KEENE STATE COLLEGE
Sociology 101: Introduction to Sociology
Fall 2004
Objectives: (1) to
encourage students to think
sociologically and (2) to improve classroom participation and
discussion.
Step
1: Choose a newspaper article
that in
some way uses or reflects a key idea, or sociological concept that we
have read
about or discussed in class. It may be a
news article to which you apply a concept or idea (to make sense of the
article
and understand it better). For example,
when reading chapter 4, you might find an article that describes a
real-life
Doogie Howser (an example of status inconsistency), a politician who
resigns
her post to spend more time with her family (example of role conflict),
or
perhaps a teenager who “copies” a crime portrayed on a TV series
(illustration
of the impact of agents of socialization or social structures). You can find various links to newspapers from
our Mason Library website: www.keene.edu/library/resources.cfm Click on “newspapers” as your topic, and a
list of various newspaper links appears.
Note that the entire article does not have to reflect your
chosen
sociological concept/idea; you may choose to focus on just one aspect
or
portion of the article.
Step
3: Write a brief (one-page) summary
of your
analysis. Underline the
sociological concept/idea that you identify and with which you choose
to
analyze the article. Keep all entries in
a journal (with the most recent entry appearing first) and submit
the entire
journal to me at the very next class meeting.
Evaluation
Criteria:
______ Is there a good “match” between the article and your sociological concept or idea? That is, does your article (or some aspect of it that you identify) accurately exemplify or address the sociological concept you identify?
______ Does your entry have good overall readability?
______ Is there more than one typo or misspelling or grammatical error in your entry?