REFLECTION ESSAY ASSIGNMENT Write a 1000(ish) word essay using four tools from t

REFLECTION ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

Write a 1000(ish) word essay using four tools from this course (your
options are listed below) that re-examines, re-explains, re-analyzes
some social topic you already know something about. Use our sociological
tools to re-think and re-examine something familiar to you and gain new
insights by doing so!

Assignment Purpose: take some of the new sociological tools you’ve learned about (4 of them, choose from below list) and apply them to something you already are familiar with. This assignment will help you:

• increase your knowledge of key course concepts by having to use and apply them
• develop your sociological imagination
• develop your writing skills to introduce a coherent topic, analyze
  it from a sociological point of view, and reflect upon what you’ve
  learned
• demonstrate your ability to take four of our sociological tools and use them

Steps to Get Started and Complete this Assignment:

1. Review the “assignment purpose” stated above
2. Read, review, skim the examples of past good essays posted on Canvas
   (see “Reflection Essay Materials” module on the home page of our Canvas
   site to see what past students have written)
3. Choose a social topic that is familiar to you; this could be
   something from your personal experience; it could be something from our
   culture (such as a social theme from a television show, movie, novel,
   etc.); or something else that you have specific knowledge of. Avoid big,
   broad topics with which you have no personal knowledge or experience
   (see the “choosing a topic” section of our “Essay Tip Sheet” post on
   Canvas for help choosing a topic).
4. Choose the 4 Sociology concepts from the below list that you believe
   will help you examine, analyze your topic from a sociological point of
   view; those concepts and your application of them should be connected to one another
5. Write the essay; you might choose to follow a simple structure with

1. a paragraph introduction of your topic and the concepts you will use,
2. 4 body paragraphs, one for each concept where you define and apply
   those concepts using course materials (lecture and/or textbook), and
3. a conclusion where you reflect on how writing the essay learn new things about your topic

Please discuss any questions with Soc. 101 TAs or Professor Redding on topic choice, etc.

Strong Essays Will:

1. Introduce a clear and coherent social topic that you wish to analyze
   sociologically and introduce the 4 concepts that will help you analyze
   it. Your introductory paragraph should include a theme or thesis that
   unites the essay into a coherent whole (10 points)
2. Define and apply each of the four concepts used. Your definitions should be derived from course materials (the
   text and lectures) but try to put each in your own words, while citing
   the text and/or lectures. Only use concepts from the below list; if you
   want to try a different concept, ask your TA (the person who grades your
   DPs) and me for permission before writing. Show us how these
   definitions and applications help you analyze, make sociological sense
   of this experience, event, issue, cultural product (20 points)
3. Connect each definition and application to one another. All concepts
   and applications should connect to one another and back to your topic
   and thesis (10 points)
4. Discuss how your analysis of this topic have helped you gain new
   sociological insights, new understandings relative to what or how you
   thought about it before (5 points)
5. Be easy to read and written and organized clearly, with:
   1. Relatively few grammatical or spelling errors
   2. A title page with a title for your essay, your name, and the date on it
   3. MS Word format (.doc or .docx), double-spaced, 12 point font, 1 inch margins
   4. Citation to course materials (the text, lecture notes) when you use
      them. See “Essay Tip Sheet” on Canvas for details. Also, see notes on
      avoiding plagiarism, discussed below (5 points).

REFLECTION ESSAY CONCEPT LIST: Readings covered: chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 plus Canvas readings through March 7. Choose 4 from this list to define and apply in your essay:

• Marxist theory
• rational choice theory
• feminist theory
• symbolic interactionist theory
• functionalist theory
• correlation
• dependent/independent variables
• culture
• subculture
• nature vs. nurture
• cultural universal
• cultural relativism
• ethnocentrism
• multiculturalism
• assimilation
• socialization
• social roles
• social networks
• bureaucracy
• deviance
• social control
• deviance theories: (structural strain, labeling, differential association, conflict, social control; each counts as 1 concept)
• stratification
• class
• social mobility
• conflict, human capital, functionalist theories of inequality (each counts as 1 concept)
• gender

A NOTE ON PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism involves more than
copying an entire essay from another source. Plagiarism also occurs when
phrases and sentences are patched together from other sources
(including artificial intelligence/AI!) to create an essay. You can use
AI or Chat GPT but you must cite it when you do. Of course, you will be
using in your essays a few words or concepts that come from the assigned
readings and lectures. That is legitimate. What is not legitimate is
copying phrases and sentences from sources (whether assigned or not) and
using them as if they represented your own writing. You can avoid this by honestly quoting and citing your sources.
A rough rule of thumb is that plagiarism occurs if the writing in
question could not have been constructed without copying directly
(however sporadically) from another source, including other students,
internet websites, artificial intelligence. The University’s policies on
plagiarism are severe; any student who plagiarizes could receive an F
for the course and have a letter of reprimand attached to the student’s
permanent academic record.

Rubric

REFLECTION ESSAY RUBRIC (1) (1)