How might a sociologist introduce you?
How have social influences shaped you?
What were the social forces that constructed your life or lifestyle?
How have you negotiated the crisscrossing pressures of autonomy and conformity?
Who are you in a social context and what does it mean to understand your life using the “sociological imagination,” or utilizing a sociological perspective?
What sociological concepts would be most helpful in understanding and interpreting your life experiences, whether class, or reference group, conformity, agents of socialization, gender socialization, racial socialization, norms, roles, significant others, total institutions (particularly if you were in the military), achieved status, ascribed status, deviance, subculture, culture, culture shock, ethnocentrism, folkways, mores, peer groups, and any others described in the textbook chapters, to interpret your life experiences?
What events, moments, or relationships in your life have impacted you significantly?
Include the following in your analysis:
Quotes or paraphrases and citations from both outside scholarly sources and assigned readings (online Lessons or textbook readings), to support your observations in your presentation.
6 different concepts, keywords, or vocabulary words from Chapters 1-6 in your analysis and observations on your slides, formatted in boldface and underlined on slides.
You may repeat these 6 terms throughout the PowerPoint presentation if you want to, but you are not required to.
Writing Tip: Focus
As Kanagy and Kraybill (1999) wrote in their book, The Riddles of Human Society, the socio autobiography is “not a diary” or a “point-by-point account” of life since birth (p. 287). Feel free to focus on only a part or parts of your life story.
Instructions
For this personal case study project, you are required to create a narrated PowerPoint presentation with audio and/or video within the PowerPoint. The audio/video must be part of the PowerPoint file. Audio/video may not be external to the presentation and you must submit a .ppt file extension PowerPoint file.
The presentation must include the following:
Part or Parts of Your Own Life Story: Explain and analyze your life story or parts of your life story as a sociologist might, examining sociological categories relevant to your life story.
Include details of family, culture, and background.
Consider what types of categories a sociologist might use to describe you.
Audio Narration: Allow the audio narration to serve as the main explanation of the presentation. Do not use blocks of text on slides. If you want to add additional written explanations, in addition to the audio narration, you may add that in presentation notes for slides.
Engagement: Be sure to deliver the presentation in a professional and engaging manner.
