Catherine Essay Due 8/3

You will write one essay (minimum of 1,000 words/maximum of 1,500 words).  This essay

           will require you to apply your understanding of the sociological imagination and the three levels of sociological analysis.  

           You should review the topic of this essay, explained below, very early in the course so that throughout the semester you     

           can make notes to yourself about possible specific content.  Under Modules, in the Final Course Requirementssection,   

           you will see a link to  an “A”Sample Student Course Essaywritten on the same topic several years ago by a former student who gave your instructor permission to post it as an example for future students. At the end of that essay, you will see some comments in blue from your instructor explaining specifically why the student received an A. Although the length requirement at that time was only 500 words, this sample essay should still serve as your model for paragraph organization, ample use of specific details, and grammatical and mechanical accuracy, so it’s recommended that you print a copy of it.  Your essay will be graded for content but also grammatical and mechanical accuracy.  Although run-ons, fragments, and subject-verb agreement errors are the most serious types of grammatical errors, your instructor will deduct EVEN MORE for careless errors that you should have caught while proofreading.

           Formatting Instruction for COURSE ESSAY: Penalties are strict to reinforce that directions are followed explicitly.

           You will lose 5 percentage points from your total grade for EVERY omission and EVERY type of error listed in ANY of the following formatting instructions (a-e):

           a) Heading:               

                Name

                Course Essay

           b) Title: Give this essay a title, double spaced down from your heading, double-spaced above the first line of the essay,

                and centered on the page.  Capitalize the first letter of ONLY the key words in the title, not words like “the” or “a” or

                prepositions unless they’re the first word of the title.  Your title should look just like the text of your essay, meaning   

                that you should use the same font style and font size and NOT use boldface, italics, quotation marks, or underlining.)

           c) Font: Use Arial, Calibri, or Comic Sans – do NOT use Times New Roman

           d) Do NOT submit a cover page for this essay. 

           e)Spacing:  DOUBLE SPACE THIS ESSAY to allow enough space for your instructor’s comments.

           Course Essay Topic:

           Analyze a past or current situation in your life by using the sociological imagination, which means demonstrating that you understand how societal factors have played a role in the situation you choose to write about.  For this essay, you’ll be writing about either a goal you've reached, a major decision you've made, a dilemma you've faced, or any other type of situation you've been in or are currently in.  Do NOT include psychological or personal factors that played a role unless you put those in the introductory or concluding paragraph or you include them in a body paragraph that has FIRST established at least one sociological influence. Also, make sure you choose a situation that was influenced by macro, middle AND micro level sociological factors since all three are required in the essay.  Remember that under Instructor’s Notesfor Chapter 1 in Unit 1 there is a document that explains these categories in more detail than the explanation below:  

           MACROlevel influences can be (a) demographic groups you identify with (the focus of Durkheim’s research) e.g. your age group, your race or ethnicity, your social class, your educational level, your political party, or your religion if any of these helped “create” the situation; (b) social institutions (family, religion, education, government, the mass media, the economy, the health care system, the military, etc.) if any of these helped create the situation; and/or (c) national societal events and social movements that may have influenced the situation (for example, 9-11, the environmental movement, the war against terror, the war against poverty, the gay rights movement, the Tea Party movement, etc.).

           MIDDLE LEVELgroups or individuals are part of the community to which you belong (or belonged at the time) or which have affected you without being a member (e.g. a school or a church, a business, an organization, or the county commissioners, etc.). 

           MICRO LEVELgroups are very informal primary social groups of two or more members, such as your family members or

           close friends.  One person that you had/have any relationship to can be included since that person IS part of a group (of