First, Identify and describe the details of one important life event or experience taken from your
own life, and briefly explain why your chosen life event/experience matters to you. Make sure
you feel comfortable to share the background and details of this event/experience in
sufficient detail that your TA or professor will be able to assess the effectiveness of your
use of sociological concepts, theories, and research, to describe and to explain this
event/experience sociologically.
Second, state the five sociological subdisciplines (i.e., the five chapters) from Brym et al.’s
Sociology: Your Compass for a New Social World (7th edition) textbook, as well as all
corresponding chapters from Brym’s Sociology as a Life or Death Issue (4th edition) textbook, that
you will use to describe and to explain your chosen life event or experience. You do not need to
state the dates or class numbers of the lectures that you will also use, since these will usually be
the ones oriented explicitly to the subdisciplines addressed in your chosen textbook chapters.
Third, briefly explain what a “sociological imagination” is. Then, list the key aspects that you have
identified, through your use of your sociological imagination, as pertinent and necessary to
describe and to explain your chosen personal life event/experience in its fuller sociological
context.
Critical integration analysis (– this is the “body” of your essay):
Your critical literature review must comprise six key subsections, each of which must be
substantially developed and efficiently written (i.e., idea-dense).
In each of the first five subsections, use your sociological imagination to apply the concepts,
theories, and research, taken from each of your five selected sociological subdisciplines, to
understand and to explain your chosen life event/experience. For example, if one of your selected
Compass chapters is “Networks, Groups, Bureaucracies, and Societies”, then you will have one
subsection, with “Networks, Groups, Bureaucracies, and Societies” as its subtitle, in which you
examine your personal event/experience in light of the concepts, theories, and research
developed in the “Networks, Groups, Bureaucracies, and Societies” chapter. Your remaining four,
of these five, subsections will similarly be subtitled and focused according to your selected
Compass chapters.
In the sixth subsection, examine your chosen life event or experience by making connections
between and across your five selected sociological subdisciplines. Helpful tip: This subsection
should be at least twice as long as the average length of each of the previous five subsections.
The skeleton outline that you created as the first step in your Take-Home Final Exam will prove
to be of paramount importance, as will the feedback that you have already received in your
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Sociological Imagination Outline Assignment. Helpful tip: Do not start writing your essay until
you have fully developed your skeleton outline.
In addition, remember to cite your references correctly, using either APA or ASA style!