A04-Sociology 100 Assignment 4

SOC100.A04.W00-Edited Feb 18, 2003 (Edit 8/22/05ADA) Using The Sociological Imagination to Create and Interpret a Personal Time Line

Due: Will be listed in class schedule and/or announced in class

Review: Chapter 1, 3, and 4 in the Gelles and Levine text, before starting this assignment.

Assignment:
(1) In the middle of a page place a "time line", a list of years, which begins with some event or transition in your family (I suggest your parents birth). Extend the line up to 2002. To the extreme right of the line note the important events ("significant events") in our society's history during the years of your time line (e.g. wars, economic booms and bursts, civil unrest, social movements and issues, technological events, and the like). Use class content, text, library sources and discussions with parents, friends, etc. to identify "significant events" you see as important. To the left of the line note important transitions in you and your families life (make separate lines for you and your family so I can easily see the items that are specific to you).

(2) Write a 150-200 word essay interpreting your time line. Discuss the relationship you see between you, your family's biography, and society history. This is using the "sociological imagination". The essay must be submitted in class. Do not put in my mail box or under my door or give to my secretary.

My abbreviated time line is attached. Yours should be more comprehensive then mine which is abbreviated for the web page. Place the years vertical on the page (you may use multiple pages for your time line). I have purposely made mine brief so that you will seek and find the significant events yourself and also so that you will tell me what you see as significant events since the end of my time line.

I find many of my personal characteristics related to my mother and father's being afraid of the city (since they just moved from a farm a common occurrence for this time). At a broader level some of the relationships in my life related to social changes in our society and the world include; my personal concern with having adequate money, despite my personal stable financial history. This is related to my dad's starting his family at the end of the depression with no job prospects. My Dad's financial fears and concerns became part of my early childhood socialization. Science and teaching became a national goal due to Sputnik in October of 1957. I was encouraged and able to attend college due to this event. Forgivable loans were given to majors in science and teaching as part of the National focus on "catching up" to the Russians. My divorce and feeling of failure was another experience in my life related to social changes in our society. Male and female roles along with family patterns changed dramatically during my life, increased divorce rates followed W.W.II. My socialization with my family on the responsibilities of males and the wrongness of divorce made my divorce very traumatic.

MY TIME LINE

Me	Family	Date	U.S.	U.S. & World
	Mom and Dad leave farm Get married Dad works C.C.C. program	1937	New Deal	Near end of Great Depression
My Birth	First child born	1938		World War II
Listen to radio with family FDR Fireside chats Baby Snooks	Dad works at Coca Cola	1941	Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
Started school	Second child born Dad becomes fireman	1945	Post-War Baby Boom
I watch first TV	Third child born Move to "Good Neighborhood" Get first TV	1953		Korean War
Grad. H. S.		1956	Civil Rights Movement
Went to JC		1957	Russians launch Sputnik (Oct.)
Leave home for college Take first computer class IBM 650		1961		Vet Nam
Moved to Ohio Grad School		1963	Urban Riots
First teaching job Chicago UICC First marriage		1968		Women's Movement
Moved to Bakersfield		1972
Buy my first PC in 1978		1975-76		First Commercial PCs
Divorced		1979		Grenada
Second marriage		1983
First child (Biz)		1984
Second child (Sarah)		1985

Your annotations should be well written (typed with your name, date and assignment number at the top if not submitted via the web), grammatical, complete, free of spelling errors, and neat. You will be graded down for papers that look like first drafts. Organize carefully and make sure your paper is clear and understandable. Proof before submitting. Remember, your audience is someone like yourself who is not taking this class.

Grading Criteria:
(1) Typed professional quality of your paper--your name, class, date and assignment number should be on the top right of your paper. Proper referencing (APA, MLA, etc.), identifying the sources, should be included at the end of your paper if needed.

(2) Precise use of concepts. The concepts you use should be used correctly; be certain that you understand them.

(3) Subtlety or profundity of the annotation. This is a rather more subjective criterion. It identifies the difference between acceptable and accurate work on the one hand, and, on the other, really interesting work. In other words, the difference between "C" or "B" work and "A" work

(Your grade will be a check (85), -1(75) , -2(65), or -3(F), or +1(A). Very few if any +1 grades are given.