THEORY AND WAC

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY IN THE BROADER CONTEXT

SOC 303: Sociological Theory is part of the required course sequence in the sociology major at Lehman College. Like most other comparable courses in similar institutions it is taken by students during their Junior or Senior years in order to link material they studied previously to the foundational thinkers in sociology including, but not limited to, Marx, Weber and Durkheim. It is a challenging course to the extent that students read original work from the 19th to early 20th century, without having been exposed to much of the historical background needed to understand the evolution of capitalism, industrialism and modern thought.

Given its focus and complex content, the course meshes well with some of the learning objectives as adopted by Lehman College and as laid out by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, namely: critical thinking, written communication, intercultural knowledge, and integrative learning.

DEVELOPING NEW LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The 2017-2018 academic year was the first time I was teaching this course. However, I had taught many theory heavy courses in the past, such as Political Sociology, and had been asked by the Department of Sociology to spearhead a “theory committee” in order to rethink the way this course should be approached. This effort had been prompted by our assessment as a department of several challenges students faced across our curriculum: difficulty in identifying various sociological traditions and competing explanations when reading texts, not always being aware of disciplinary boundaries and overlaps, and, not appreciating fully the role of theory as a powerful explanatory tool. Additionally, insufficient background in historical knowledge and challenges in reading and writing just served to compound these problems.

The redesigned course, therefore, had an extra hour devoted to hands-on exercises and included a set of learning objectives that were more practical in nature, such as:

“-The ability to read and explain (through oral and written communication) complex sociological texts.

-Use key theoretical perspectives in a variety of sociological writing exercises.

-Understand the relationship of empirical evidence to theory building.”

To me these goals meant that, instead of just focusing on classic writers in a vacuum, the course should cover a set of practical skills such as modelling how I personally approach reading intimidating texts, help the class appreciate the fact that theory offers competing views of how our capitalist societies works and, finally, develop the tools necessary to discuss and write about theory in a more contemporary context. I tried to remind students of these goals and more formal objectives every chance I got, whether during prompts for a small writing exercises or class discussions.

THEORY AND WAC

During the course of the year I taught three sections of the course, with 12 to 25 students in each. The classes were held in our “flip labs” equipped with desktop computers or a regular classroom, but with access to laptop carts. The availability of computers therefore allowed for experimenting with a variety of exercises that may be perceived as atypical for a sociological theory course. My participation in WAC and presence in the classroom of my Writing Fellow Ashley, therefore, happened at an opportune moment, allowing for a forum that provided feedback and ideas for variety assignments.

During the first semester, the exchange of ideas during WAC sessions and Ashley’s feedback led to the development and testing of exercises seeking to accomplish some of the goals the Department and I had set out.  The Spring semester, however, was more conducive to thinking of these exercises in a more sequential and structured manner. The observations in this e-portfolio are more representative of the latter set of exercises and allow for some general appreciation of how writing worked in the classroom. 

THE TERM PROJECT: THE INTRODUCTION OF AN EDITED SOCIOLOGY BOOK

Many assignments in several comparable theory courses at times call on students to apply the ideas of classic thinkers to a contemporary societal problem. I always found these led students toward very artificial and counterproductive writing where they make awkward statements like “Marx would think this about gender inequality in the workplace or Weber would say that about the Women’s March in Washington” when these individuals were writing in a very different context over a century ago. Ultimately, these undermine students’ understanding of the role of theory in sociology, which should allow for the development of new ideas in light of existing theories and recent evidence.

The final project the WAC workshop helped me develop called on students to be “editors” of a sociology book on a topic of their choice and to find four journal articles written from each of the perspectives we covered in class (Marxist, Weberian, Smithian, and Durkheimian) to be its chapters. The final product was the “introduction” of the book in which the students would identify the main contribution to the topic of each sociological tradition they found in the “chapters”. I felt that this assignment meshed well with our learning goals and hoped it would additionally achieve the following when we specifically think of writing:

• The final product would be something more tangible students could take ownership of.
•  The writing style it required would be more in line with the types of professional writing sociologists might be asked to do.
• It allowed for the use of writing to engage the ideas of contemporary sociologists and learn how to identify the schools of thought that guide their research.

SMALLER WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

Scaffolding assignments

Because my participation in WAC and development of the term project took place in tandem, a series of scaffolding assignments were more formally introduced in the second semester. They included: writing short paragraphs about the book’s topic and a bibliography assignment where students traced the popularity of Marx and Weber across time on the topic of their choice in sociology journals.

Assignments to think about the role of theory

In some assignments I wanted students to appreciate how applying theoretical concepts in discussing certain topic worked and contributed to the quality of the argument. For instance, the first assignment asks students to write a satirical piece about their observation of fashion trends in New York City in the style of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters. Later, students were asked to use Simmel’s concepts about fashion to rephrase their observations in a more formal style (please see the assignments’ page).

Assignments to help engage the readings

One of the challenges involved with teaching theoretical pieces is that students often confuse an author’s observations about society with their moral/political position. For instance, if a theorist feels that society is characterized by inequality and lack of opportunity, students may feel that that is what the author is advocating for and might feel more sympathetic toward readings that do not think that inequality is a problem. In these cases, I have found that “believing/doubting” or “what the author says/what is their goal” style of informal exercises in class helped distinguish the argument from the observation found in the reading.

Additionally, I wanted to add forms of writing that would help students explore ways of thinking about the material that were different than just note taking. These included a “family tree” or “time line” of different sociological currents or a “business plan” that they developed in groups in order to explore the concept of wages, capital and profit put forward by Marx and Engels.

FINDINGS

In terms of the overall goal of whether students could identify sociological traditions and write about them in ways that fit the conventions of the discipline, I feel like the assignments were a partial success. I looked over 25 assignments in the Spring 2017 semester and, using a rubric, I rated as “excellent” a source that a student managed to find if it applied a specific tradition to the study of a contemporary phenomenon. I also rated as “excellent” if a student was able to really introduce the source in a way that demonstrated some understanding of how the author applied classic concepts to what they were researching.

The results are varied. Overall, I found that students understood what the assignment was about and appreciated how different authors used various conceptual tools/theories (see the assignments section for examples). However, while a very large proportion of them managed to find sources written from a Marxist or Weberian tradition, over 90% and 70% of students respectively, some students still had difficulty discerning sources written from other perspectives. Similarly, while around 50% of students felt comfortable using sociological language and conventions to talk about sources from both the Marxist and Weberian perspective, a smaller segment of the class felt comfortable identifying and discussing sources using sources that they felt were influenced by Adam Smith and Durkheim. 

In general, however, I was happy that at the end of the semester students used much less normative language to talk about theories and that they were able to see that these were frameworks developed to understand various phenomena.

THE FUTURE OF WRITING IN THE COURSE

I do feel generally satisfied with the general direction the class has taken and the way the writing assignments have evolved over time and fit nicely with the course objectives. However, several observations Ashley (the writing fellow) and I have made suggests that the following areas need to be reinforced to continue making positive gains (please see annotated syllabus for comments on specific assignments).

• Scaffolding assignments can be more clearly introduced as being important aspects of the term project and overall course content. Unfortunately, many did not necessarily perceive the interconnectedness of some assignments and worked on the final project in isolation.
• "Believing/Doubting" style exercises worked well and should be used more frequently to grapple with complex readings
• While a high level of enthusiasm was noticeable among the group with some assignments that deviated from a standard delivery of the material, some did take valuable time away from the material or other endeavors. Reviewing which learning objective each assignment is aimed at tackling could be useful in order to make them more focused and manageable.
• Mixing newer styles of disciplinary writing with classical theory worked well and should be further developed.

Overall, it was great to see so many colleagues share similar goals and approach to their substantive and teaching interests as I did. Discussing courses with others in the future will definitely help.