Assignment: Final Essay
80 points
[print version - pdf file]

Due: August 14 BY NOON

Assignment Task: The Final Essay completes an activity started the first week of class. Each student posted a description of their personal, or idiosyncratic, culture on the discussion board. Now you will write a new description of your culture based on what you have learned over the quarter and compare it to your original description. As you review your original description of your personal culture from the beginning of the quarter, you may decide that your initial writing was woefully inadequate or that during the first week of class you did not really understand what culture meant. In this essay you will describe how your understanding of culture has grown and then offer a revised description of your personal culture. This essay will move beyond description to analysis. That is, in this final essay, you will aim to answer questions like these (though not necessarily in this order):

• What is the function of my traits?
• What do my idiosyncratic cultural traits indicate about things such as gender and social roles?
• How do my traits mesh with local and national cultural norms?
• How do my traits influence my perception of other cultures?

These are not the only questions you might address, but they might help you to start thinking more analytically about your personal culture.

Drafting Approach. 

1. Reread your initial description of your personal culture and free write about how your thinking about culture in general and your own personal culture in particular has changed. Make sure that you note in this free write aspects of your initial writing that you want to call attention to. This free write might become your introduction.
2. Reflect on your idiosyncratic culture in relation to the topics we covered in class, e.g., religion, identity, kinship, etc. 
1. Perhaps do a brainstorm for the topics, jotting down ideas for connecting class reading with your own culture.
2. Identify (in writing) the change in awareness, traits(s), and institution(s) that you want to develop in this final essay.
3. Since you have limited space, choose one or two points to discuss. Once you have decided which change in awareness, traits(s), and institution(s) to focus on (perhaps highlight items in the list you made for the previous step), draft a series of analyses in which you describe the trait you are considering and then discuss the way that your knowledge of that trait helps you think differently about an institution and your own personal culture. Use anthropological terms whenever possible.
4. Review the analysis you drafted and develop a short discussion of how your personal culture impacts your interpretation of and/or reaction to other cultures.
5. Clean up your draft. Rewrite sections that may be confusing to the reader. You may want to ask a family member or friend to read your essay to help you identify potentially confusing areas.
6. Conclude your essay by reflecting on the implications of the awareness of culture that you have developed.
7. Your essay should be a minimum of 1200 words. Single space your essay, spell and grammar check it, and upload it.

You will be assessed on the following:

Learn Actively: 30 points

• recognize key elements of human culture and have a basic understanding of fundamental cultural anthropology concepts:
• uses anthropological terms and concepts when appropriate and uses them accurately.
• be able to interrelate your personal experiences and societal forces within the context of cultural anthropology:
• points out class concepts that have affected thinking about culture;
• stakes out a claim about how these concepts have deepened or changed awareness of personal culture and also ability to understand the role of social institutions
• understand that while there are various ways of being human and we are each unique, we also share basic commonalities of experience and living:
• identifies social norms that are present in idiosyncratic culture as well as at both local and/or national level

Communicate with Clarity and Originality: 20 points

• have begun to develop or improve your communication skills:
• polished essay is turned in—spell and grammar checked
• paragraphs indented or space between paragraphs (one or the other, not both)
• there/they’re/their, its/it’s, your/you’re used correctly (remember 1 point off each time these common mistakes are made)
• noun-verb agreement
• verb tense is consistent throughout essay
• be able to clearly express your thoughts about human culture and adaptive processes:
• essay is well organized;
• topics flow well from paragraph to paragraph;
• sentences express complete thoughts

Think Critically, Creatively, and Reflectively: 30 points

• understand how to look at culture at various levels (individual, community, national)
• multiple levels of culture discussed
• implications of shared and idiosyncratic traits identified
• relates reading materials to personal culture
• identifies function of personal culture traits
• changes in perception discussed
• identifies roles and norms
• identifies ethnocentric attitudes and discusses what may have impacted attitude
• be able to assess the interaction between culture, biology and the environment
• sets traits within context
• is a holistic evaluation of personal culture

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