Response paper 2 covers Units 3 and 4 of the course, from Durkheim to Foucault.
Your response paper should be 3-5 pages in length. In your response, you must cover at least two authors. The goal of these papers is twofold: 1) to encourage you to think analytically by comparing and contrasting the contributions of different theorists; and 2) to hone your writing skills. In terms of paper structure, you are welcome to summarize the arguments of the authors you choose to cover—and indeed, some summary will be necessary—but I encourage you to devote the majority of your paper to comparison. Possible comparative questions you may wish to answer include:
How do the authors’ initial assumptions (about society, about social problems) lead them to different conclusions?
How do authors differ in their explications of social structure?
Here I encourage you to describe how different authors place emphasis on different elements of the social structure OR come to divergent conclusions about the same subject or concept.
How do authors’ inclusion or oversight of particular subjects shape their conclusions?
