Each week you will be asked to investigate a variety of readings accompanied by commentaries or sets of questions to guide you through the readings. These weekly questions are designed to guide you through the ideas and concepts that we will be exploring in the course. You will be asked to investigate these key questions, and post your findings to the 'Discussion Forums'. Active engagement in discussion is an important part of university learning. Ensure you have read at least the required readings prior to discussions. Your course facilitator will give additional instructions on how to successfully participate in the Discussion Forums. Note that quality participation in less than 80% of weekly discussions will incur a ‘fail’ unless exceptional circumstances prevail..

Form into groups of approximately 4 in Week 7 on the basis of first come (the number of students in each group will depend on the number of enrolled students in this course for each Study Period).  Group topics will correspond to the three modules within this course: 1) background and concepts; 2) family generations; 3) historical generations. Decide on an aspect of one of the topics within your Module and develop a wiki presentation on this.  Your facilitator will explain what is required in more detail.

Other outcomes aimed for are a developed sense of the complexity and significance of the course material and an appreciation of the contributions of sociological writers. It is expected that you will develop your practical sense of how to research a variety of texts and media in public circulation, how to evaluate their content and engage with it effectively by selecting appropriate material for your wiki.

By sharing information, debating ideas and working closely with your peers to build your wiki you will be building a more complex picture of reality. Through the process of coming to grips with the differences within your ‘team’, you will gain a stronger sense both of who you are and where you come from, and how others from very different backgrounds and situations view the world.

Assignment Criteria /Group Presentation Aims

• The group has developed a collective sense of its interests and aims for the wiki

• The group has worked on its interpretation of the foundation topic

• The group has reflected on the process of working collaboratively and has negotiated different interests, approaches and strengths

• The group found ways of communicating its interests and aims for the wiki in a collaborate approach to the task.

The group wiki will be assessed at 10% of the final mark in this unit. This component will attract a group mark (the same for each member of the group).

Group Wiki Criteria

• The group has interpreted the foundation topic in a coherent and interesting way

• The group has produced a collaborative wiki page that presents the group’s interpretation of the topic in an effective and intellectually mature way

• The group’s comments reflect well upon the process of working collaboratively and negotiating different interests, approaches and strengths

The individual wiki contribution will be assessed at 10% of the final mark for this unit. This component will attract an individual mark (different for each member of the group).

Please note that if no individual contribution is made to the wiki, the student will not receive the Group Wiki Mark or the Individual Wiki Contribution Mark.

Individual Wiki Criteria

 • The student’s individual wiki contribution to the group project is convincing and impressive

Assignment Guidelines

The group wiki text should be approximately 2,000 words and should include images and hyperlinks

• The wiki text should be in full sentences and properly proofed (be free of spelling and grammar errors).

• Full references should be given for all material referred to, at the bottom of the page/s and /or through hyperlinks. The reference style supplied by the facilitator is to be used

• The group does not have to cover all aspects of the foundational topic chosen. The group may narrow its focus. The aim is to come up with a distinct and engaging interpretation of an aspect (or several aspects) of the specified topic

• The group should explore the common interests of its members and draw out a group focus that is coherent and interesting

• The group might offer a brief account of the literature (under clarifying subheadings), links to interesting, relevant material (websites, newspaper articles, policy documents), and some kind of overview created via the group’s own contributes (using images, key snippets of information or brief indications of research findings on aspects of that topic - according to members’ interests)

• The group should come up with a provisional group name, and then a final name for its wiki (which should be included in the wiki text as title)

• Once the group has a wiki page provisionally named, it should try to keep all discussion between members in one area that can be viewed by the marker, e.g. in the wiki’s comments area. This will be used to determine individual wiki assessment.

• The group should delegate tasks democratically to individual members, e.g. referencing and proof reading; images and fonts; research areas.

• The group should work on enabling each individual member rather than competing with each other. Individual effort to strengthen the group ethos or struggling members along democratic lines will be credited.

Write a 1500 word life history ESSAY on comparing social lives This assignment requires you to hold a brief conversation-style interview with a person at least 30 years older than you if you are under 55. If you are 55 or over you should hold your interview with someone 30 years younger but they should be an adult. Based on this information you are to compare social lives and write a 1,500 word essay.

• Choose one topic from the following list: a) education; b) work; c) gender; d) family;

• Compare your respondent’s experiences, when they were about your age (if you are under 55) with your own, or compare their experiences to yours when you were their age (if you are 55 or older). Discuss the differences and apparent similarities.

• Exercise your sociological imagination, that is, situate both your experiences and the experiences of your respondent in the relevant social conditions that frame these experiences. Ask yourself what, in society at large, has changed over time to affect lives in such a way that we can speak of general, generational differences in life experience.

• Draw on sociological literature (book chapters, articles, course Readings, lectures, etc.) to back up your points.

Because of the brevity of the assignment you are not required to write a separate section on the interview itself. After a brief introduction, get straight to the discussion and integrate the interview material as you go along.

Write a 1,500 word analytical essay on ONE of the questions to be supplied in Friday Week 12 This essay will test your comprehension of the course. Use at least 6 references from the course.