Ask the students to examine the material about the Wear It Out campaign and to summarise the main purpose of the campaign. What do the organisers want people to do? What do they seem to hope will be the impact of this campaign? How well do the students think this campaign fits the principles of the Bible passages that they looked at earlier in the lesson? SUMMARY / ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING 5. Ask the students to write a newspaper article about the Wear It Out campaign. The article should reflect an understanding of the values underpinning the campaign, and should demonstrate the student's awareness of Christian perspectives towards social justice issues.
A Copy of The Devil Wears Prada and the means to play it Internet access and/or copies of Tear Fund and Wear It Out Campaign websites Bibles
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