Social Problems Semester Project Guidelines
Description
You will present your semester project to the class in some format. Please feel encouraged to run your ideas past me and ask for help before you post. You will give thoughtful peer review the week after we post projects. You will then have the opportunity to revise and resubmit your project the third week. Your final version is the one that will be graded.
Objective
The objective of this project is to demonstrate achievement of one of our course learning objectives. Use these to guide your ideas about your project. The course learning objectives are:
Students will be able to:
Distinguish between scientific and non-scientific approaches to social knowledge.
Understand, articulate, and apply the stages of the social problems process of social construction.
Assess proposed solutions to social problems from a contemporary liberal and conservative perspective.
Display a factual knowledge of the extent, history, and persistence of various social problems.
Show how interpretations and solutions to these problems will vary depending upon the theoretical and ideological perspective chosen
Format
Your presentation format is open. You may want to present by making a video of yourself or a video of your materials. You may want to create a podcast. You might want to make a poster or an infographic or a website. Be creative and use your own personal skills.
Examples
Your project will be an in-depth look at a smaller aspect of something related to our course learning objectives. Individual sections of the chapters we have read and research results might spark ideas. You may want to profile an activist, author or organization, or go in-depth on a past or present news event. You might want to explain a theory in depth and give an application of that theory. You may want to do a social media analysis. You may want to interview a panel of friends (or classmates). You can get ideas from our readings and from the examples below.
Here are some examples of ideas. You do not have to use one of these ideas, but you are welcome to.
Design a book cover for a (non-existent) book you would like to see that is related to some aspect of one of our learning objectives. What would the book be called? What would the back cover read? What would the description of the book be? What would the reviews say? What would the author’s bio say? What picture or design would be placed on the cover and why? Make a mock-up of the book cover.
Compare and contrast two theories from the readings. Compare and contrast the theories by applying them to a specific scenario and developing a list of similarities and differences. Alternately, find an article or source that has a different point of view and compare and contrast those. You could present this in a variety of ways.
Pick an issue to debate. Present arguments for and against the concepts of your reading. Present Liberal vs. Conservative approaches to a social problem. This could be presented in a variety of formats.
Pick a theorist from your textbook. Imagine that you need to form a Twitter (or other social media) feed for this person. What would the Twitter handle be? Make a list of tweets that this Twitter feed would share. Come up with hashtags this Twitter feed would popularize. What would be the person’s objective with their Twitter account? Explain how this is related to the course objective.
Come up with a list of interview questions you would like to ask any person mentioned in our book if you had the chance. Once you have brainstormed your list, go through your questions and see if you can find answers to your questions from the point-of-view of the person you chose. This could be presented in a number of ways.
Ask people from different groups what (some aspect of a social problem you choose) means to them. Analyze your results and compare them to what you have read in the text. Compile a video or other presentation relating your findings to concepts or readings from class.
Create a list of jobs that are typically associated with people of different groups (gender, age, social class, race, etc). Find out the actual job statistics for the groups you are comparing. Look up the average salaries and working conditions for each profession. What conclusions can you draw from your activity? You might want to present this information in a visually compelling manner.
Develop a website to profile an activist working on social issues related to of any kind.
Present a creative work you created (art, music, video, an invention, etc.) that addresses one of our learning objectives. Prepare an artist statement describing how your work illustrates concepts from class.
Present a profile of an organization working to improve a social problem. Do a recorded interview with someone from the organization about their work and how it relates to our class learning objectives. You could present this information in a variety of ways including video, podcast, part of an interactive video, and more.
Your ideas here! I hope this list has sparked some ideas about ways you can be creative with your project. We will have individual consultations the week after midterms so you can get your project plan solidified and off to a good start.
Semester Project Grading Rubric Criteria:
Project directly addresses a Course Learning Objective
Makes concrete, meaningful references and links to course materials
Project is well researched (demonstrated through the extent and quality of sources you use)
Project is well designed
Presentation is well executed
Extra resources are provided (links to related websites, articles, videos, etc.)
Complete citations (any format as long as they are complete and I can find your source) are included. You cite a variety of sources.
Quality of peer review suggestions
