TRAILS, a peer-reviewed digital teaching resources library developed by the American Sociological Association (ASA), is an innovative educational tool that provides sociology teachers with access to thousands of teaching resources. Launched on May 25, 2010, the website offers many useful features, such as a searchable database of peer-reviewed teaching resources and the ability to customize presented content based on the interests of the subscriber. The types of resources that can be found on TRAILS include syllabi, assignments, class activities, lectures, PowerPoint slides, and assessments. Resources published in TRAILS have been through a strong, two-stage process of peer review based in empirically proven best practices in pedagogy. Access is free for ASA members and available at a discounted price for nonmembers in Department Affiliate departments. Submission instructions for TRAILS can be found at https://trails.asanet.org/about/submissions. Questions regarding TRAILS can be directed to the editor, Dr. Stephanie Medley-Rath, at trails@asanet.org.
Assignments
“Building Student Expertise: Using OpEds in the Classroom.” Colleen Wynn and Amanda Miller. AREA: Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Other, Sociological Practice, Urban Sociology. This resource provides two approaches to an OpEd assignment in two levels of courses. OpEds are public scholarship that discuss contemporary issues from the author’s perspective using a variety of types of evidence. One of these assignment models is from an introductory general education course and the other a 300-level course primarily for majors and minors. These models indicate that these approaches to this OpEd assignment can be adapted to a range of courses. Teaching students how to write OpEds provides a skill that allows them to apply their sociological expertise immediately and long after they have left our classrooms.
“Fake Antennae, Real Threats: Speculative Fiction and Kirby’s ‘A Few Normal Things That Happen a Lot’ as a Pedagogical Tool for Teaching about Sexual Victimization and Related Concepts.” Lisa Winters. AREA: Criminology/Delinquency, Sex and Gender. The purpose of this assignment is to use Gwen E. Kirby’s work of speculative fiction “A Few Normal Things That Happen a Lot” to teach about sexual victimization and related concepts. Kirby’s short story vividly details the subtle and overt “normal” sexism and threats of violence women experience as they navigate their day-to-day lives. Most interestingly, her story falls within the subgenre of magical feminism, introducing readers to a world in which women benefit from fantastical elements to overcome their fear of victimization by men. The fantasy of this story blends with reality in a way that will foster student engagement and facilitate classroom discussion. Kirby’s story is one example of the way imaginative prose and subtle humor can help improve conceptual learning of sensitive, often deeply personal topics in the classroom. The assignment is designed to encourage students to think both critically and creatively about our social world. The story is best suited for upper-level undergraduate students or graduate students in sociology, criminology, victimology, and gender studies. The assignment is best suited for students who understand sexual victimization and some or all the following concepts: toxic masculinity, rape culture, victim blaming, the #MeToo movement, and cancel culture. Materials provided may be adopted in whole or in part and can otherwise be adapted to suit the needs of instructors and the modalities through which they teach. All questions are designed to be engaging for students and accessible for instructors—even those who may have little to no experience reading speculative fiction or other creative works through a sociological lens.
“Seeing Social Problems through a Sociological Lens.” Amanda Kennedy. AREA: Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems. This assignment serves as the final project for Introduction to Sociology—asking students to practice the sociological imagination, apply theoretical paradigms, read and summarize sociological research, describe the process of socialization, and examine the impact of social stratification. Students can submit a “report” or, if desired, create a website that reflects these different sections. It works as a final but can also be treated as a suite of assignments that can be given all term long. It captures the major learning goals of the semester and allows students to apply them to a social problem they select. It is novel in that students can work on individual elements of the assignment as smaller homework assignments all semester, gaining instructor feedback while producing a sociological portfolio that they develop further and refine as the final.
“Dreaming of Gender: Assessing Sut Jhally’s Dreamworlds Hypothesis of Gendered Depictions in Music Videos.” Zachary Miner. AREA: Art/Music, Sex and Gender. This assignment is intended to help students critically examine media—specifically, music videos—for the gendered messages contained therein. This goal is achieved through analysis of currently popular music videos via a process adapted from Sut Jhally’s classic documentary series Dreamworlds. It is also intended to promote critical examination of media more broadly and encourage students to see media content as (1) socially constructed and (2) subject to many of the same social forces as other aspects of culture.
“Adapting Anti-prejudice Tenets for Enhancing Discussion Board Assessments in Domestic Violence Courses.” Julio Montanez. AREA: Applied Sociology/Evaluation Research, Criminology/Delinquency. This resource, overall, adapts anti-prejudice tenets to enhance discussion board assessments. Step by step, the resource mimics Gordon Allport’s contact hypothesis tenets to develop an interactive, problem-solving approach to discussion board–based assessments. A summary of the approach, in addition to an example assignment and prompts, is provided.
“Separate, Not Equal: Exploring Food Insecurity and Health.” Tamika Odum. AREA: Medical Sociology, Public Policy, Race, Class and Gender. This project helps students gain a sociological understanding of food insecurity and health. Students participate in an immersive experience, exploring local grocery stores in Cincinnati. The goal of this activity is to help students use scholarship, interactive mapping tools, and experiential learning to understand how food insecurity contributes to poor health outcomes, examine sociological explanations of food insecurity, and practice solving real-world problems by creating innovative solutions.
Class Activities
“Understanding Contested Illness through a Role-Playing Jigsaw Activity.” Kaylin Greene. AREA: Disabilities, Medical Sociology, Mental Health. In the current activity, students use a jigsaw cooperative learning strategy to learn about diverging perspectives related a contested illness scenario. Contested illnesses are those that are somewhat disputed in the medical community or do not have a clear physiological cause. During this activity, students will gain information about contested illnesses through individual research, consider diverging viewpoints related to contested illnesses, and provide a diagnosis to a hypothetical patient. Although the medical model of disease suggests that diagnostic categories are stable and unchanging, the social construction of health perspective emphasizes the social and historical variation in illness symptom interpretation and diagnostic categories. The current activity enables students to experience this social construction firsthand. The activity is appropriate for courses focusing on the sociology of health as well as medical sociology. It is designed to promote curiosity, connection, and create social value (the 3 Cs of the entrepreneurial mindset), and it can be completed in one class period.
“Individual vs. Structural Frames of Social Problems: News on Cooking, Eating, and Obesity.” Matt Reid. AREA: Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Medical Sociology, Qualitative Methodology. This activity has students replicate Oleschuk’s (2020) content analysis study, which demonstrated how our culture favors individual-level causes and solutions to larger social problems in the context of the obesity epidemic. The study analyzed news articles on obesity as it relates to cooking and eating at home. Yet obesity and related topical content are not the primary foci of this activity. In fact, since undergraduates are generally aware that unhealthy eating and obesity are problems in American society, you do not necessarily have to review these topics prior to this activity. The goal is for students to see how individual-level explanations are ill-suited for understanding collective causes and problems as they manifest in our social structure. This activity can also be readily adapted to any social problem.
“Power and Program Design: Moving from Charity to Innovation.” Rebecca Shisler, Abbey Piner, Andrew Smolski, Angel Cruz, and Emma Brinkmeyer. AREA: Applied Sociology/Evaluation Research; Development; Organizations, Formal and Complex; Public Policy; Race, Class, and Gender; Sociological Practice. Systems of power and inequality permeate nearly all aspects of society. Students of sociology should practice recognizing these systems and considering how power is wielded at different levels. Through this lesson, students will learn how power operates within the food system and government/nonprofit/charity programs. Students will also gain an understanding of how to think about charity models and adapt charitable work to work that prioritizes innovation and justice. They will practice identifying and managing power in these models through a program design activity. Many students who study sociology wish to pursue future work within the nonprofit or public sector, meaning that they will encounter and develop a variety of programs in their work. This lesson is meant to help these future leaders think critically about how power shows up in these designs and broader systems. This lesson pairs well with the authors’ other TRAILS publications, listed in the recommended readings.
“Interactive Note Taking: Understanding Erving Goffman and Dramaturgy.” Jerrod Yarosh. AREA: Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Social Psychology. Students engage in an in-class learning experience where they work through a structured note-taking activity that allows them to be introduced to, learn, apply, and review course material related to Erving Goffman and dramaturgy. The general idea is that students are given a handout with a blank-person outline and associated content areas to take notes related to Goffman’s ideas (i.e., areas of presentation, types of participants in interaction, impression management, props, scripts, and spoiled presentations). Students are instructed to think about a career that they would like to pursue or their ideal job and draw and color the person outline to fit with their idea. Students then work through as a class a structured activity covering each section on the handout going over the definitions, providing examples of each, and adding to the person outline through additional drawings of the various terms being covered related to their person’s occupation.
Syllabi
“Green Criminology.” Michael Briscoe. AREA: Criminal Justice, Criminology/Delinquency, Environmental Sociology. This syllabus provides readings and paper assignments for a class on green criminology. The class is designed at the 300 or 400 level but can be adapted for a lower-level course by choosing selected readings for each week. It covers topics including criminological theory, environmental justice, animal and environmental law, and more.
“Undergraduate Sociological Theory Syllabus.” Elizabeth Ziff. AREA: Theory. This course provides students with an in-depth introduction to social theory, examining central issues in sociological theory using selected works of major theorists and some underrepresented voices. Students are introduced to different conceptualizations such as social order, action, change, and inequality. We also explore theoretical and methodological issues related to doing social scientific work. Students are assigned a variety of sources from primary texts to podcast episodes to their main textbook. During the semester, students demonstrate their engagement with the material via class discussion, weekly questions, a midterm media analysis, and last, a final project of their choosing.
“Employability for Sociologists.” Martha Martinez. AREA: Applied Sociology/Evaluation Research; Economic Sociology; Occupations/Professions; Organizations, Formal and Complex; Other; Work and Labor Markets. This course guides students through the knowledge and steps needed to apply their sociology degree in a career both personally satisfying and contributing to the greater social good. It integrates the concept of employability with sociological theories, methods, and knowledge. The course combines an introduction to content in the areas of labor, markets, networks, and organizations with students’ personal reflections about their values, interests, and skills. The 14-week course includes is organized around the three main dimensions of employability: professional identity, transferable skills, and career management. For the first element, professional identity, students reflect on the nature of sociology and how it can be integrated with their own personal values, interests, and attitudes. The final product of this section is the development of language to define potential sociological and personal contributions to work organizations. The second part of the course uncovers the skills and expertise developed by students through their experiences inside and outside the sociology curriculum; students then work to present those skills to their best advantage in a resume. The third component of employability, career management, creates a general understanding of managerial culture and human resource practices and expands skills regarding labor market research, job application, and career planning. Throughout the course, students will be provided with opportunities to practice skills in community building, networking, research (industry, organizations, jobs), resume and cover letter writing, professional presentations, job interviewing, and LinkedIn profile design, among others. Taking this class in the sophomore or junior year is recommended. Lectures, readings, panel discussions, guest speakers, self-analysis and sessions on resume writing and job search strategies will lead students through the process of connecting the sociology major to the world of work and into a deeper understanding of related job opportunities.
“SOC 390 Research Methods Syllabus.” Natalie Ingraham. AREA: Research Methods. The course covers sociological research methods broadly and is designed for sociology majors or minors as a required core course. This course was designed as part of a two-step course for an upper-division (300-level) research methods survey course that led into an independent thesis–style research senior capstone course. Students were required to have completed an introductory statistics course and be juniors or seniors to enroll in this course. This syllabus is designed for use in a 16-week semester term as a four-unit course and can be adapted to once- or twice-per-week meetings. Ideal class size for this type of course is a maximum of 30 students with, ideally, access to a computer lab for data analysis practice. This course may be taught in person or synchronously online, but asynchronous is not recommended due to the number of hands-on activities and group work built into the course requirements.
