# Slides 5.2: What Clothing Communicates Slide outline for Lesson 5.2, one day, thirteen slides. The plain shirt on a hanger carries slides 5 to 7; the chart paper carries slides 10 to 12. [Sal: your own shirt, and your own 80s Day story at slide 10, in about 45 seconds.] ## Slide 1: What clothing says before you do - Lesson 5.2 - One rule today: we talk about clothing, not about each other's clothes - Nobody in this room has to explain or defend what they are wearing - By the end: this class writes an agreement we all sign Image: a speech bubble with a T-shirt shape inside it instead of words. Notes: Say the rule out loud and point at it on the board. It is already written up there from before the bell. ## Slide 2: Do now - Two people walk into a store - One is wearing a suit. One is wearing a delivery uniform. - Write the first thing you assume about each one - Then write one reason your assumption could be wrong Image: two plain figures side by side, one in a suit, one in a delivery uniform with a package. ## Slide 3: Four channels of communication 1. Words: what you choose to say 2. Voice: tone, volume, speed, pauses 3. Body: face, hands, posture, distance 4. Appearance: clothing, grooming, what you carry - Clothing lives in channel 4, and people read it first Image: four labeled boxes in a row with an eye icon over box 4. Notes: People form an impression almost instantly, before you speak. [Sal: either cite a specific study on this slide or leave the number off. Do not put an unsourced number on the site.] ## Slide 4: Nonverbal means without words - Nobody chose to send the message - The message got sent anyway - Knowing that gives you a choice: you can dress on purpose - It does not give you the right to grade what anybody else is wearing Image: a mouth with an X over it next to a shirt with sound lines coming off it. ## Slide 5: What a uniform says - "I have a role here" - It tells you what somebody does and who to ask for help - It takes personal choice off the table on purpose - A nurse, a referee, a team, a school with uniforms Image: three uniformed silhouettes with no faces, a nurse in scrubs, a referee in stripes, a player in a numbered jersey. Notes: Ask what a police uniform says, then a referee's, then a school uniform. Three different answers, all loud. ## Slide 6: What a costume says - "This is not me today" - On purpose, temporary, and both sides know it - A play, a mascot, Spirit Week - The trap: a costume only works when everybody knows it is a costume Image: a theater mask and a mascot head side by side. ## Slide 7: One shirt, three settings - Setting 1: a job interview - Setting 2: a family cookout - Setting 3: a school hallway - Same shirt. Three readings. Image: the same plain button-down shown three ways, with a tie, sleeves rolled and untucked, and under a hoodie. Notes: Hold the actual shirt. Change it in front of them. For each setting ask: what does it say here, who is the audience, would it work in one of the others? ## Slide 8: The shirt did not change - What changed was the setting - And the audience - And what that audience already expects - Write the sentence: "The shirt did not change. What changed was ___." Image: an arrow labeled "setting" and an arrow labeled "audience" both pointing at one unchanged shirt. ## Slide 9: Clothing and culture - A hijab, a sari, a kilt, a kente cloth, a guayabera, a kufi, a huipil - Religious, regional, practical, and often very old - An item that belongs to a living culture is not a costume - "It is just a costume" is not an answer Image: seven small respectful illustrations of the named garments, each labeled, shown as garments and not on caricatured figures. Notes: Accuracy matters here. Name each item correctly. If a student in the room wears one of these, do not turn to them; the point is made from the slide. ## Slide 10: Clothing and generations - Jeans in the 1970s, the 1990s, and now - Every generation thought theirs looked right - Every generation got criticized by the one before it - Every single one of them thought the criticism was unfair Image: three pairs of jeans in three silhouettes, wide, baggy, and current, labeled by decade. Notes: This is where the 80s Day story goes. [Sal: forty-five seconds, first person, no names. You and a colleague stopped the planned lesson because the hallway comments got mean. Students believe a story about a teacher changing his plan.] ## Slide 11: The sticky notes - One comment about clothing you have heard at this school - No names. No details that identify anybody. - Face down in the box - I read a few out loud. I skip anything with a name in it. Image: a small box with folded sticky notes going into a slot. Notes: Skim them before you read any aloud. Skip anything about a staff member. ## Slide 12: We write the agreement - Two columns: okay to say, not okay to say - Nominate a line. I will ask you why. - About five lines per column, so it can be read from the back - Then we vote, and everybody who agrees signs it Image: a blank two-column chart with the headings "Okay to say" and "Not okay to say." Notes: Push every nomination with "why?" Steer toward lines students can actually keep. ## Slide 13: This stays up - The agreement stays posted for the rest of Unit 5 - It comes back out on the first sewing day, when you hold up your own crooked first stitch - And at the gallery walk, when thirty projects go on a table Image: the signed chart paper taped to a classroom wall next to a display table. Notes: Exit card: one line you will actually use; one thing clothing says without words; one question. Give the counselor a copy of the agreement.