SYG 2010 - Social Problems

Reading & Reflection Notebook Guidelines

Throughout the course, I will ask you to write brief reviews of the assigned readings and class materials, organized by topic. I recommend you type them and keep a running file on your computer (backing it up regularly). We will rely upon these reviews in class discussions and they will inform your participation as well as your final project. Ideally, keeping this notebook will: provide you a place to respond to the readings, help you to identify the author’s main points and arguments, assist you in thinking about how the readings related to each other, and to help you take ownership of the class material.

The Notebooks will be collected 3 times over the semester; the first two times they are collected grades will be assigned as "check-plus" (rarely, for exceptionally outstanding work), "check" (satisfactory work), and "check-minus" (for work that needs improvement); a numerical grade will be assigned to the whole of the Notebook when it is submitted the third and final time. Late notebooks may not be accepted and will only be permitted in Emergency situations (such as illness requiring medical treatment or the death of a close family member); these will be handled on an individual basis, please contact me asap.

Requirements:

The Topics are as follows:
RN1:
    Introduction & Course Overview
    Inequality & Intersections
    Poverty & Global Poverty
RN2:
    Education
    Health & Healthcare
    Media
RN3:
    Environment & Ecology
    Politics of Globalized Capitalism
    Creating Positive Social Change