ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION

This assignment asks you to apply the material learned during the quarter and use your sociological imagination to think about how your own life has been shaped by wider social forces.

Please refer back to our reading and discussions about the sociological imagination as you prepare your essay. You should also review our material (notes, readings, assignments, etc.) from the quarter as you prepare this assignment, particularly considering our material on race, class, and gender.

Your major task is to explain the relationship between your own life (experiences/identity) and wider social forces. In order to successfully complete this larger task, you'll need to do each of the following tasks:

1. Choose one or two aspects of your own life to focus on. Don't try to incorporate every aspect of how your own life has been shaped by the social world; this would lead to a discussion that is too scattered and vague to be useful.

Instead, pick something that feels very salient to you about the role of the social world in your life, or some aspect of your life that seems to lend itself well to sociological analysis. This could be related to a particular experience that you've had (e.g., going to college) or a particular aspect of your roles/status in society (e.g., your class, gender, or race).

2. Analyze how this part of your own life is shaped by wider social forces. How is it a reflection of "history" (as Mills would say). culture, and/or society? Draw from course readings and engage meaningfully and thoroughly with sociological concepts to provide this analysis.

The point here is to show how sociological concepts, theories, and research can enhance our understanding of individual experiences, so you'll need to incorporate these concepts, theories, and research, directly explaining them and showing how they apply to your own examples.

3. Remember you should make relevant, meaningful. direct connections to at least two course readings and use of sociological concepts, theories, and/or research, including relevant terminology, general explanations, and direct, specific applications.

• Submission length 750-950 words (three- four pages double spaced)

• You must use (directly reference/discuss) at least two of the course readings.

• Do not use any outside sources; stick to the course materials.

• Provide a reference list for the course materials you cite, and you must adhere to the principles for academic integrity by carefully and responsibly citing any material you draw from in your paper (including course materials).

• Provide in-text citations (with the author's last name) for material you reference. If you use another author's exact wording, you must put this wording in quotes and provide a page number as well.

Format your paper using the following criteria:

• Essay should be pasted directly into the canvas assignment or uploaded as an attachment. (don't worry if the formatting changes)