1. Social Problems: Final Exam Prep
Exam will be released at 12:00PM on April 21st. Check Sakai under “Assignments” to download the Word file with the questions. You have 1 week to complete it.
5 questions, 10 points each.
Other slides in this power point give you advice about how to structure your essay.
On average, a good response will be about 400 words for EACH question. Use any notes, readings, blog posts to help. All class material is at your disposal.
Failure to follow instructions/plagiarism – marks of sloppy work

2. Writing Tips for Short Answers
Like journal entries, only with more complexity, critical distance in your answer.
Questions will ask you to synthesize the major course themes. Graded on your ability to weave it all together.
“I” statements are fine. Ex: “I’m new to this concept, but after reading ________ I would define social construction as _________.”
ALWAYS back up your answer with an example from our class. Use an article, lecture, blog post, video, day of action, class activity, ect.
The following sentence should answer “how” or “why” about the preceding sentence.
Ex: “The schools are corrupt.”
Confidence: Your time to show off your knowledge. You know more thank you think you do!

3. The Wire: What Did We Learn
The Wire sees social problems through daily in one American city.
Rank, station, class, and code: people at different levels of the pyramid constrains their actions
Attempts to explain why problems persist & why change comes slowly (if at all)
Relentlessly attacks institutions for playing numbers games.
Being a good person in a powerful office doesn’t mean flowers will magically bloom

4. Speaking with a Sociological Voice
Final exam questions are not asking you to state your opinion or whether you agree/disagree.
Ex: if you choose to discuss spanking as a social problem, the sociological voice does not decide whether it is “good” or bad;” it assess the quality of the conclusions about a spanking argument and how “spanking” as we understand it is saturated with cultural values.
Structural, systematic, critical voice (go back to notes on the first day)
Re-read Mills’ The Promise: how individual’s thoughts and actions are shaped and molded by forces that operate outside the individual.
Relate his idea that our lives are a “series of traps” to other course material.

5. Speaking with a Sociological Voice: Relationship between power, problems, and social structure
Be able to show how social problems are inter-related and grounded in our social structure.
Explore the root(s) of the problem
How is this ideology backed by laws, policies, custom, or social relations?
Can you show how people who are involved with one problem are often involved with another? (ex: “middle class & health care, housing, education” or “education, the political system, and housing)
Power is everywhere! Ask yourself who has the power to define _______, who gave them that power, how is their power maintained, and why is it seen as legitimate?

6. Exam Review: Social Construction
Are you able to define “social construction” in your own words?
Can you explain why its important to talk about SC when discussing social problems?
Can you choose one social problem and show how it is socially constructed?
Tips:
Not an opinion - don’t care if you agree or disagree with the theory of social construction.
For this answer, certain social problems work better than others. Choose one that has a strong subjective component to the problem.
Go to section on syllabus for “social construction” and cite examples from those articles/notes.

7. Social Problems You Can Use to back Up Your Arguments.
Crisis in credit & housing/Debt/consumption
Poverty (construction of, poverty & crime, poverty & solutions, how anti-poverty policies exacerbate poverty)
Homelessness (construction of, political aspects of)
Disability (bodily variation, disability models, disability as a political fact, construction of)
Politics & media (power to define/solve problems, inability to fulfill role in society)
Drugs (War on, construction of, soc perspective on) & justice system (class bias in)
Rich/poor (theories of why some people are rich/poor)
Education (education as social control, education vs. schooling, policies like No Child Left Behind, teacher “merit pay,” problems in higher ed)
Social class (upper, middle, poor) & meritocracy

8. DON’T DO
Use a concept from a reading or notes without citing it
“From our class notes on 4/2…”
“Wendell says that the social construction of disability…”
Use vague phrases like “a long time ago,” “things,” “the media,” “certain people,” or “some groups”
Be concise and precise.
Assume that I will understand your meaning.
It’s always best to follow your sentence with “What I mean by this is…” & explain it using an example
Hesitate to use outside sources
Helpful to use one or two outside sources to strengthen your argument
Use outside sources that are based on editorials or opinion pieces
Use outside sources grounded in peer-reviewed scholarship (search journal articles)
Ramble
Every sentence, every word should relate back to your thesis.
Use my words, verbatim
Interpret my words and merge it with your own sense of what you have learned in this class
Type one long block of text
Use paragraphs, topic sentences, summary sentences. The period is your friend, comma is your enemy.
End your short answer abruptly
Finish with a summary statement