Objective: Students will show their knowledge of sociological concepts and topics by critiquing a movie of their choice.
Course Competencies:
Read with comprehension.
Make connections in learning across the disciplines and draw logical conclusions.
Demonstrate problem-solving through interpreting, analyzing, summarizing, and/or integrating a variety of materials.
Apply learning in academic, personal, and/or public situations.
Any of the other competencies depending upon the concepts and topics that they chose
Assignment:
You will write a 3-page movie critique, in APA format, with in-text citations and an APA reference page. The 3-page requirement DOES NOT include the cover page, abstract or reference page.
In this paper, you will create a clear introduction that states what movie you are critiquing, a summary of the movie, and include a quote or something you think may catch the readers eye. After this introductory paragraph, the second paragraph should include the two sociological topics that will be discussed regarding the movie that was chosen.
In the body, you will develop a sociological argument. State what you believe the movie says sociologically, using evidence from the movie. Include events from the plot, descriptions of important scenes, and direct quotes from character dialogue to make your point.
Don’t summarize the whole movie; rather, focus on the parts of it that are most important to your argument. These are your two social topics.
Remember to also use your textbook to define terms and to support your thesis.
This not a movie review. You must have academic support for your paper or it will be a zero. Only book and movie citations are not a research paper. You must do research and use it in order to receive credit for this assignment.
Here are a few things that you can discuss in the critique:
What social themes or topics do you think your movie deals with? Please see the topics in each chapter of your book i.e. inequality, race, family, religion, gender, recreation, etc.
How does your movie portray each of the three topics you have chosen? Are the portrayals stereotypical or accurate? Are they positive or negative? Do they poke fun at them? What kind of impression does it make about this group?
In what way does the movie distort or represent the society of that time?
Are there any social concerns that are discussed or portrayed in the movies?
Select observations that are surprising or startling. A sociological movie critique that makes unexpected observations will be much more interesting than one that focuses on obvious things.
These are not all encompassing. If you have an idea, then ask. These are just a few suggestions.
Write a conclusion restating your main thesis and showing how it relates to a broader sociological perspective. You may wish to reflect on the movie’s continued relevance to current events, for example, or, if its no longer relevant to our culture, discuss what has changed.
Checklist
Resources –
o Must use and cite the book. Citation is: Witt, J. (2018). SOC 101. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
o Must use and cite the movie. See this guide for help with and examples of APA citations: http://southcentral.libguides.com/apa
o The other sources must come from the Sociology LibGuide (http://southcentral.libguides.com/sociology) or articles approved by me
Follow APA format
o Times New Roman 12-point font, double spaced, 1-inch margins
o Cover Page has running head, page number, title of paper, student name, name of college. Simply fill in the blanks of the Movie Critique Outline that is in this assignment.
o Abstract Follow format in sample paper. Double spaced, 150-250 words, and right justified. There should be 5 keywords italicized and centered below the abstract these keywords should be what is listed on the outline and then add your 2 social issues and movie title.
o Movie title should be italicized ONLY throughout the ENTIRE paper.
o Movie title on body of paper and bolded and centered
o Body of paper 3 pages this does not include the cover, abstract, or reference pages
Must have introduction, two sections (with subheadings) explaining your two topics, and conclusion.
Must be written in 3rd person. No I or me or opinion in this paper.
Must have APA in-text citations or, if not, then it is considered plagiarism.
Must use 10-15 vocabulary words and show that you know the meaning of them inside your text. These words must be bolded for you to receive credit.
o Reference Page must be APA formatted per the outline that I provide you.
Must have 6-8 sources, including the movie and the book.
Besides the movie and the social topic, sources may be information and facts about the movie OR information about the sociological concepts OR even referencing a like movie and showing some related information.
No reference page or in-text citations = Plagiarism = automatic failure.
URLs or titles of articles alone do not count and will be considered plagiarism and you will receive a zero.
All sources listed must be used and cited as in text citations in the paper. If this isnt done, then you lose points for each source not used. This is the purpose of the reference page- to use the for support in your paper.
If there is no research and there is only the book and movie cited it is a zero as this is a research paper and you have not done a research paper
Unlink the urls and make all font black
