SOAN 453B: SENIOR SEMINAR:
 Senior Seminar:  Issues in Contemporary Sociology:
 Social Problems in Global-Historical Perspective
 WED 2:45-5:15 AL 432
 Colgate University
 Fall 2004 Professor Thomas Hall
 Office:  408 Alumni, x7083, email:  tdhall@mail.colgate.edu
 OFFICE HOURS:  Tu 2:45-4; W 1:30-2:30 & 5:20-6, Th 12-1, & by appt
Discussing the Readings
& Note Taking, I
Last Updated 9-8-04

For EVERY seminar meeting where we have readings, each student will need to hand in sheet on each reading for which they are responsiple.

HOW & WHAT to READ:
It is important that you read the ENTIRE book or article. If you read only a part, you will often miss critical points.  See the comments from former students in the Syllabus. Rather, read the entire assignment. Think about the following questions as your read:

• (a) What is the author's main argument?
• (b) What is his/her major evidence for her/his argument?
• (c) Do you see any weak points?
• (d) What does this reading tell us about social problems? [It is ok to report that you canNOT figure out how it relates].
• (e) What does the reading say about global perspectives?
• (f) Does it have special importance for one of the problems someone in the seminar is studying?
• (g) What does this reading add to, disagree with, go in a new direction compared with earlier readings?

Some of these questions may be more difficult for some readings than others.  What some readings do, is give a broad perspective, not a solution to a specific social problem.  

Why do this?  One to force each of you to do the readings. Remember comments from past seminar students on this!  Depending on what you were doing just before seminar, you may forget points you wanted to raise, this way you have them with you.  Also, you will have a record of the readings, and along with the notes generated by the scribe, you will have a resource to help you sort through and write the parts of your own thesis that relate to the readings. 

Finally, it helps me see what you are getting out of the readings.  Some of these things I have read many times, and in different contexts (and in one or two cases I wrote them) so this helps me figure out what to spend time on in our discussions.

As the term progresses the readings will become less general and more tailored to various topics, so this will become easier, and much more useful.

NEW:  Doing a Handout

After class week 2, Sept. 8, it seems some clarification will help. 

If you do a handout for the class make nine copies or get to me at least an hour before seminar so I can make the copies.

• (a) might be a simple series of bullet points
• (b) can be a sentence or longer depending on what the evidence is.  You may specific is it historical narrative, statistics, etc.
• (c) can be as simple as "none" or as complex as a full-bodied critique
• (d) Here the point is what do we learn from this specific reading about social problems in general?
• (e) How does this reading show a global perspective is valuable?  or does it?
• (f) Did you encounter anything in the reading that you did not bullet point or discuss, but that you want to call to the attention of someone else for her/his thesis?
• (g) in other words, what do we learn that is new from this reading.

Overall shoot for one or two pages.  It is also perfectly fair and resoanble [probably under (c), but anywhere to point out that something, as simple as a term, or as complex as a complete argument, that is not clear to you.

Send comments or questions to tdhall@mail.colgate.edu  
Back to Course Home Page