Assessment of Communication Skills and Critical Thinking
A.You are to choose a current event to analyze. This current event can be no older than 5 years.
B.The current event selected must be from a reputable source. I want this to be a newspaper or news magazine (New York Times, Washington Post etc). Please see me if you are unsure if your source is reputable. Also, make certain that your article is comprehensive enough that you have enough information for the analysis.
C.I need for you to document the source you use (author, date, page numbers, newspaper/newsmagazine etc).
D.You should first summarize your current event (this should take no more than a paragraph). What is the author’s argument or issues involved? What is the evidence presented?
E.How does this article relate to what you have learned this semester? I want elaboration here. You must present this in terms of concepts learned this semester. You need to use no fewer than 10 concepts in your analysis. How do these concepts relate to the current event and the arguments the author is making? If you tell me that a particular concept is relevant to the current event, explain how it is relevant. This means that you will first have to explain or define the concept. Then you have to provide evidence of how it is relevant to the current event. This will describe explicitly how this issue is sociological.
F.What are your conclusions? Why and how did you reach these conclusions?
G.The material must be appropriately referenced (e.g. Newman, year, pg#) from your text and your article. I will go over this further in class.
Sample Solution