The first writing assignment involves integrating your understanding of the relationship between self and society as we have come to understand it via investigations into the elements of culture, socialization, and social structure through the comparative lens of contemporary sociological perspectives. Your essay should be 5-7 pages and should be descriptive, definitive and written in a proper grammatical style for essays (standard college-level prose).

Use your sociological imagination to consider a common element of everyday taken-for-granted social life.  You might consider your membership in a particular group, culture, or subculture.  You might consider your experience of family.  You might further consider your experience as a student.  Or you might think about aspects of social identity relative to social interaction – gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, etc…  Students will use each contemporary sociological perspectives to conduct a sociological analysis of the selected topic, area, or theme.

Your task is to introduce the topic of your paper and then create four sections of sociological analysis followed by a conclusions or discussion section (at least six sub-sections with descriptive headers).

Section One: Introduction
Sections Two – Five:  The four contemporary sociological perspectives in any order.
Section Six:  Conclusions or Discussion (your choice).
If students opt to include the extra credit section, it should go before the final conclusions/discussion section.
Grading Rubric:

(1) STYLE:
  Type your paper using a Times New Roman 12” font with 1″ margins, double-spaced, with your name typed in a running header. For this paper DO NOT include a cover page, illustrations, charts or figures.  Do include in-text citations and a reference section per APA Guidelines. Papers that exclude citations and references will not be accepted for grading.

(2) SOCIOLOGICAL TERMS:
  You must incorporate sociological terms throughout your essay.  Be sure to put each term used in bold type.

(3) READING COMPREHENSION: Include in the essay one or more references to sections of the textbook from chapters we have read so far and use in-text citations with page numbers (example:  Benokraitis, 2014, p. 14).

(4) CONNECTIONS: You must connect personal examples within the essay to demonstrate key points related to each contemporary sociological perspective.  For example, you might include a concrete story from your life demonstrating how three or more sociological terms are connected or related to a contemporary sociological perspective or theory.  You may also include connections to supplements presented in the weekly discussion boards.

(5) STRUCTURE:  There should be a clear introductory structure in the paper stipulating what you will be talking about in the essay and a clear conclusion at the end of the paper highlighting how your society and culture have influenced who you are.  Each contemporary sociological perspective should have its own section that is clearly labeled. Each comtemporary sociological perspective should be at least one page in length.