UCSD SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT UNOFFICIAL TA HANDBOOK

CONTENTS
WELCOME
BASIC INFORMATION YOU SHOULD KNOW FOR WEEK ONE
PROMOTING SECTION DISCUSSION
SILENCE IS FINE
SHAKE THINGS UP
STUDENTS WANT TO LIKE YOU
NEVER UNDERMINE THE PROFESSOR OR THE OTHER TAS
GRADING PAPERS
PRE-ASSIGNMENT JITTERS AND OFFICE HOURS
DEALING WITH WRITING SKILLS
GRADING LOGIC
NEVER PERSONALIZE CRITICISMS
HANDING BACK ASSIGNMENTS
GOOD RECORD KEEPING
TRACKING PROGRESS FROM THE BEGINNING
DOCUMENTING PROBLEMS
DONT FORGET TO KEEP RECORDS ON YOURSELF
MID-QUARTER ISSUES
INFORMAL EVALUATIONS
SCHEDULING A SECTION VISIT
MODELING CLOSE READING
ENDING THE QUARTER
FINALS
FINAL EXAM GRADING
GRADE RECORDING AND THE GRADE MEETING
CONTESTED GRADES
LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT QUARTER
TEMPLATES
SAMPLE HANDOUT FOR FIRST DAY
SAMPLE WORKSHEET
SAMPLE RECOMMENDATION

If you are new to TAing in the department, welcome!

The department is a great place to TA for a lot of reasons,
but the main ones are 1) the chance to teach topics
relevant to your own interests in Soc, and 2) the
professors tend to give you a lot of freedom in terms of
running your sections, experimenting with teaching
techniques, and evaluating students. In the sense that
there isn't a TA supervisor like there is in the writing
programs, though, it can be a little harder at the start to
figure out whom to go to with questions or for supplies, or
how the course you are TAing fits into the Soc curriculum
for undergrads. As you will find out from talking to the
other TAs, there is also a lot of variability in terms of
depth and intensity of TA work schedules even within the
department depending on the course format.
The senior TAs role is to help you navigate
UCSD/department policies and procedures as well as
providing a forum for TAs to communicate/commiserate and
more generalized support in terms of strategies for dealing
with the pedagogical side of things like absentee students,
section politics, recommendation writing, recruiting
undergrad majors, etc. While establishing the right
balance between your own grad work and TAing is always
challenging, in my own experience, interacting with
undergrads can also be the most fun-- and least stressful-part of the week.
I wrote up this handbook because it didnt exist, based on
emails I had sent out to the Sociology TAs about once a
week during Fall Quarter 2004 when I was senior TA. It is
very much based on my own personal experience starting in
the Humanities Writing Program, then TAing in Soc 60, Soc
20, Urban Studies 2, and teaching Soc 104 as an Associate
in. If it helps you, use it; if it seems daunting, stash
it in a closet. It is definitely not meant to be consumed
at once, but to be used as a reference if you need
inspiration, have a specific problem, or dont know what
you should be doing to prepare for the grade meeting. Or
if you dont know what a grade meeting is. The handbook is
organized by the general time period in which the
information should be most useful to you, starting at the
beginning of the quarter with a lot of bureaucratic info on
Week One. Enjoy!

Best,
Caroline Lee

WEEK ONE
Here are some tips on possible worries/anxiety dreams
before the first section. Some of this info may seem
obvious if you've done this before or unnecessary if your
sections fall at the end of first week-- but I am hoping
that this helps forestall the "where am I supposed to be
and how do I get a textbook?" panic that can grip you when
you are teaching on the first day of the quarter. For
veteran TAs, this is probably old news, but it also may
reveal some departmental mysteries.
The professor for the course you are TAing will receive a
copy of the course rosters/waitlists from Sara. Ideally,
you will have gotten in touch with the professor and other
TAs ahead of time or vice versa in order to decide on
office hours, work out expectations for the first day, and
decide who is getting which sections if there is more than
one TA for the course, so the professor can put the right
section rosters in your mailbox before the first day of
classes. These should give you the information on where
and when your sections will be held and where and when
lecture is.
Some professors are more hands on than others and will have
scheduled a TA meeting to go over all of this, others will
be returning from abroad and may be harder to get in touch
with. If they have not gotten in touch with you, you can
look up the course and the section times on Studentlink on
the UCSD website and send an email to the other TAs to
claim the sections that work best for you. If you cant get
in touch with the professor but have worked out which
section/s you are taking, Sara or Dee-Dee can print out
your course rosters and waitlists for you. Sometimes the
professor will give you the option of not holding the first
section of the quarter since "there's nothing to talk
about," but since the quarter moves so quickly and add/drop
can be so time-consuming, it's essential that you know
who's on your course roster and can get most of the
administrative stuff out of the way within the first
section.
If you haven't talked to the professor yet, I hope the
following will point you to the right people who can help
with various TA needs for Week One and beyond.
Sara:

The department will provide you with the required

course texts gratis, which you can request from Sara.

Occasionally, it won't have come in yet or will be a reader
and not a text the department already has, but she can help
you work this out. Sara will also put blue add/drop slips
and an information sheet with instructions on adding and
dropping in
your mailbox, but Dee-Dee is the person to contact about
add/drop if you have questions. The section classroom will
have an overhead projector, but if you want to get creative
in section, all A/V requests for pc projectors or vcr/tvs
should go through Sara. There is a strict policy on
allowing 48 hours (not including Saturday and Sunday) lead
time or the department is charged with a late fee, which
will be passed on to the TA. Sara has professional-looking
door cards, which you can fill out and post on your door
with your office hours and course info- try to doublecheck
office hours with your office mates so they dont overlap.
Nora: If you'd like to make photocopies of section
guidelines or other handouts, or need supplies like
transparencies or red pens, these are also provided for TAs
and Nora or her assistant can help you. She leaves a green
folder with a copy card and log sheet on her desk in her
office. Don't forget to punch in the TA code written on
the card, not your grad student code.
Rafael: For paycheck issues, Rafael can help you register
for direct deposit if this is your first quarter working
for the university. Bring in a voided check from your
account with you to attach to the form-- it takes a long
time to get in the system, so the sooner the better. Every
month you will get a surepay deposit slip in your box when
it starts. Otherwise, Rafael will pop you an email to come
pick up your check when it arrives and should be able to
provide you with the schedule for this-- beware, the first
paycheck doesn't come until really late, Nov 1st usually.
Dee-Dee: Lastly, and most importantly, Dee-Dee can handle
any questions you have about add/drop, waitlists, your
section room, etc. If you are trying to schedule a make-up
section or study session, you need to go through her to get
a room and be considerate in terms of giving her advance
time. Don't assume that there will be room in your office
for 10 students, or in the grad library or lounge, or in
your classroom since it is always empty when you leave.
For bureaucratic reasons and crowding, SSB is rarely the
right place for any interaction involving undergrads

besides your regular office hours. Dee-Dee is the point

person for all things related to departmental policies
involving undergrads (majoring, requirements, incompletes,
etc.) so she is the repository of lots of information and
is very helpful. When the professor is in doubt or vague
about policy, definitely consult Dee-Dee.
Center for Teaching Development: The CTD runs programs for
TAs throughout the year, and you can pick and choose if any
of these seem helpful to you. I highly recommend the one on
developing a teaching portfolio for future job interviews,
even if this seems premature. Photocopy and file those
evals! They are located in Center Hall on the top floor.
Oasis: Also on the top floor of Center Hall, Oasis is an
academic resource center for undergraduates that can help
them with writing skills, learning disabilities,
organizational skills, etc. More on this later.
Please let your senior TA know about any questions you have
or what types of information would be most helpful to you.
This sort of info gets dated very quickly.

PROMOTING SECTION DISCUSSION

Doing a good job in promoting section discussion will make
your life a lot easier, but its a constant challenge. A
strategy that works one day in one section may not work an
hour later in the next section, or with the very same
students later on in the quarter. Obviously there are some
fun books to read on this topic that are much more
interesting than the following and based on far more
experience. Below are some recommendations from the Hum
program training that have worked well for me in actual
practice. Hope these help!
SILENCE IS FINE
What is your biggest fear about section? Is it asking a
question, followed by total silence, followed by another
question to try to elaborate, followed by more silence?
Long, painful silence! And the worst possible outcome,
having to answer your own question, which lets the students
relax and hush up even more since they know you will
eventually give the answer anyway. Do you ever drag out
housekeeping and save your big points until the end so you
don't run out of things to say? There are a couple of
tools you can keep in your back pocket to get discussion
going.
First, this breaks all the rules you learned about
journalism in 4th grade, but ask yes or no questions
instead of open-ended ones! These force students to commit
to a position. You can get them to raise their hands yes
or no if they are really not cooperating. Then, call on
them to explain why they voted yes or no. This is the
easiest way to trick them into talking and it works.
Second, just wait out the silence. DON'T ANSWER YOUR OWN
QUESTION or add on more questions. Silence is
uncomfortable for you but it's even more uncomfortable for
the students and if you hold back, they will realize you
aren't going to help and they WILL answer, or ask for
clarification if your question was bad. Silence chicken
works if you NEVER give in first!
Third, channel
seem not to be
the next class
whole time and

Depeche Mode and enjoy the silence if people

doing the reading. Tell the students that
they will be leading the discussion the
you aren't going to say ANYTHING. Give them

some warning so they are sure to do the reading, and tell

them ahead of time that if they run out of things to say,
we'll all just sit in silence and THAT'S FINE. Silence can
produce more thoughtful answers to questions. This is a
great strategy on medium-hard level readings, but I've only
used it twice because it's a little scary. They do start
talking eventually, and its great to see the relief on
their faces at the next section.
SHAKE THINGS UP
Avoid getting into a rut in section and just doing the same
thing over and over again: 50 minutes of sitting down in
the same seats doing housekeeping, followed by review of
lecture, followed by some discussion only after all the air
has been sucked out of the room. I kind of like routines
since they make things easier, but in reality they put a
lot of onus on you to drive the course and they encourage
hiding and lead to the same 3 students predictably talking
the whole time.
Reserve a tv/vcr through Sara and schedule a discussion
based on fifteen minutes of footage related to lecture.
There are lots of videos you can reserve for a certain day
and check out from the film/video library at Geisel; the
only limit is your imagination and/or knowledge of obscure
documentaries. Ive used William H. Whytes The Social
Life of Small Urban Spaces, which was a hit for the 70s
clothing alone.
Obviously group work is "something different," and it makes
people stand up and move chairs and generally get the blood
going. But it can become an excuse for a lot of
distraction too. Some people loathe group work and I used
to be one, but group work can be focused and uncheesy with
the right preparation. My favorite is to divide the
section into two groups, assign each group an opposing
position, and then have them debate each other. This
cracks me up because each group usually wants the others
position, and is a great way to warm up for an assignment
without making it so obvious. Or break them into smaller
groups based on natural breaks in the reading (works great
if they had five authors to read in a reader, e.g.) and
have them come back and report their reading to the class
and turn in their notes. This way you don't have to patrol
for discussions unrelated to class. Works better and
quicker if you give them their assignments ahead of time.

More typical and requiring less thinking ahead is groupwork

with small groups of 3-4 (2 is usually too small because if
one person hasnt done the reading, their partner will be
carrying the whole load). To keep this from getting to be
a conversation about what everyone is doing next weekend, I
give a handout with instructions and specific tasks or
questions for them to work on, a space for their names at
the top, and then have them report back for the last 10-15
minutes on what they found.
Sometimes I have them turn it
in and sometimes not, but I usually leave this vague so
they think they may have to show what they have done.
I like pointless competition, so I usually schedule a
Jeopardy game for final review where students email me 3
"answers" each ahead of time, I consolidate the best ones
and ask them, and then they shout out the questions in
class. Saves me from having to do any review for the
final! Did I mention candy? This is controversial, but I
usually bring in a bag of Starbursts or Rolos from Sav-on
once or twice a semester to wake everyone up, particularly
if it can be thrown at the Jeopardy winners. This may seem
like a blatant bid for student affection, but I don't care
and its usually after theyve turned in their evals
anyway. I love candy and most people over 10 can't be
bought for a measly Rolo. $5/quarter well spent in my
opinion. Don't buy peanut candy so you don't set off an
allergic reaction.
STUDENTS WANT TO LIKE YOU
Take care to do emotional housekeeping as well as the
normal kind. I have to consciously tell myself to remember
to smile and switch gears when I walk into section
distracted by grad stuff. The following is a quote from A
Life in School, by Jane Tompkins, a Duke professor in
English who got really into taking students' into account
in her teaching. Some people think her alternative
teaching methods are weird or anarchic, but the book is
interesting and her description of how she used to teach
set off some alarm bells of recognition in my head:
I developed, over the years, a good-cop/bad-cop
routine in the classroom. In order to win my students'
love, I would try to divest myself of authority by
constant self-questioning, by deference to students'
opinions; through disarming self-revelation, flattery,
jokes, criticizing school authorities; by accepting

late papers, late attendance, and nonperformance of

various kinds. Meanwhile, in order to establish and
maintain my authority, I would almost invariably come
to class overprepared, allowing no deviations from the
plan for the day, making everything I said as complex,
high level, and idiosyncratic as possible lest the
students think I wasn't as smart as they were. I
would pile on the work, grade hard, and-this must have
confused themtell them that all I cared about was
their individual development.
After so many years of schooling, semi-conscious beefs with
authority can make themselves apparent in decisions about
where to sit, teaching styles, what to wear, how to respond
to lateness, etc. I try to laugh about my mini power-trips
with other TAs as much as possible so they are at least
partially conscious. (At the very least, if you want to
give pop quizzes or something students will perceive as
Draconian, get the other TAs to do so too so that students
can resent the class rather than you as a person.)
A more positive method is to try to get a sense of whats
going on from students at the beginning of each class. Be
aware if its a week where they have 3 midterms or if their
anxiety is building towards the end of the quarter. I
generally just ask whoevers there early for the last 3
weeks, Okay, whats everyones anxiety level on a scale of
1 to 10?
NEVER UNDERMINE THE PROFESSOR OR THE OTHER TAS
Even though we have a lot of independence in terms of
setting assignment policies and grading, be careful NEVER
to undermine the professor (however much you disagree with
him or her), your other sections, or the other TAs in class
by criticizing or changing the assignment, comparing one
section positively or negatively to others, etc.
Presenting a united front and keeping annoyances to
yourself (a bad prompt that is going to make life hard for
you, e.g.) will make your and the other TAs lives that
much easier because students have a hard time processing
mixed messages and will definitely share what you say with
others. Talking to the other TAs and suggesting privately
to the professor that he or she change the next prompt is
the way to go here.
Ironically, when I asked my Soc 104 students what advice

they would give to TAs when I was writing this handbook,

they all agreed that the TAs they are the most frustrated
with are the ones who veer wildly from what the professor
is lecturing that week. Soapbox pronouncements on what
Weber is really about as opposed to what the professor is
claiming about Weber are most definitely not welcome among
students. This probably doesnt come from a malicious
placeTAs may think they are doing students a favor by
conveying their passion, presenting supplemental material,
or having a Dead Poets Society moment. Just to be clear:
confidentially contradicting professors or giving your own
lectures in section are most definitely not appreciated by
students. They urged TAs to think about how confusing this
is for them as they write papers or exams: they know they
are supposed to demonstrate what they have learned from the
professor in the course, but they also know that it is you
who is grading their papersso they are torn between
confusing messages about the relative importance of
materials and the clear differences in authority between
you and the professor. Just to illustrate, a silent plea
from my students regarding topic drift of this sort:

They used to tell us in Hum over and over that students

want to like you. They are already on your side. It's a
waste of time to harangue students about not doing the
reading or punish the people who actually have come by
complaining to them about attendance problems, and it kills
the discussion bug. I once yelled at people the second
section for not showing up in week one and it made the
class toxic for the rest of the quarter. Complain with
abandon to other TAs or the senior TA, not them.
Commitment to this particular class really is the students'
problem, not yours, and they have jobs, other classes,
personal life on campus, and personal life at home to deal

with. Usually the ones most blatantly skirting the

boundaries of class attendance and performance are having
serious personal issues and many do end up dropping. Don't
take it personally and make your life easier by making
section a positive part of everyones day. The overall
message here is: if you feel like you are pulling teeth,
they feel like they are getting their teeth pulled!
Contribute to tooth decay instead.

GRADING PAPERS
The following is some advice on grading and troubleshooting
writing problems since one of the biggest challenges of
TAing is dealing with problem writing. For me, this has
been one of the hardest parts of TAing, especially since I
came out of a writing program where we were supposed to
deal with grammar and diction as part of the curriculum.
Here's the story with writing ability as far as the
Sociology Dept in general. Our job as TAs in the Soc.
Dept. is not to teach or judge students on their writing
ability per se, with a big caveat: except inasmuch as it
interferes with their expression of ideas. This means your
job is not to be the grammar police, thankfully-- but it's
also good to let them know that you are not the grammar
police and are grading them on their comprehension of
ideas, but clear writing means better expression of ideas
means better grades-- not to mention that spellchecking and
care in presentation win them big points with all teachers,
all the time. Oasis and the Writing Programs are really
the place for them to hone their writing; unfortunately for
freshmen, they will not have had a lot of interaction with
either of these at this point, so they will need to learn
as they go.
PRE-ASSIGNMENT JITTERS AND OFFICE HOURS
A lot of students will already be self-conscious of their
writing but it doesn't hurt to get them prepared for a
wake-up call after the first assignment. Tell the students
early (Oasis can fill up appts really quickly, esp. at the
beginning of the year) and often that they should take
their rough drafts to Oasis if they think they need help
with writing. Emphasize that there are resources but you
are not it for basic writing help, you are there to help
them with questions from class.
This is a good time to tell them that you are also not
there simply to go over or re-explain lecture again in
section or office hours; they need to come to you with a
specific question about a particular element they don't
understand. Especially after handing back the first
assignment, your office hours may be flooded with people
who just want you to "help" in general because they are
anxious about the course, and this is a waste of everyone's
time if they haven't read or tried to figure out what it is

they don't know. If they can come up with a question, it at

least means they have been trying to deal with the material.
The more I have TAd, the more hands on I have gotten about
writing in section if students are having problems. It
seems obvious, but tell students to try having their
roommate or another classmate read the paper to proof it.
Definitely impress upon them that in this class, they will
need to write and revise multiple drafts, not just hand in
something they wrote the night before. I usually try to be
funny about this by framing this as questions: Okay, what
do you all generally do to get ready to write a paper?
What do you do after you write the last word of the last
sentence? (the right answer here is SPELLCHECK CAREFULLY!
then take a breather of a few hours, then read back over
it). Their answers about what they do after they finish
will usually be hilarious, and this gives them the sense,
hey, I can do this. Also warn them about spelling the
authors wrong if you want to avoid reading a lot of papers
about Vayber, Doerkhim, etc. Another exercise you can have
them do in section is to have them all bring in their intro
paragraphs/thesis statements and have them do some group
work presenting these to each other and then picking one to
present to the rest of the section. This forces the ones
who wouldn't start until the night before to at least have
something to work with the night before. Or, if you dont
have this much time, just have them workshop a "good" and
"bad" thesis statement in class with you at the board. You
probably want to try a thesis similar to but NOT a response
to the actual question, or else you will get 45 essays with
your "good" sample thesis. Okay, so that's some general
advice for things to go over with everyone in section.
Regarding helping people during office hours with their
assignments, I generally tell students that we can't
proofread drafts-- this would take way too much time-- but
that I am always happy to read intro paragraphs. A few
students take advantage of this and it is useful for a
couple of reasons that will repay the time it takes. It
gives you a chance to catch a lot of bad intro paragraphs
before you have to read them when you are grading. It also
kind of gives you a head start on the grading since you
will pretty much know how well some students are going to
do and what the major potential problems are that you can
bring up in section before the paper is actually due-- a
huge bonus. I like to do this by email since I'm better
explaining what needs fixing in writing. So those are some

things that may help ahead of assignments.

DEALING WITH WRITING SKILLS
Here's how the grading of papers with poorly articulated
ideas will generally pan outsince saying that grammar
isn't our game is one thing, but dealing with papers you
can hardly read is another.
There will be a few cases where the student is a bad writer
but has good ideas. These are usually the people who are
articulate in class but turn in essays that are more
disappointing than you expected from them. (The flip side
of this is the really quiet people in class who write
amazing essayssince outstanding oral or written
proficiency are typically mutually exclusive.) Another
type of student with this performance profile is one with
an obvious learning disability, which some may tell you
about ahead of time so you can reassure them but this will
also show up in unusual spellings, etc. These great
ideas/bad articulation folks if they don't have a
disability are actually the students who will respond more
to you giving them advice on their writing, so it can be
rewarding to give them a little more writing help than you
usually would, but don't get caught up in spelling issues,
etc.
If the students' ideas are brilliant, but the writing is
awkward or uneven, definitely give them the benefit of the
doubt and grade them for their ideas, but give them some
writing criticism in the comments (e.g. X idea is great,
but would be even better if you...) since this usually
helps. If you're interested in learning disabilities, Mel
Levine writes books that aren't as annoyingly pop
psychology as most other in this genre although they do
have the odious case studies. The Myth of Laziness is one
that deals more with adult "output failures" and strategies
to overcome these. I highly recommend it for dissertation
writers since it gives a lot of insight into why students
procrastinate and sabotage themselves. Explained some
mysterious writing problems I had as a kid too.
Obviously, trouble with writing and trouble with thinking
usually go hand in hand, since being able to articulate
ideas is crucial to really mastering the material. The
more practice students get doing this aloud and in papers,
the better. But finding out all the places where they went

wrong in the writing in their last essay just isn't a big

motivatorthese are the students who will very gradually
get better with practice in the Writing Programs and 4
years of coursework. Don't spend a lot of time lineediting their essays since this takes forever, they won't
appreciate it, and it gives them too many things to work on
at once. Focus here on the basics, maybe one issue per
essay that you also reinforce in section-- I spend 15
minutes or so in section before I turn the papers back
going over the major issues in the essays and freaking them
all out about how many problems there were so I have their
attention and they are pleasantly surprised when they get
their grades.
But for the most part, focus on their IDEAS
and issues with these, since practice thinking about and
talking about ideas is what they actually need.
This is also true of office hours after the fact with these
folks, where comments that seemed innocuous on paper can
prompt a lot of teary-ness and defensiveness when
associated with a grade below a student's expectations
("I've never gotten a C!"). Keep things positive, start by
asking if they "understood all the comments", and then
focus on what they can improve on in the next essay, NOT on
justifying the grade to them. Consult with the professor
on individual policy, but if a student wants you to change
the grade, ask them to put on paper the substantive reasons
they think the grade needs to be changed. Ask the
professor to get your back on this and hold firm.
Okay, just for symmetry's sake, there's the other end of
the writing trouble spectrum, which is students who are
great writers but haven't done the reading and are able to
get by on their writing ability alone since the paper looks
good. I'm usually pretty tough in terms of grading these
even though they're some of the easiest to read because
these students are used to As from high school but what's
required in college is reading the texts, thinking, and not
phoning it in, and a B- or C+ will definitely get their
attention for the other assignments and the final. Expect
to get some annoyed looks from these people (they tend to
be the ones who won't come see you about a bad grade and
will complain to everyone but you that you are completely
unfair), but know that you're doing them a favor since the
worst-case scenario is them floating during the assignments
and then bombing the final because they didn't do any of
the work. It's amazing how many of the good writers do way
worse on the finals than the harder-working students who

didn't do as well on the essays because the final is

testing a totally different set of skills and familiarity
with the material.
If you happen to get an atrocious paper that shows total
lack of interest in the course or an attempt to test you
(bad words in the title, e.g.), I generally point out
what's inappropriate but avoid spanking them in the
comments. I've found it's pretty effective to be
"concerned" and nice to make them feel guilty (they usually
drop) and protect yourself, rather than angry or punitive
since this is what they expect from high school. Avoid
speculating in comments on things like the amount of effort
they spent on the paper (see Mel Levine on this, it could
be a case of output failure) or how they're wasting your
time. They won't call their parents or complain to the
professor about a "Please come see me" and are generally
contrite when you meet them face to face. If you suspect
plagiarism, just shoot it up to the professor and have him
or her deal with it.
GRADING LOGIC
Some things to keep in mind in terms of grading: ALWAYS
start with a compliment. Even if the essay is practically
impossible to compliment, find SOMETHING they did right.
Then get into the problems with the ideas. Comment on the
writing last as a postscript/afterthought so they think you
care about their ideas the most. Some people add another
summary compliment at the end but I'm usually ready to move
on at that point, so I generally don't bother unless I
think they need cheering up. Also, remember that people
will want to improve over the course of the class, so
giving harder grades at the beginning will make life easier
for you at the end of the quarter. Depending on the
professor, you may not have a lot of flexibility in this
dept-- and he or she may care more about writing ability
than I have suggested is generally the dept's attitude. If
you are having trouble judging essays, try to figure out
which ones are going to be the best 2 or 3 A level essays,
read those first, and use those as the template for Awork, B+ work, etc. It is always worth reviewing general
guidelines for an A, B, and C paper. A is excellent,
original argument, use of evidence, and execution, B is a
clear understanding and presentation of the major themes
but difficulties with some concepts or with supporting the
argument, C is problems understanding major themes, D is

never came to class, has no idea what to write about.

Ds for people who really didnt try AT ALL.

Save

NEVER PERSONALIZE CRITICISMS

It's a good rule of thumb to make that first compliment in
the comments personal: "YOU do a great job of X", but NEVER
to personalize any criticisms. This means breaking all the
grammar rules and putting your criticisms in the passive
voice ("the connection could be made more clearly") or with
an abstract concept doing the action ("the argument loses
focus").
Didn't come that naturally in the beginning, but this was
one of the main things they drilled into us in the Hum
program to try to reduce the emotionality and I really try
not to break it.
How long should comments be? In general, I write comments
as long as possible on the first assignment so they realize
that I am paying more attention than they are, and write
much shorter comments in later assignments.
HANDING BACK ASSIGNMENTS
A procedural note: when handing papers back, don't hand
assignments for absent students to their friends, who will
invariably request that you do this. This runs afoul of
the Family Education Right to Privacy Act about how grades
are supposed to be private and not posted, which also is
responsible for the Buckley waiver on their finals.
Something to be conscious of.

GOOD RECORD KEEPING

TRACKING PROGRESS FROM THE BEGINNING
Not much needs to be said here, but suffice it to say that
your life will be much easier if you use the first weeks
of class to organize your roster in Excel and start
entering and tracking attendance and participation data
consistently and early. This can help you to troubleshoot
any developing problems.
DOCUMENTING PROBLEMS
In order to protect yourself, its important to document
and share with the professor any developing problems
although students should always come to you first with
normal issues like trips and illness. Some unique issues
require consultation with the professor, and others can
simply be monitored, but if in doubt, ask the professor
what he or she would like to do.
A concerned email to a student that asks if everything is
okay since she hasnt been to section in 3 weeks can be
worth its weight in goldeither she is having problems or
she may need to think about dropping the course. This
doesnt actually require that much consistent monitoringa
check of your attendance records twice a quarter should
suffice, and the true deadbeats are usually pretty obvious.
Should they choose to stay on in the course, its important
that you have email records of your concern/their repeated
absences just in case they decide to contest their grade.
In some disastrous scenario, they are lying unconscious in
a hospital room and no one had the courtesy to check in
when they were absent for monthsand their parents are
appalled that no one at the university has noticed. Your
email wont reach the student in this case, but it will
show your concern and good intentions.
DONT FORGET TO KEEP RECORDS ON YOURSELF
Keep good records of your weekly lesson plans, any
handouts, etc. on your computer or in your files. This
makes it so easy to TA the same course again, or to share
lesson plans and handouts with others. These materials can
also help you when assembling your teaching portfolio.

MID-QUARTER ISSUES
The following are some miscellaneous procedural things to
think about as the quarter reaches the halfway point.
INFORMAL EVALUATIONS
I like to give students a chance to evaluate the section so
far at some convenient time once things have gotten going
enough to judge section dynamics but not before so much
time has elapsed that you don't have an opportunity to try
out some of their ideas. There are a couple reasons for
having students do this very quick (5-10 minutes at the end
of section), informal (I either use index cards if there
are some in the grad library or quartered pieces of scrap
paper), anonymous review of you before the real evals come
down the pike in Week 9 or 10:
If you do talk with them about the comments in general for
5 minutes at the beginning of the next section-- and what
you will do to try to address their criticisms-- it makes
students feel as though they are contributing to the
section and have some control over it. It also gives them
a chance to complain about grading and you another
opportunity to reassure them that grades have a tendency to
go up.
These comments can be surprising. Often some quiet
students will give you insight into why they are not
participating, and problems you have identified will turn
out not to be troubling them. Gut checking your instincts
about the section against the students' will also give you
a chance to troubleshoot any lack of awareness on your
part. Mine almost always include the request to talk
louder-- which I forget to remember on a regular basis even
though I know it's a problem since I chatter away and
everyone seems to be nodding. Why don't they just ask me
to talk louder in section? Even on little things, if you
don't ask, some students don't really feel empowered to
pipe up in class, but they will on paper.
This is the most cynical reason to do this: because it
makes your final evals better, and these are important for
getting a teaching job since you will want to put some of
these in your teaching portfolio. I tell the students for
both rounds of evaluations "Be brutally honest!" and inform
them that I really care about these and WANT criticisms,

which is true. These criticisms do actually make the second

half of the quarter go more smoothly. But also, if you
wait until the end of the quarter, there will be some
students who have been simmering about something all
quarter and can't wait to get it out. Defuse this before
it starts by having them get these feelings out to you,
instead of to your future employers. You can advertise this
as one of your teaching strategies in your teaching
portfolio, so file them away. The Center for Teaching
Development really promotes this, by the way. CTD claims
that you will want to brag about how you do these evals in
the middle of the course as part of how you actively seek
feedback from students.
SCHEDULING A SECTION VISIT
Another thing you may want to do now is to schedule a
section sometime later in the quarter for the professor to
sit in on. Even though this adds a little stress, it is
invaluable to have people write you teaching
recommendations who have actually seen you teach. This is
not just for the job market but for fellowships like summer
teaching fellowships, so do this earlier rather than later
and get it over with. DON'T avoid this because you feel
guilty about wasting their time or your sections aren't
perfect teaching movie moments. This is part of the
professor's responsibility in having TAs, and hopefully
they may even have some insights from their own experience.
Ive had 2 of my committee members sit in and I think they
enjoyed it because they do it so rarely. Having visitors
is another way of shaking things up! The students are
usually really sympathetic that youre being graded on
your teaching, so they actually talk more.

MODELING CLOSE READING

Sometimes at the end of the quarter, just trying to cover
or go over all of the material AND prepare your students
for the final gets overwhelming. Of course, the professor
spent three weeks at the beginning of the quarter on a
concept or reading the students all understood, and saved
everything hard and long for the last few weeks.
Meanwhile, you have the end of your own courses to deal
with and may not have as much time to prepare for sections
at this point as you did earlier.
First, take a deep breath and remind yourself that you
can't possibly cover everything in section that gets
brought up in lecture and this isn't worth trying. Try to
let the students direct this process of winnowing down to
the important things to go over as much as possible-- this
is a great reason to do Jeopardy at the end to cover things
that got missed but you should also be checking in during
the last few weeks on what students would like to go over
more since they should know by now what they don't know.
Just to give yourself a break from the pressure to cover
everything, go the other way and try to focus on getting as
much insight as possible out of a small, somewhat difficult
passage. This point in the quarter is a good time NOT to
try to do coverage but to model the close reading you want
them to do for their assignments. This is an awesome way
to burn through section time if you don't have time to do a
lot of preparation, and it seems kind of basic, but the
discussions are usually way better than the ones that
happen when everyone is just trying to remember what they
read from last night or heard in lecture. Even people who
haven't read can talk because you read the passage in
section. We all know what this looks like. Pick two or
three important passages, have everyone open their texts
and have someone volunteer to read it out loud-- this seems
like a waste of time, but it's worth it-- and then take
them through it. Start out with some easy questions about
vocab/what it is the passage is saying and move on to
discussions of the issues based on (possible
interpretations of) WHAT THE AUTHOR SAYS IN THE PASSAGE-not on the students' opinions. Typically students like to
go off in other directions but it's worth trying to drag
everyone back to the passage as the truth test of the
issues proposed in the discussion. This has the bonus of
showing students that there is no ultimate or correct

interpretation of the text, so long as they can find the

evidence for their argument. If you're coming up on an
assignment, relate this discussion to how quotes from the
passage could be used for a thesis or a counterargument in
an essay.
The real key to close reading is choosing the passages.
You can really get everyone's juices flowing if you pick
two passages where the author seems to contradict him or
herself. I typically am lazy and just pick the passages
that interested me that I've already flagged as I went
through the text. Beware of your instincts on this if
you're not that familiar with the topic or your interests
are a little weird-- I once made my sections go over all of
the nature imagery in the Book of Isaiah and the
significance of different trees (see also topic drift
student pet peeve in They Want to Like You section above!)
when we were meant to be talking about prophecy. Oops.
It's better to pick some passages because they stress a
common theme like individuality, the role of territory, or
charisma, and to broadcast that theme throughout the
section. The theme can be relatively minor in comparison
to the author's focus, such as the treatment of women in
the text-- and it can even be a theme from a previous text
that you have to try hard to find in this one. It's easy
to overprepare for this and try to plan too much for one
section-- you rarely get to more than 3 passages since this
can prompt lots of discussion pretty easily. If you have
any special knowledge that contextualizes the passage-from Durkheim or Weber's other books, e.g., or from your
own research-- definitely bring it up but use your
knowledge as an opportunity to ask what students think now
with this added info. One benefit of close reading is that
it does point out to the students that there is a reason
why you are the TA, which is that you can get way more out
of the text than they can on their own. The main
underlying point that doing close reading ideally gives the
students aside from the content of the discussion should
be: this is how closely and critically I expect you to read
when you write your essays.

ENDING THE QUARTER

The following is basically an extensive "defensive driving"
course for first-timers to try to help you avoid as much as
possible the contested grade and grade meeting woes that
can create roadblocks to your holiday travel/happiness.
FINALS
Regarding finals, some professors don't think TA attendance
is that important, but I urge you to show up even if this
is the case since it's a great opportunity to see your
students at their most disheveled and say final goodbyes.
Unfortunately, it may also be the time that you finally
learn the names of those last few mystery people who didn't
come to section.
[Warning: some people you may have thought had dropped may
show up to the exam as a final Hail Mary effort. These
people who haven't handed in other assignments are
obviously going to fail. Just alert the professor of the
"surprise" and let the student write the final anyway
without commenting on the futility of their efforts. DON'T
let the student try to insist that they will get the
remaining assignments to you by the end of finals week,
etc. despite their prior lack of contact-- refer them to
the professor, but at this point it is definitely too late.
If the professor wants to give them an undeserved chance,
it's up to the professor to grade these assignments, but
this is a total waste of your time and is not doing the
student-- or their future TAs!!!-- any favors in the long
run.]
Depending on my mood, I usually send my students a little
pep email a day or two before their exam telling them to
get some sleep and do their best, and not to totally freak
if they oversleep and show up 20 minutes late to the
final-- since the 2 people this happens to are always so
shell-shocked that they can hardly write the exam. Remind
these late ones that most people don't take all 3 hours in
any case, so they should have plenty of time. I also tell
them that I am looking purely for their understanding of
concepts and not their ability to write perfectly under
pressure, so if they do run out of time, they should write
an outline of where they were going with their essay. You
may also want to warn them if the exam is lengthy and has
i.d.s that aren't worth much not to spend the first 1.5

hours on the ids since they are only 5 points each, e.g.,
and then shortchange 40 point essays. They can write
paragraph after paragraph on a 5 point id, and they can
still only get the 5 points they have probably earned by
the 1st paragraph. Tell them they should under no
circumstances leave anything blank even if they have to
guess. They have to be told this applies to multiple
choice too, which is very sad for their Soc 60 TAs. I also
tell them that if they want to pick up the exams, they need
to sign the Buckley waiver or give you a self-addressed
stamped envelope, and warn them that there will not be any
or will be very few comments on the exams since the
turnaround time is so short.
By the way, the day before the final is not the time for
students to send you frantic emails asking you to explain
some important point they have missed, like "What's the
iron cage?", etc. I gently deflect these by pointing them
to the week or text-- or ideally, definition sent in by one
of their classmates for Jeopardy-- in which that was
discussed. Definitely avoid going into any great detail in
responding to students right before the final since your
email will get passed around to everyone in the course as
though it is the key to the whole final-- no matter how
irrelevant or obscure the student's question was-- and you
will read some portion of that email in half of the
students' finals.
You also want to be at the exam to ensure the Buckley
waivers get signed and to police cheaters since some
professors are pretty lax about this and it couldn't be
easier for students to write things on the underside of
their hat brim, inside of a water bottle, text message
friends on their cell phones, or store cheat sheets in the
bathroom and get up to go to the bathroom a lot. At least
make a show of walking up and down the aisles and checking
the bathrooms once or twice since the seating in lecture
halls during finals is usually really tight and it's easy
for cheaters to hide in plain sight of the rest of their
seatmates, who will be very annoyed-- at you for your
obliviousness. If you suspect cheating, obviously alert
the professor. The best strategy in a suspected case is to
move the suspect down to the front row so they know you're
watching them. This also scares the shit out of everyone
else.
One easy strategy that professors use for preventing

cheating is to have the students bring bluebooks down to

the front and swap them for others, or to have students
write a big x through a specified page of the bluebook (in
case the professor has given the essay questions ahead of
time, so they don't prewrite them). Be alert when you're
accepting handed-in bluebooks to ones that have a lot of
very light writing or tiny writing on a back page that the
student has brought in and show the professor before you
leave the lecture hall. These cheating methods could
easily be fixed by UCSD paying for the bluebooks and
handing them out at examswhich they're too cheap to do.
Oh, and the final is a great time to hand back the
assignments of people who have never picked them up, so
don't forget to bring em.
FINAL EXAM GRADING
In terms of grading exams, final exam grading is usually
easier than other grading. By this time, you generally know
the students and have handy expectations regarding their
performance-- although as I said at the beginning, some of
the best writers are often poor crammers and do less well
than you expect on the exams. Generally, having to write
in class makes fact and concept retention pretty
transparent-- although many people also suck at writing
under pressure. The beauty is that you really don't have
to spend ANY time on their grammar, spelling, etc. You
also shouldn't have to write comments on the essays unless
the professor specifically requests it-- do clear this up
before you start grading. The argument for not writing
comments is that not many people actually pick them up and
you simply don't have time if the exam falls later in the
week-- I put a few Great!s and Excellent!s and Very Good!s
next to the As and Bs and that's it but some people do more.
To make life easier and since you haven't written any
justifying comments, you should pin down the professor more
tightly in the case of final exams in terms of exactly what
they are looking for-- a great time to do this is at the
exam itself. I usually discover while sitting around
during the final that there are some questions where I
don't know the answer or can't figure out what the
professor wants. Prod the professor to give you some
specifics-- ideally, they should give you an answer sheet
so everyone is on the same page but some will balk at this.
Definitely get together with the other TAs and check with

them what their expectations are for the answers so that

everyone is on the same page before AND during grading if
your opinion changes once you see how many people got
something wrong. Communicate with the other TAs about how
your grading is evolving as you are grading too, since
usually you can come up with a scheme about halfway
through-- if they mention this, this, and that, it's a B,
if they get into deeper detail, it's an A, etc.. You may
want to get together while you're grading since this is
often more efficient. Obviously, if only 1 or 2 students
got a question right, you need to contact the professor and
ask if they want to leave this question out of the tally.
COMMUNICATE with everyone and definitely don't save issues
like this until the grading meeting.
This is really important and can get complicated: regarding
the point assignments for essays, short answers, etc.,
these should be on the exam itself, but reconfirm with the
other TAs and the professor whether or not you are grading
on 100 points or some other scheme (such as if the exam was
worth 40% of the whole grade, grading the exam out of 40
points or something). This seems easier for putting all of
the grading together since you just have to add up
participation, essays, and final, but I prefer grading the
final out of 100 and then multiplying by .4 in the excel
spreadsheet for maximum precision. This is because if the
terms only count for 2 points, it's hard to introduce any
subtlety into a A+ term versus a B term. For example,
let's say the whole exam is going to be graded 40 out of 40
and the terms are each worth 2 points. It may be tempting
to give an answer that is about half right half credit (1
point out of 2)-- but this is actually giving the student
50%-- an F. If you grade all the terms and essays this
way-- I'd say half right is more like a C+/B-,
unscientifically-- the student will end up getting an F on
the final instead of a B-. Unless you want to get into
smaller fractions than a half-- and I strongly recommend
against this, you will probably want to be grading the
terms out of 4 points or more. This way a 3/4 is a 75%,
3.5/4 is an 87.5%. So this gives you more to work with
between D and A, although you still don't have much between
C and B+ here. Terms that count for 5 points are going to
be the easiest. But no matter what, I definitely advocate
breaking down each term, short answer, or essay into
numbers that correspond to a list of grades and keeping
that close at hand while you are doing the actual grading.
For essays out of 40 points, this would look like this:

40:
39:
38:
37:
36:
35:
34:
33:
32:
31:
30:
29:
28:
27:

100: A+
97.5: A+
95: A
92.5: A90: A87.5: B+
85: B
82.5: B80: B77.5: C+
75: C
72.5: C70: C77.5: D+

And so on. In general, it's not worth distinguishing much

further than this since a D+ and a D are both a failing
grade. So if they write absolutely nothing, it's a 0/40,
but if they connect the pencil to the page for a sentence
or two, it should probably be at least a 26/40. Again, you
can see from this that a 30/40 seems like a pretty good
grade but it's actually a C. So starting out from a
"perfect" essay and "deducting" points is not nearly as
accurate for the students' grades than eyeballing the essay
based on specific criteria and giving it an appropriate
letter grade.
In the interest of consistency, some professors will let
you each grade your own way, but you may want to discuss
with the TAs about things like split grades (A-/B+) so that
everything is as consistent as possible. Same goes for
converting letter grades for papers into number grades for
the final course grade-- it's definitely worth making up a
key and sending it around to the other TAs so you're on the
same page.
GRADE RECORDING AND GRADE MEETINGS
If this is your first time doing grading, get a sample
spreadsheet from another TA or your Head TA to give you an
idea of what your final grade spreadsheet should look like.
I recommend entering in your students' names and other
grades including participation in this sheet before you
grade the final just to give yourself a break from getting
bogged down in numbers in the home stretch. You can order
your grades and chart them if you're curious about how even
your grading was-- whether you gave way more Cs than Bs,

e.g.
This is a good chance to check your final exam and final
course grade numbers and make sure that your average seems
reasonable. This is a matter of personal opinion and
course difficulty, but the general range for course grade
averages should be about 84-88 or so (B/B+), excepting
outlying failures. Usually the finals raise the grades a
lot which is why I said at the beginning to start low. If
your average is somewhat to the north or south of this-DEFINITELY CONTACT THE PROFESSOR ABOUT THIS BEFORE THE
GRADE MEETING. It is extremely painful to get to the grade
meeting and have everyone wait for the one person who gave
everyone all As or Cs painfully recalculate everything
while people with planes to catch sit silently by. This has
happened at one of my Humanities grade meetings and it's
not a pretty sight! You will feel much better
reconsidering the grades in front of the privacy of your
own computer.
Double check the grades to make sure they are what you
expected-- sometimes I tweak participation a little if the
students' grade doesn't seem to reflect their performance.
A word regarding participation grades: these are extremely
subjective unless you have made up a scheme that missing 2
classes = a B, missing 3 = a C; and this sort of scheme
only judges bodies in seats, not actual contributions to
the section, so it's by no means ideal. Students may be
asking you before the final for their participation grade
to calculate what they need to get on the final to pass the
course. To protect yourself, do NOT encourage this or give
a precise grade or explanation of why they got this grade.
Since participation is frequently used to tweak grades a
little, you don't want to paint yourself into a corner or
be giving out this information before you've really started
looking at attendance, grades, etc. in earnest.
Star for
yourself the people whose grades are very borderline on the
final gradesheet so you can discuss these at the meeting.
Okay, so you've finished entering everything. Before the
grade meeting, for extra protection against surprises, send
your grade spread to the other TAs as usual and the actual
spreadsheet to the professor for his or her files. If
anything changes after the grade meeting, send the new
spreadsheet to the professor so that they can ideally deal
with people contesting their grades on their own if you're
not around by looking at what grades you gave them.

Things to bring to the Grade Meeting: do bring your laptop

or the printout and electronic version of the excel file in
some form to the actual grade meeting so you can calculate
grade changes. If you have any extra time, separate out
the finals without the Buckley waiver and sort the finals
alphabetically. Bring these to the meeting ready to hand
over to the professor for keeping in his/her files and for
putting outside his/her door. #2 Pencil for marking grade
sheets!
At the grade meeting, you'll enter the grades off your
spreadsheet into a bubble sheet that Dee-Dee has given the
professor. Before you start entering grades, check the
pass/fail column to see which of your students chose to
take the course pass/fail and enter these first so you
don't fill in the wrong boxes. Also note any incompletes
or withdrawals, since these will still be listed on the
sheet. If the professor has any questions about what to do
with people who never showed to class but are still
registered, incompletes, etc.-- urge them to call Dee-Dee
to clarify. She is the gatekeeper on all of these grading
issues and professors generally aren't that familiar with
these policies since it only comes up once a quarter.
If borderline grades need to be changed at the meeting for
one reason or another, the general rules here are that if
the person did better on the final than on the previous
assignments, or had some extenuating heroic effort, like
meeting with you a lot to try to improve, they should be
bumped up; if they did worse on the final or exhibited a
general downward curve, leave them below the line. In all
cases, try to avoid arguing for borderline people because
you like them instead of with specific criteria for why
they should be bumped up. Obviously, if the professor
disagrees with your judgment, go with the professor. No
half grade point is worth more than a brief discussion. If
you do have to fail people, you will probably hear about it
later, but this is not a reason not to fail the person,
even if the student "needs" to pass. You may also find
yourself arguing against a borderline failing student whom
the professor wants to give the benefit of the doubt to
save everyone the grief. Again, don't base this on
personal feelings, but if they really don't deserve it
based on not fulfilling the basic requirements of
class/college, say so! You will be sparing future TAs the
same grief.

When the grade meeting is wrapping up, check with the profs
about when the students can pick up their exams. You will
probably want to send students an email that their finals
are ready for pickup and a final thank you, I enjoyed it,
see you next quarter in Soc __, and do also tell them that
you can't send grades by email to prevent the inevitable
requests. In this email, I usually also offer to students
to write them recommendations for JYA or summer programs if
they need it, which they appreciate and few actually use so
don't worry that you're volunteering your life away. If
they do ask you for one, theres a sample rec in the
templates below.
CONTESTED GRADES
If you are still around and the finals have been picked up,
some students may want to meet with you to discuss their
performance. As with all students contesting their grade,
ask them IN PERSON IF AT ALL POSSIBLE why they think they
deserved another grade and how they calculated this.
Confirm that you didn't make any math errors-- have them
tell you what they think their assignment grades were-- and
then ask them to put their reasons in writing and give it
to the professor to decide with your own note if they don't
go to the professor first. Most just want reassurance that
they're not being treated like a number and that you had a
good reason for giving them the grade you did. Don't
express any ambivalence like "I wanted to give you or I
thought you deserved x, but the professor didn't allow it,"
etc. It's not worth going through here what the deal is
with officially contested grades, but if you've followed
the above, you should have sufficient written documentation
for anything that comes up and should feel confident about
your fairness.

LOOKING FORWARD
Yay, it's over!
If you are TAing next quarter, after finals are in is
actually a good time to contact the other TAs and email the
professor you will be TAing for next quarter to just tell
them you're looking forward to it and to establish when
your sections will be, to put the rosters in your box if
your section's before the first course meeting, when you
will have your first TA meeting, what their expectations
are for the first lecture, etc. The office doesn't open
after winter break until the first day of class, so it's
really nice to have this cleared up ahead of time for
Winter Quarter especially.
SCHEDULING A TEACHING EVALUATION
CTD can come in and do a customized teaching evaluation of
you at your request. The main benefit of this is a handy
written report to put in your teaching portfolio, and
possibly some helpful tips, although theres no guarantee
that the person observing you isnt from the sciences and
wont know a lot about teaching in Soc. Its a good idea
not to do this the first time you teach, so you can develop
your own teaching style and figure out areas to work on,
but not so late in your teaching career that its down to
the wire. In general, CTD is slow at following up on this
so schedule an appointment at the end of the prior quarter
if you want them to do it the following quarter.

SAMPLE HANDOUT FOR FIRST DAY

This handout is actually an example of setting a tone that
was probably a little too harsh for the first day. It is
important to establish ground rules, but students in the
class were generally pretty responsible. Since we were
talking a lot about George Bush in lecture, I wanted to
make sure that the students felt free to express
themselves. I also wanted to try to ensure that
discussions didnt drift from the readings to pro/con Bush
arguments, which they didnt. The advantage of having a
handout like this on policies and procedures is that it
saves you the headache of having to catch up people who
dont register for section until Week 2.
SOCIOLOGY 20
TA: Caroline Lee
Email: c49lee@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 426
Office hours: Wednesday 12-1:30 and 3-3:30PM.
What is the purpose of section?
I want you to become better readers and better critical thinkers, which will make you
better writers. We cant review all the concepts discussed in lecturethis is impossible
since we only meet once a week. Mainly, I care about helping you understand the
concepts you are having trouble withand ultimately, get good grades in the course.
Heres what I think that requires.

First of all, you will have to be informed about current events. At the very least,
you should read the AP wires and headlines for Wednesdays news before
section. You should also read a Week in Review section in a respected Sunday
newspaper to catch up on what you missed during the week. Newspapers and
other news sources are readily available online. If you would like
recommendations for good online news sources, please ask.

Participation. This is 20% of your grade, and is the part of your grade which is
most within your control. Please get in touch with me if you have to miss section
because of medical or family emergency. No other reasons will be accepted for
missing section. Here is how participation will be broken down:
10% attendance and active participation in class. Each section missed after 1
means a letter grade decrease in your attendance grade.
5%: 5 minute presentation of an issue from the reading. Sign up in section.
5%: Written report, emailed to the section. Ill be giving you more details on this
later.
Additional assignments are not busy work. These are geared towards helping you

to get the most out of section and be as prepared as possible for essays and the
final exam.

Thorough reading. We will cover all of the readings for the week on Wednesday,
so you need to have read it all by then and come prepared to discuss it. Bring
your texts to office hours AND to section. Come with a question if youre having
trouble with the text.

Carefully written, spell-checked essays that have been through at least 2 drafts. I
have some specific expectations about your papers and your presentation of them,
which well go over before the first assignment. I do NOT accept late
assignments. No excuses.

NEVER plagiarizing or sharing results. You must turn in your own workno
matter how much time you spent with other people talking about the paper.
Saying that you didnt understand is not an excuse. I will pursue people who
plagiarize off the web, and have a zero tolerance policy, which means no first
offenses. If its not in quotes, chances are youre plagiarizing. Well talk about
citation before the first assignment, but if you like to use the web to write your
papers, this is not the section for you.

For section to go smoothly:

ASK questions if you have them. Respect each other. Participate. If one or two people
do all the talking, well do a lot of group work.
Regarding politics in this class: we will be talking about controversial issues.
To have productive discussions about these issues, you must be able to make informed
arguments that are not based on personal opinion or experience. Personal opinions are
perfectly legitimate in many other settings, but they are not powerful in terms of
constructing compelling arguments. Since this class is oriented towards developing your
critical faculties and sociological imagination, you may frequently be asked to challenge
your own opinions or popular/conventional thinking on particular issues.
This does not mean that you have to have a particular view on George Bush. It does
mean that any and all arguments need to be based on evidence. So when we define the
qualities of a fascist leader and compare them to those of political administrations, we
will be discussing which of these are similar, how similar, whether they are meaningful
and substantive, etc. We will not be talking about whether a leader is or is not a fascist.
Instead, we will be discussing the implications of such a comparison, the grounds for
making it, and the sorts of ideas or arguments that such a comparison may encourage or
forestall. If you believe that your views are not being respected in the course, please
come see me.
And finally:
Email is a really good way to get in touch quickly. If youre struggling in class or have

any issues that are getting in the way of your coursework, please come talk to me. Life
happens. I need to know ASAP.

SAMPLE WORKSHEET FOR GROUPWORK

This worksheet is from a USP class where the professor put
a lot of helpful themes and materials on the web that the
students didnt usually look at but which frequently made
it into the exam. Note the mix of hard and easy questions
and direct cutting and pasting of quotes and diagrams
ripped from the texts. This makes students feel like
section is really on topic.
Tell students to move on if they are having trouble. They
dont have to get through all of the questions. The
critical point is to save enough time at the end to compare
different groups answers, especially for hard questions.
A great way to test quieter students comprehension of
major topics.
Week Three: Theories and concepts of development, modernization and progress
change
over time; currently the capital-mobility model has a major influence on urban
and regional planning and development.
January 19, 2005: Section A01 and A04 worksheet
Work with your group to answer the questions below. Designate a spokesperson for your
group who will present your answers to the rest of the class.

QuickTime and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

1. Based on Castells model above, assign the following phenomena to their appropriate
place in reproduction (1, 2, or 3) or surplus (1 and 2):

MOVIES
BRIDGES
LIBRARY

THE APPRENTICE
HEDGE FUNDS
SPACE EXPLORATION

2. What is the difference between the mode of production and the means of production?
Mode of production and mode of development?

3. According to Castells, the MAIN PROCESS in the transition to a "post-industrial

society" is NOT the shift from goods to services. Rather it is the emergence of
information processing as the core, fundamental activity conditioning the effectiveness
and productivity of all processes of production, distribution, consumption, and
management (Castells, 1991:10)
Come up with 3 ways in which information processing dominates the conduct of your
life. List 3 ways in which information processing does not dominate your life.

4.

QuickTime and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Match the following events to their places on the long wave timeline above:
a. Marshall Plan
b. Neoliberal attempt to change Social Security benefits distribution
c. GI Bill
d. New Deal
e. end of welfare as we know it
f. ERA passed but not ratified

RECOMMENDATION TEMPLATE
Throughout your TA work, students will ask you for
recommendations for summer programs or study abroad. These
are easy and quick enough as long as the student is
promising and you have a template to work with. The only
drawback to this is the EAP is usually reading all of these
so make sure theyre not too cookie cutter. Get letterhead
from the supply closet by Saras desk.
[Your Name]
UCSD Department of Sociology
0533
9500 Gilman Dr.
La Jolla, CA 92093-0533
Phone: 619-987-2607
Email: c49lee@ucsd.edu
Education Abroad Program
Programs Abroad Office, 0018
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0018
January 10, 2005
Recommendation for [Susie Student]:
I am writing to recommend [Susie Student] for study abroad at the [UC Program] in
[Country]. [Susie] is now completing her [sophomore] year and, as her TA in [Soc 1a], I
worked closely with her during [Winter Quarter 2004].
[Susie] is a [great, excellent, etc.] student. [Describe performance and course objectives,
e.g.: One of only a few students receiving an A- in this challenging quantitative methods
course, Susies near-perfect performance on her five take-home assignments surpassed
that of all 47 other students in my two sections, and she was one of the top three students
in her performance on the midterm.] [something more specific: Susies inventive use of
outside data sources in her assignments show a resourcefulness unusual among her
classmates.] [Something about class participation or other notable talent.]
[This paragraph relates to their ability to translate classroom or personal skills to study
abroad, e.g.: Her maturity and adaptability make her stand out as a great candidate for
study abroad.] [More about the students specific goals: Susie has chosen the UC-Lund
Summer Program as an optimum fit with her intellectual goals to be a marine scientist.]
She would be an excellent addition to this program, and I recommend her enthusiastically
for a course of study in [Sweden]. Please dont hesitate to get in touch with me if I can
provide any further information.
Sincerely,