Dr. Davita Silfen Glasberg
Office: Room 403 AUST (Dean’s Office Suite)
Phone: 486-2713
Office Hours: Mon., 1-2pm; Wed., 9-10am; and by appointment
“The truth is out there.” (Muldur Fox, X-Files)
“Truth is not always easily discernible—and even when it is, the prism, depending on which side of the river you reside on, may create a wholly different illusion.” (Alex Kotlowitz, 1998)
“Once the fig leaf has fallen, we might as well look at what it has been hiding. For it is by exploring the things we dare not say to each other that we can best get to know one another.” (Ellis Cose, 1997)
COURSE GOALS FOR GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
SOC 1001 fulfills a requirement of General Education Content Area Two: Social Sciences. Its goals are to help students:
1. Acquire awareness of the era and society. This course provides a systematic overview of the contemporary social institutions that influence everybody's everyday life, providing students with a greater appreciation of the forces that shape their social world. American society is also examined in historical and comparative perspective, further increasing students' awareness of the distinctive and university features of our society. This also contributes to the next point:
2. Acquire consciousness of the diversity of human culture and experience. The comparative and historical approach to the institutions and roles of contemporary American society makes students aware of society variability, and also explains systematically what accounts for the variability among societies. Both #1 and #2 contribute to:
3. Acquire critical judgment. Logical and perceptive reasoning requires an awareness and understanding of one's assumptions and premises. In the social realm, this entails an ability to appreciate the distinctiveness of one's roles and experiences, take their effects into account, and consider one's social arrangements that one has not directly encountered.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
You will be required to take two one-hour exams and a two-hour final exam (each worth 25% of your course grade).
You are required to complete the plagiarism module on HuskyCT by noon, September 13. You may retake it once if you are not satisfied with your score. You must do this module for this course even if you’ve done it before for another course. This module will be worth 5% of your course grade.
You will also be required to post a total of 5 out of 15 possible weekly entries of at least 2 full paragraphs in your assignment file on HuskyCT summarizing the article (indicated on the syllabus; please note: these articles can be found on HuskyCT in the Library Resources file) and using at least one sociological concept from that week’s assigned chapter to analyze it. One paragraph should be a summary of what is going on in the article (do not just say “the article talked about the following topics;” tell us what the author said about those topics—i.e., what did you learn?); the other paragraph should identify, define, and apply a sociological concept from that chapter by showing exactly how the article illustrated the concept you identify. If the concept appears in the title of the article you will have to be very careful to say more than “the author talked about this concept;” you must show how the concept is illustrated by the article. You may choose any 5 of the 15 assigned readings to complete this assignment. Each will be worth up to 20 points, for a possible combined total of 100 points. In weeks that list two articles, you may do both for credit for 2 assignments, or choose 1 for credit for 1 assignment (or none, if you choose not to use either of them for one of your 5 required submissions).
Your responses must be submitted on HuskyCT in the appropriate folder indicated on your HuskyCT by noon on the Friday of the week the reading is assigned on the syllabus, unless otherwise noted on the
