Assignment Question
Aim and Substance
Your essay assignments are opportunities to critically analyze the ideas of the major theorists of this class. You will interpret their key concepts and “big picture” perspectives to present an argument which answers a question posed by the assignment. Note, this question does not have one right answer. The goal of the assignment is not to guess the answer your TA/professor believes. Instead, you should use your understanding of the course materials to develop and support your own position. Your essays are also opportunities to practice the writing and argumentation skills (ie: making claims, avoiding logical fallacies) you are learning in tutorials. This first essay helps reinforce (and assess) the following learning objectives from the syllabus: identify theoretical concepts and processes from key theorists explain the relevance of particular concepts to specific theoretical perspectives evaluate theories analytically in terms conceptual strengths and weaknesses Prompt question and structure Imagine you’re in a café with Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Mary Wollstonecraft, Alexis de Tocqueville and Frederick Douglass. They’re having a lively conversation about power and inequality. Shouting over the chatter, Mary Wollstonecraft suddenly declares: “Dependency is the most destructive force in society! Whenever someone has power over another, it morally degrades both the powerful and the powerless!” The other sociologists pause for a deep breath. Then they respond to Wollstonecraft. What would they say? What would Wollstonecraft say back to them? Write a persuasive essay articulating how two theorists we have read in this class (Smith, Marx, Douglass or Tocqueville) would each respond to Wollstonecraft’s challenge, and how she would answer them. In your essay, be sure to explain: 1) why Wollstonecraft believes dependency and inequality are the root of all social problems; 2) how the two authors you chose (Smith, Wollstonecraft, Douglass or Tocqueville) would respond to her argument; and 3) how Wollstonecraft would reply to the other authors’ critical points. In your introduction, you should make a claim (an argument) which briefly summarizes the debate between Wollstonecraft and the other two. What key assumptions lead these three to agree / disagree with each other? The body of your essay should give evidence, from lectures and relevant texts exploring each perspective. To do this, you should draw on Wollstonecraft’s and other’s arguments on the nature of power and inequality. You should then conclude the essay by briefly explaining why the evidence you presented supports your argument. Ideally, you should finish with a sentence or two explaining the significance of your argument to understanding debates over inequality in social theory: how does answering this question help us understanding their different “big picture” perspectives? Helpful advice 1) You do not need to discuss every relevant piece of evidence in the lectures and assigned readings. Make choices about what’s most important and persuasive to your point of view. You should not introduce ideas in the body that are not mentioned in the introduction. 2) In general, each paragraph will be structured around one point and/or quote from an assigned reading. A paragraph should be organized around a single idea. Your evidence (body) paragraphs should introduce that idea as a topic sentence. Then present the point (cited appropriately) from the reading, either paraphrased or quoted directly. Then explain briefly how the quote or paraphrase relates to the idea in your topic sentence. 3) Your argument and evidence should remain close to the texts. Remember: you’re not arguing with Wollstonecraft about dependency. You’re arguing how other classical social theorists would respond to her argument. You can use your own ideas to explain how evidence from the texts relates to your point. But your points themselves and the evidence to support them should come from assigned readings. A body paragraph which has no support from assigned readings is probably not useful to your argument. Assessment Essays will be graded according to your ability to present an argument addressing the prompt and defend with the evidence from the assigned readings. Is your argument clear from the introduction? Does it answer the question asked? Have you presented persuasive evidence from assigned readings to support your argument? Are you explaining concepts/arguments accurately, and choosing relevant points to make your case? Clarity of writing (grammar, spelling, paragraphing) and a logical structure are also important. Are you following the structure of an essay? Are points presented in a logical order? Did you proofread carefully? Is evidence properly cited? Academic Integrity Students will be required to submit their course assignments to the University’s plagiarism detection tool for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the tool’s reference database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. You may use generative AI tools (ie: ChatGPT or Bing Chat Bot) to brainstorm ideas or learn more about Adam Smith’s thinking. Any prompts and texts generated by these tools must be submitted as an appendix to your assignment.
