SOC 100 ONL Syllabus
Introduction to Sociology
Spring 2024

Quick Reference

No one has ever taken the idea of society as artifact to the hilt.
—Roberto Unger

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please...
—Karl Marx

Description/Objectives

Summary: This online introduction to sociology is a primarily self-directed course of study available to students using Moodle. Our course is divided into eight units, each of which is one week long. For each unit, students are expected to read various texts (understood broadly to include multimedia content) and to participate in several activities. The graded activities include quizzes, discussion forums, research/writing exercises, and ongoing wiki construction. There is no final exam. Although most of the requirements for this course can be completed on an individual basis (and schedule), students are expected to participate actively in small-group discussion forums and should plan to login (almost) daily. It is possible (and advisable) to work ahead in this course, but there are milestones to meet (and other deadlines along the way) so it is also possible (and quite inadvisable) to fall behind.

Details about the course are provided in this Syllabus, which may be revised from time-to-time, in the instructions accompanying various activities in Moodle, as well as in various Announcements made by the teachers. Questions about the course will be addressed through a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Forum in Moodle. Students should be prepared to be tested on the course requirements, and so should read this Syllabus carefully and keep current with teachers' postings to the Announcements and FAQ Forum.

Sociology?: This course is a survey of the field of sociology. The field overlaps significantly with all of the other social sciences/studies (e.g., anthropology, economics, geography, political science) as well as many of the humanities (e.g., history, philosophy) and some of the natural sciences (e.g., biology). The denizens of our field, in other words, are wont to trespass anywhere and everywhere. But we send word home, and we try to fit the pieces together as best we can. Signs (numbers and narratives and everything in-between) of the great unknown-getting-known are always circulating in the sociological discourse.

But the facts we come to know are not brute facts: They are social facts. They are facts with a history, facts that vary across societies with different histories. We may, as individuals, lead lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes), but we needn't fetishize any state-of-nature. As we exercise our "sociological imaginations" (Mills), we learn to see historical/structural forces at work behind our apparently private troubles. We learn to see these troubles as public issues, as social problems that invite collective action. We may be stuck with (and by) gravity, and we may be the products of a natural selection "red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson), but we are not stuck reproducing our legacies of race and gender. The historical construction of our world is ongoing, contested, and contestable. We must be sober about our histories, and appreciate that race, class, and gender (among other variables) remain compelling realities for us, but throughout this course we will also listen to those who challenge our institutions and our common sense. Along the way, we'll hopefully find memes and institutions we want to keep, or maybe just tweak, as well as problems we need to face together.

This sociological discourse, like the world it questions and describes, is a field of many contested and shifting boundaries. We argue among ourselves about our readings of the world, and you will learn to argue with us. But these are not, or at least not always, arguments for winning. A discourse oriented towards mutual understanding benefits from critical interactions (i.e., arguments), but it also depends upon exercises in verstehen, taking the perspective of another—whether friend or stranger, whether here with us now or known to us only through strange signs from alien times and places. With practice you may find that some of your best arguments are with people long dead, and with luck you may find that they have changed your mind. Does that mean that they 'won'? Does it matter?

Many of the questions and arguments you encounter in this course come from professional sociologists and other scholars. But they are not the only inmates wondering and wandering through the field. Throughout our lives, we can learn much from the work of various public sociologists, too. They come in many guises, from novelists to film-makers to bloggers to activists to … you. The exercises and activities in this course provide you with the opportunity to show yourself and your fellow travellers how to move beyond the well-worn pathways that we all—all too often—take for granted.

Un/Learning Objectives: Broadly speaking, the learning objectives in this course are those of any liberal arts course in social studies:

As we go through this course, more specific learning objectives may be highlighted with respect to particular units, activities, or themes (e.g., in the Announcements).

One of the most important of our learning objectives might better be called unlearning. Many of you have been subjected, perhaps for your entire academic life, to regimes of high-stakes "teaching to the test." One of the exciting things about Moodle is that this open-source technology is being developed by a world-wide community of educators who are committed to active learning rather than rote memorization. Martin Dougiamas (2016), who started coding Moodle some years ago, lists five guiding concepts that inform his version of a "social constructionist" pedagogy:

  1. All of us are potential teachers as well as learners—in a true collaborative environment we are both.
  2. We learn particularly well from the act of creating or expressing something for others to see.
  3. We learn a lot by just observing the activity of our peers.
  4. By understanding the contexts of others, we can teach in a more transformational way (constructivism).
  5. A learning environment needs to be flexible and adaptable, so that it can quickly respond to the needs of the participants within it.

With a little luck, the activities of this course will be guided by such principles—and that's not just a matter of technology/course design, but also something that you construct as you interact this term with others. We can all start with the words of Abraham Lincoln, that great vampire-hunting fan of the Wyld Stallyns: "Be excellent to each other."

Activities/Grading

This section of the Syllabus provides you with a summary description of the activities in which students will be engaged, and the way that grades will be calculated. More detailed descriptions and instructions are provided in Moodle, and you are expected to read and follow those instructions carefully.

Please read this carefully and be confident that you are able to participate actively.

This is an eight-week intensive course, and students are expected to complete twice as much work per day in this course as they would on a typical day of a semester-long version of introductory sociology. In other words: This isn't a mini-course; it's a full semester of work compressed into one-half the number of days.

Students engage in some activities that recur in each unit, and other activities that occur only once in the course. These are described here, but further details are available in Moodle, either on the activities pages themselves, or in our Announcements, or in our FAQ Forum. Students who still have questions about the requirements of the course or the expectations of the teachers are encouraged to make use of office hours and the FAQ Forum.

You are responsible for integrating this course into your life. This has been designed to emphasize asynchronous communications: We can keep our communications going even if we're not online at the same time. The only times that you will need to worry about scheduling a 'meeting' time with others are when you meet with one of the teachers in his/her/their office (either in meatspace or cyberspace).

Recurring Activities

Studying (Reading/Viewing) Texts

For each unit, you are expected to read one or more chapters from Erikson (2017) and/or some other materials. These readings (and viewings) are the focus of the quizzes (aka "reading rewards") in units two through eight (inclusive), and are also relevant to your other activities. You have access to all of these readings throughout the entire course, and you really should read ahead. We use the term "readings" broadly here, to include "other mediations" like listenings and viewings as well.

Textbook/s: Our primary text is: Erikson, Kai. 2017. The Sociologist's Eye: Reflections on Social Life. Yale University Press (ISBN 9780300106671). (There are also eBook and Kindle versions of this text, and it is available as a series of chapters/sections in JSTOR at https://www-jstor-org.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/stable/j.ctt1s4769b.) Following the Author-Date system from the Chicago Manual of Style, we use a shorthand for this (both here in this Syllabus and in our Moodle course site): We refer to this book as 'Erikson (2017)' or 'Erikson 2017'. Failure to get a copy of the textbook is no excuse for missing quizzes or assignments!

We will also read several chapters from a free and open-source textbook: Conerly, Tonja R., Kathleen Holmes, and Asha Lal Tamang (inter alia). 2021. Introduction to Sociology, Third Edition. Houston, TX: OpenStax at Rice University (ISBN 9781951693367). https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-sociology-3e. As with Erikson (2017), we can use a convenient shorthand to refer to this text: 'Conerly etal (2021)' or 'Conerly etal 2021'.

Streaming Video: We will also be watching some documentaries:

Links to these videos are provided in the References and Resources section of this Syllabus, as well as in Moodle. These documentaries are freely available as online streaming media, but students must authenticate (using their NetID and AD password) to view them.

Other Texts (Online): Some other articles, chapters, videos, websites, etc. will be available online, with links provided on our course site in Moodle.

Reading Schedule: Here is a listing of the readings by unit. They must be read/viewed/studied by the beginning of each unit (except for the Unit One materials, which will be covered in a quiz at the beginning of Unit Two). Plan ahead (and work ahead!).

  1. Getting Started (Unit One):
    • Syllabus (this document)
    • "A Radical Experiment in Empathy" (Richards 2010)
    • "The Promise" (Mills 2000)
    • "Introduction: A Way of Looking" (Erikson 2017)
  2. Approaches (Unit Two):
    • "View from the Fourteenth Floor" (Erikson 2017)
    • "The Individual and the Social" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Knowing the Place for the First Time" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Disaster at Buffalo Creek" (Erikson 2017)
  3. Beginnings (Unit Three):
    • "Human Origins" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Discovering the Social" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Coming to Terms with Social Life" (Erikson 2017)
    • "The Journey of Piotr and Kasia Walkowiak" (Erikson 2017)
  4. Places (Unit Four):
    • "Village" (Erikson 2017)
    • "City" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Worlds Beyond" (Erikson 2017)
    • "It Seemed Like the Whole Bay Died" (Erikson 2017)
  5. Processes (Unit Five):
    • "Becoming a Person" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Creating Divisions" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Becoming a People" (Erikson 2017)
    • "War Comes to Pakrac" (Erikson 2017)
    • "Postscripts" (Erikson 2017)
  6. Class (Unit Six):
    • "Social Stratification in the United States" (Conerly etal 2021:235-262 [Chapter Nine])
    • People Like Us (Alvarez and Kolker 2001)
    • "Global Inequality" (Conerly etal 2021: 263-288 [Chapter Ten])
    • "The Return of Karl Marx" (Cassidy 1997)
    • "The Manifesto of the Communist Party" (Marx and Engels 1848)
    • "How to Judge Globalism" (Sen 2002)
    • (Excerpt from) "The Modern World System" (Wallerstein 1976)
    • "What Does It Mean to Be a Citizen of the World?" (Evans 2016)
  7. Race (Unit Seven):
    • "Race and Ethnicity" (Conerly etal 2021: 289-328 [Chapter Eleven])
    • Race: The Power of an Illusion (Adelman etal. 2003): Be sure to watch all three parts.
    • "W. E. B. Du Bois' Hand-Drawn Infographics of African-American Life" (DuBois 1900)
    • (Excerpt from) "Double-Consciousness and the Veil" (DuBois 1903)
    • "Behind The Lies My Teacher Told Me" (Loewen etal 2018)
    • "Deep Divisions in Americans’ Views of Nation’s Racial History – and How To Address It" (Pew Research Center 2021)
  8. Gender (Unit Eight):
    • "Gender, Sex, and Sexuality" (Conerly etal 2021: 329-366 [Chapter Twelve])
    • Miss Representation (Newsom 2011)
    • (Excerpt from) "Women and Economics" (Gilman 1898)
    • "Declaration of Sentiments" (Stanton et al 1848)
    • "Gloria Steinem on the Consequences of Overturning Roe v. Wade." (Steinem and Kelly 2022)
    • Review selected texts from prior units: your posts, Class Wiki pages.

For most of our units, the required readings should take about 10-12 hours of your time. If you find yourself taking substantially more or less time to complete the readings for a particular unit, make a note of it.

Please also jot down any ideas you have for additional/different readings for this class. You may get some ideas from these readings, or from other courses you've taken, or from some stroke of inspiration. You will be asked for all sorts of feedback on this course, and these ideas will be most welcome. There's no reason that a course can't get better and better for each new cohort of students, provided that prior cohorts are offering some constructive criticism along the way.

Reading Rewards (Quizzes)

Students will complete quizzes that reward them for doing the required readings (viewings, etc.) carefully and on time. These quizzes may also test students on their knowledge of this Syllabus, or other rules-of-the-road for this course, so students would do well to read all the instructions for activities carefully, keep current with the Announcements, and make good use of the FAQ Forum.

Quizzes are open-note and open-book, but not open web and not open to consultation. You should not discuss the quiz with anyone while it is available. Quizzes will be available for several days before their due dates, and students may take a quiz at any time during that window, but once a student starts a quiz it must be completed within 90 minutes. This will be more than enough time if you have already done the readings. While the quiz is open-book, you will not have enough time to find all of the answers if you have not done the reading.

Quizzes will generally consist of multiple-choice and true-false questions that require the best answer to get credit. (This is what we might call an "Best Answer" or "In/Correct" rubric: You are familiar with it from years of practice, yes?) Sometimes there may be short answer/essay questions, too.

Extensions are available for Reading Rewards quizzes, but only for valid and timely excuses.

Discussion Forums

At the heart of each unit are discussions among students regarding the themes and readings for the unit. The teachers will be lurking in these discussions, and may join-in from time-to-time, but mostly we will give students space to think out-loud and give each other constructive criticism. Students will be randomly assigned to small Discussion Groups of 8-12 students each, and will (probably) be engaged in discussions with the same group of people over the term of the course. (Depending upon the distribution of students dropping the course, we may need to consolidate or reorganize a group or two at some point over the term.)

For Units Two through Eight, each Discussion Forum will be structured around a series of questions that students should address with respect to the readings and themes of the unit. Each student will be responsible for providing an initial post answering one such question, responding to the answers of some other students, and (with respect to some threads, at least) maintaining some give-and-take with other students throughout the unit. (You will see more details about this, and it should become much clearer, once the Unit Two Discussion Forum opens.)

Students are expected to spend 6-8 hours per unit engaged in these online discussions: Reviewing relevant readings, reflecting upon them and composing your thoughts, reading the posts/replies of other participants in the discussion, etc. Keep track of how much time you are actually devoting to this task in a typical unit, because we are interested in your feedback regarding such matters.

Scoring well in discussion forums is partly a matter of making an initial post (a "host-post") early (i.e., on time), and partly a matter of posting often enough to keep some threads vibrant throughout the unit. But it is also a matter of quality. We expect students to engage emphatically in these discussions, by which we mean both critical and cooperative interactions. The term "phatics" refers to those communicative practices that help to keep discussions going, that alert other participants that you are paying attention and are responsive to what they say. (Examples include nodding your head while someone is speaking, or saying "um-hmmm" while on the phone with someone.) In a way, a phatic post is the opposite of a flaming post. We will be looking for posts that do not work to stop the discussion or secure the last word for the poster. You do not need to end every post with a question, but do try to treat them as contributions to collective understanding rather than merely expressions of your own conclusions. At the same time, your posts should be critical, not in the sense of mere fault-finding (pointless carping), but in the sense of cultivating stronger, better (more valid) understandings of the subject matter. We evaluate participation in discussion forums using an Emphatic Criticism rubric.

No extensions are possible for discussion forum activities, even with an absence letter or similar excuse. If there is a valid and timely excuse, it may be possible to make-up for lost points with some extra credit work.

Critical/Creative Writing

Any academic learning community at the college or university level depends upon good scholarship and the cultivation of critical and creative thinking and writing. This is not a matter for professionals (e.g., the professoriate) alone. A scholarly habitus can and should be cultivated by students as well. To facilitate this, various exercises throughout the course simultaneously introduce (or reinforce) such practices, especially those involving "the sociologist's eye" or "the sociological imagination." In particular, students will complete:

Details about these exercises will be provided in Moodle. For some students, these activities will be a review of skills they have already developed. For others, these will be a matter of first impression. Students are expected to spend 5-10 hours per unit completing these exercises. Keep track of how much time you are actually devoting to this task, because (again) we are interested in your feedback regarding such matters.

Extensions are available for some of the Critical/Creative Writing exercises, but only for valid and timely excuses.

Other Activities

Students are also expected to create/edit their Moodle Profile and to complete various surveys. Additional or alternative activities may be scheduled in the discretion of the teachers. Students will have plenty of advance notice of such activities, but they must pay attention to Announcements.

Moodle Profile

Moodle includes a "Profile" page for each Participant. The Moodle Profile assignment is a good way to get started navigating through the Moodle learning management system (LMS) and using the Moodle text editor. Students can work on their profiles before the term begins.

Surveys

Students will be given credit for completing each of several surveys: an "Opening Survey" during Unit One, a "Midterm Feedback" survey during Unit Four, and a "Closing Survey" during Unit Eight—are non-anonymous, but also (hopefully) non-threatening. Candor is welcome, and (of course) there are no right-or-wrong answers (only honest-or-misleading responses). Please try to be as frank and forthcoming as you are comfortable being.

Grading Scale
Points%age *Grade †
* for estimation only
† probably, not certainly
‡ A+ grades are not given
465..500 ≥ 93 A ‡
450..464 ≥ 90 A-
435..449 ≥ 87 B+
415..434 ≥ 83 B
400..414 ≥ 80 B-
385..399 ≥ 77 C+
365..384 ≥ 73 C
350..364 ≥ 70 C-
335..349 ≥ 67 D+
315..334 ≥ 63 D
300..314 ≥ 60 D-
  0..299 < 60 F

Grades/Rubrics

Sometimes it seems we live in a world of points and scores and grades. As we make our ways up various poorly-graded (but often rather steep) learning curves, the score-keeping is often rather pointless. We won't fix this social problem in this course, but we will try to use a grading regime that simultaneously rewards participation, gives some honest feedback about where there is room for improvement, and is fair to those who perform particularly well.

The grading scale (see accompanying table) provides students with a way to monitor their progress in the course by keeping count of the points that they have earned. (Dividing points awarded by the maximum points available for an assignment, or a combination of assignments/scores, will provide a percentage that can be used to estimate a letter grade.) This is for estimation purposes only. Final grades will be based upon point counts (rather than percentages): Please don't haggle with your teachers about rounding up percentages to get a higher letter grade. Final letter grades are also subject to adjustment—perhaps accompanied by disciplinary action—for violations of academic integrity.

At the end of the term, students will be assigned letter grades based primarily upon the points that they have earned over the course of the term. The "Grading Scale" table indicates the points required to earn various letter grades. To a significant extent, a student's grade in this course is under his/her control. A significant portion of the points available are awarded on a in/complete basis: Students earn them just by doing the activity. But some points are reserved for assessment of quality by the teachers. If a student reads and studies carefully before taking quizzes, there is no reason not to score highly on them.

Most students will not score higher than a B-average on some of their writing assignments. The difference between a 'B' and an 'A' is not a matter of following the rules differently. You can tick off every box on any checklist and still produce only B-quality work. A-level work meets minimum standards, but is also especially insightful, thought-provoking, beautiful, etc. There is no technical formula for crafting an "A" paper.

Nonetheless, students who do well on everything else may find that the Extra Credit available secures them the additional points they need for a high grade in the course. Other students will find that they need the Extra Credit as a cushion when they fall. Online learning is new to many of you, and fraught with bugs and bothers, so the extra credit (up to 5% of the course point total) gives everyone a safety net. Students who have valid excuses (and the approval of the professor) for missing unextendable deadlines may also be given some additional extra credit opportunities. These will be given only in unusual circumstances, and only if the professor is given as much advance notice of the circumstances as is reasonably possible. You must contact the professor about this on a case-by-case basis. Be advised that a family vacation is not a valid excuse.

The following sub-sections describe the spirit of the rubrics at play in this course. Please review these and try to understand what is at stake when teachers are evaluating your performance in various activities. Once the course is underway, and you are monitoring your performance by checking scores in Moodle, you will be tempted to confuse mere point allocations with the purpose of the exercise. Some of you will prove quite capable of gaming the system—learning how to earn maximal points with minimal engagement—but you really only cheat yourselves when you do this. Take a moment now to reflect on these rubrics as something other than mere checklists or score-cards, and you may well secure a better learning experience for yourself and your classmates.

Emphatic Criticism Rubric

Participation in an asynchronous discussion forum is partly a matter of posting an answer early, and partly a matter of posting often enough to keep some threads vibrant throughout a unit. But it is also a matter of quality. We expect emphatic criticism in these discussions. The term "phatics" refers to those communicative practices that help to keep discussions going, that alert other participants that you are paying attention and are responsive to what they say. (Examples include nodding your head while someone is speaking, or saying "um-hmmm" while on the phone with someone.) In a way, a phatic post is the opposite of a flaming post. We will be looking for posts that do not work to stop the discussion or secure the last word for the poster. You do not need to end every post with a question, just try to treat them as contributions to collective understanding rather than merely expressions of your own conclusions.

At the same time, your posts should be critical, not in the sense of mere fault-finding (pointless carping), but in the sense of cultivating stronger, better (more valid) understandings of the subject matter. We can be excellent to each other, avoiding ad hominem attacks, and still offer one another the gifts of constructive criticism. Discussions will inevitably reflect some personal biases and prejudices (which we should each be ready to acknowledge in ourselves and cautious to blame in others), but they should be oriented towards an ever-more-valid common sense. Critical dissensus is the process by which consensus is validated as something more than a mere aggregation of preferences. Try to think (and write/post) logically, to make good use of evidence, and to exercise your sociological imaginations: How can particular cases be understood in terms of historical forces and social structures?

In/Complete Rubric

A significant portion of the points available in this course are awarded on a in/complete basis: Students earn them just by completing the activity. We refer to this as the "In/Complete Rubric." Please be sure that you are actually completing the assignment, however. Substantial completion means more than pro-forma compliance: Just turning something in is not enough. The work submitted must give evidence that the student has actually engaged the material, the prompt, etc. Be careful to read all of the instructions for the activity, and not to skip over any obvious requirements. At the very least you must convince your teachers that you gave it the old college-try, and at best you should convince yourself that you contributed something special to our learning community.

In/Correct Rubric

Scoring on the basis of the correct vs. incorrect answer, or the "best" answer, is probably the rubric with which most students are most familiar. It has been used in testing (high-stakes and otherwise) throughout your years of schooling. We use it here, calling it the "In/Correct Rubric," for scoring most quiz questions. Please be careful when you are completing your quizzes to select the best answer to each question, not the first answer that seems partially correct. Quite often, an answer that seems plausible on its face actually has a fatal flaw. If you have done required readings carefully, then you have plenty of time to think about the questions (and answers) carefully. This is good practice in any case, especially as most college students are not finished with standardized testing (e.g., GRE, MCAT, LSAT).

Formal Writing

Several of the exercises in this class require students to write formal prose. For these assignments, work will be assessed for proper spelling, grammar, and usage, as well as logical coherence, argumentative rigor, and aesthetic appeal. A merely competent performance will earn points consistent with a letter grade of "B," and only those texts that are also especially beautiful or compelling will earn points consistent with a letter grade of "A."

Late Work

Students will be able to read ahead, and (to some extent) work ahead of the current unit/module. Please do not fall behind. Some work can never be submitted late: For example, the discussion forum participation is dependent upon the co-participation of interlocutors. If you do not post during the unit that a thread begins, then you simply cannot become a part of that thread. (Unless you invent a time machine.) Some work (e.g., quizzes) may be accepted late, without penalty, but only if there is a valid excuse.

Extra Credit

Each student may earn up to 25 points (5% of the total points for the course) by completing extra credit work. This generally takes the form of participation in some additional learning forum (e.g., TED Talks) followed by a short post about the experience in our Extra Credit forum. Further details are available in Moodle on the Extra Credit forum page. Please do not focus on this right away: Focus instead on the core requirements of the course. Once the third unit is underway, and you are "in the groove" (of the course), then you will have a better sense of how much time you have for extra credit work (and whether you will need it).

Monitoring Your Progress

Students will find the Moodle Grades tool available to them after Unit One. You may use that information to keep track of your performance from time to time during the remainder of the term using the grading scale provided here. (Though final letter grades will be determined on the basis of raw point-values rather than percentages.) But: Please do not start the course by stressing-out about grades. For the first couple of units, just try doing your best work, and getting it done on time, OK?

Throughout the course, please don't think about how you are going to game the system and get lots of points. It isn't that grades are unimportant, but sometimes they are the tail that wags the dog of learning. Please don't lose sight of your education by getting obsessed with your score, like everything online was a video game. That said, once you start seeing feedback in the form of scores (and comments), you should ask yourself what it means. If you are scoring very low (or other feedback indicates that something is wrong with your work) then you should visit with your teaching assistant and/or the professor during their respective office hours.

Teachers will typically enter grades for activities within a week of their due date. Please don't dun the teachers with questions about scores and grades. If you have questions, and a week has passed since the due date (which may differ from the date you actually completed the activity), then contact your TA (in the case of most activities) or the professor (in the case of reading rewards and surveys) in their office during office hours (or by appointment if you have a genuine and unavoidable scheduling conflict).

Please think of the grading scale provided here as a "safe harbor." Anyone earning these points—provided they have not done anything outrageous in the process (e.g., cheating, plagiarism, repeated flaming, etc.)—is entitled to at least the corresponding letter grade. If it turns out that nobody in the class is earning enough points for an "A"—but the teachers believe that the class as a whole is performing well—then the scale will be adjusted so that the highest scores are worth an "A" and all of the lower scores will effectively curve up by the number of points needed to bring those high scores into A-range. This way, if we experience any technical difficulties that bring down everybody's scores (e.g., if Moodle crashes for a few days), it will not jeopardize the bottom line.

Schedule

The official deadlines are those provided in this Syllabus (as modified or corrected from time to time by a post in the Announcements). Sometimes you may see different due dates/deadlines in Moodle. This reflects limitations in the Moodle software, not an opportunity to play for time. Please meet the deadlines given by the teachers.

Schedule of Activities
Milestone * Activity Score
"Unit One: Getting Started" (2024.01.15—2024.01.21)
within two days † Moodle Profile 10
within two days † ClassWide Greetings 10
within three days † Opening Survey 10
within four days † Working With Wikis 25
Unit 01 Subtotal 55
"Unit Two: Approaches" (2024.01.22—2024.01.28)
2024.01.22 (M) Unit Two Reading Rewards 15
2024.01.23 (T) Unit Two Discussion Forum (UN02 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.01.24 (W) UN02 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.01.25 (R) UN02 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.01.26 (F) Brainstorming Worksheet 25
Unit 02 Subtotal 60
"Unit Three: Beginnings" (2024.01.29—2024.02.04)
2024.01.29 (M) Unit Three Reading Rewards 15
2024.01.30 (T) Unit Three Discussion Forum (UN03 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.01.31 (W) UN03 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.02.01 (R) UN03 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.02.02 (F) Open Letter 25
Unit 03 Subtotal 60
"Unit Four: Places" (2024.02.05—2024.02.11)
2024.02.05 (M) Unit Four Reading Rewards 15
2024.02.06 (T) Unit Four Discussion Forum (UN04 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.02.07 (W) UN04 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.02.08 (R) UN04 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.02.09 (F) Free/Formal Writing 25
2024.02.09 (F) Midterm Feedback 10
Unit 04 Subtotal 70
"Unit Five: Processes" (2024.02.12—2024.02.18)
2024.02.12 (M) Unit Five Reading Rewards 15
2024.02.13 (T) Unit Five Discussion Forum (UN05 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.02.14 (W) UN05 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.02.15 (R) UN05 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.02.16 (F) Beyond the Text 25
Unit 05 Subtotal 60
"Unit Six: Class" (2024.02.19—2024.02.25)
2024.02.19 (M) Unit Six Reading Rewards 15
2024.02.20 (T) Unit Six Discussion Forum (UN06 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.02.21 (W) UN06 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.02.22 (R) UN06 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.02.23 (F) Peer Reviews 25
Unit 06 Subtotal 60
"Unit Seven: Race" (2024.02.26—2024.03.03)
2024.02.26 (M) Unit Seven Reading Rewards 15
2024.02.27 (T) Unit Seven Discussion Forum (UN07 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.02.28 (W) UN07 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.02.29 (R) UN07 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.03.01 (F) Reflective Presentation 25
Unit 07 Subtotal 60
"Unit Eight: Gender" (2024.03.04—2024.03.10)
2024.03.04 (M) Unit Eight Reading Rewards 15
2024.03.04 (M) ClassWide Farewells 10
2024.03.05 (T) Unit Eight Discussion Forum (UN08 DF) Host-Post (1) 20
2024.03.06 (W) UN08 DF Replies-to-Host-Posts (3)
2024.03.07 (R) UN08 DF Replies-to-Replies (2)
2024.03.08 (F) Corrections and Completions 20
2024.03.08 (F) Closing Survey 10
Unit 08 Subtotal 75
SOC 100 ONL (Spring 2024)
Course Total 500
2024.03.10 (U) Extra Credit 25
Notes
* The "Milestones" are deadlines by which an activity must be completed. They are due on the indicated date by 11:55 PM (Central). For details, please refer to the discussion of each type of activity elsewhere in this Syllabus, and in the instructions for the activity in Moodle.
† The actual deadlines for these activities are relative to when a student is enrolled in the course. The Milestones here indicate the number of days after the later of (1) the start of term and (2) the date a student enrolls in the course. Moodle may indicate a fixed date, but students are responsible for abiding by this schedule. (In other words, we've built-in an extension for people who are adding the course after the start date.)

Policies & Procedures

Various specific policies and procedures may be announced from time to time, as issues arise. But here are some standard (and easily anticipated) issues. (If you know of other resources that might be of use to fellow students, please let the teacher know so that they can be incorporated into the Syllabus. Thank you.)

Absences/Incompletes

Students who claim a valid excuse for an absence from this course (including failure to complete an assignment or activity on time) must notify their teacher as soon as possible. "As soon as possible" may mean "ahead of time," and students should not wait until after a deadline has passed before they notify their teachers of a reasonably anticipated problem. Teachers will determine the appropriate course of action once they have been notified by a student, and a valid excuse for not attending a synchronous session will not always be a valid excuse for missing other deadlines/milestones at roughly the same time.

Only the LAS Student Academic Affairs Office or the Campus Center for Advising and Academic Services can authorize extensions for completion of required work after the end of the term. For more information, please refer to the LAS Student Handbook: http://www.las.uiuc.edu/students/attendance/absences/.

Academic Integrity

The Illinois Student Code should be considered as a part of this Syllabus. Students should pay particular attention to Article 1, Part 4: Academic Integrity. The Code is available to you at: http://www.admin.uiuc.edu/policy/code/. Academic dishonesty may result in a failing grade. Every student is expected to review and abide by the Academic Integrity Policy, and is responsible for reading it. Ignorance is not an excuse for any academic dishonesty.

Communications

Students are encouraged to communicate with their teachers outside of scheduled class meeting times, but students are expected to understand and respect the schedules of their teachers. Students should use the scheduled office hours to meet with a teacher in person or online, and should only request appointments at other times if there is a unavoidable scheduling conflict. Email is for sharing information and requesting appointments, it is not a valid way of initiating a conversation/thread with the teachers.

Email communications with the teachers should always (a) properly identify the student (both in the email address and in the closing of the message), (b) properly identify the course in the subject line of the email, using the short course rubric ("SOC100"), and (c) use proper grammar and spelling. "Drive-by" emails will be ignored, as will those asking questions that have already been answered (whether in this Syllabus, in the FAQ Forum, or otherwise). Students are expected to consult the Syllabus, the Announcements, and the FAQ Forum before raising questions.

Counseling Center

The Counseling Center is available to all students who may need help with test anxieties, reading skills, or other educational issues—as well as various other emotional or psychological issues that students encounter. The Time Management Workshops may be of particular interest to students in online/hybrid classes.

Disability Accommodations

To obtain disability-related academic adjustments and/or auxiliary aids, students with disabilities must contact the course teacher and the Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) as soon as possible. To contact DRES you may visit 1207 S. Oak St., Champaign, IL 61820. Or you may call 217.333.4603 or 217.333.1970. Or you may send e-mail to disability@illinois.edu. To insure that disability-related concerns are properly addressed from the beginning, students with disabilities who require assistance to participate in this class are asked to contact the teacher as soon as possible.

FAQ

Students in this course may have similar questions, and a "Frequently Asked Questions" (or "FAQ") forum is provided (in Moodle) to address them. Please consult the FAQ Forum if you have a question of general interest, and feel free to raise it there if it has not already been raised. The FAQ Forum is not the place to inquire about grades or matters specific to an individual student (e.g., excuses for missed work), nor is it a forum to question policies in this class. It is an information forum, not a therapy session or deliberative assembly.

Student Assistance Center

The Student Assistance Center (SAC) is a great resource for students who need help—especially for students who aren't sure where else to turn for help. Please visit their website, or send email to helpdean@illinois.edu, to request help. Among the assistance available through the SAC is help obtaining equipment that students may need for online/hybrid learning during this pandemic.

Writers Workshop

The Writers Workshop is available to all students who may need help with their writing skills.

References/Resources

Course materials are available to you through Moodle or the UIUC libraries (with appropriate links to the texts from Moodle). (These references and resources may be expanded from time-to-time. Moodle and the Syllabus will be revised accordingly.)

Adelman, Larry, Jean Cheng, Christine Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather Strain, Llewellyn Smith, Claudio Ragazzi, and C.C.H. Pounder. 2003. Race: The Power of an Illusion. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel. (in three parts)

Alvarez, Louis & Andrew Kolker. 2001. People Like Us. New York, NY: Center for New American Media and WETA.

Conerly, Tonja R., et. al. 2021. Introduction to Sociology, Third Edition. OpenStax/Rice University (ISBN 9781951693367). https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-sociology-3e (last accessed 2022.08.21).

Dougiamas, Martin. 2016. "Pedagogy." https://docs.moodle.org/32/en/Pedagogy (last revised 2016.11.08).

Erikson, Kai. 2017. The Sociologist's Eye: Reflections on Social Life. Yale University Press (ISBN 9780300106671). (There are also eBook and Kindle versions of this text, and it is available as a series of chapters/sections in JSTOR at https://www-jstor-org.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/stable/j.ctt1s4769b.)

Hobbes, Thomas. [1651] 2013. Leviathan http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm (last visited 2019.05.10).

Mills. C. Wright. [1959] 2000. The Sociological Imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (ISBN: 9780195133738.)

Newsom, Jennifer Siebel. 2011. Miss Representation. Ross, CA: GirlsClub Entertainment.

Richards, Sam. 2010. "A Radical Experiment in Empathy." TED Talks. http://youtu.be/kUEGHdQO7WA (uploaded 2010.10.21; last visited 2016.12.01).

Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library. 2015. http://www.library.illinois.edu/sshel/sociology/index.html (last visited 2015.12.19).

Tennyson, Alfred. [1850] 2000. "In Memoriam A.H.H." LVI. The Poets' Corner http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/books/tennyson/tennyson04.html (last visited 2019.05.10).

University of Chicago. 2017. "Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide (Author-Date)." Last visited 19 December 2018. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html.

Notes & Change-Log

Notes

Log

This section of the Syllabus lists most (hopefully all) changes to the file since the beginning of the term. Worry not, good students! No substantive changes will be made without reasonable notice, and you will not be sandbagged with extra work.