5 pages double-spaced using 12 point font and 1 inch page margins. 

This assignment asks you to reflect back on all the readings we’ve done for the course particularly as they have had an impact on your own thinking about issues of gender and sexuality.  In your essay, I would like you to bring in as many of the readings as you can in order to discuss how your thinking was shaped about the following questions: 

·      Describe your understanding of your own gender (or sexual) identity before you entered the class, and how you understand it now that the class has ended.  *Please note, you do not have to disclose anything about your personal identity you don’t feel comfortable sharing.

·      What insights have you gained about the advantages and disadvantages available to you and others based on your social group membership(s)? What did you learn about how gender and sexual identity impact people’s life experiences?

·      What theoretical perspectives have shaped your thinking about gender and sexuality? Which perspectives did you find particularly helpful in understanding gender and sexuality?  What difference do these perspectives make in the world? 

·      Describe a disagreement or difference of perspectives that occurred in the discussion board that was significant for you. What were the different viewpoints? What role did individuals’ social identities play in the dialogue? What were your own views and feelings on the topic? What choices did you make about how you wanted to participate in this conversation and why? What did you learn about yourself in this disagreement that you will take with you in future interaction?

·      Looking ahead, how do you see yourself applying your learning to your life on campus and society at large? Describe a specific situation in which you hope to apply these skills and/or where you have already begun to apply these skills outside of class.

You don’t have to answer all of these questions, you can choose which ones you want to discuss in your essay. Your essay should look at specific readings to indicate what texts have shaped your thinking about these questions.  You can quote directly from texts, but this should be kept to a minimum.  You may discuss any of the materials from the course.  Please be sure to include specific references to the theories, articles, videos, etc.

Your essay may include your own personal experiences or anecdotes that you think will clarify your ideas about the larger issues.  If you feel that your thinking and perspectives have changed over the semester, your essay certainly could examine how they have changed and what contributed to the process of change.

How to prepare for writing the paper

• Go back through the texts we’ve read and review the ideas we’ve encountered there as well as your own reactions to them.  Highlight passages from texts that you think you might want to talk about in your essay.  Make notes to yourself about the issues that have been most striking to you and the ways in which the texts affected your thinking about certain issues.
• Look back over your discussion board posts and see if there are any ideas you might want to bring up in your essay.  Notice if your thinking has changed over the semester. 
• Take some time to go over the syllabus and read the topic headings for each week.  Think about the issues we examined each week and how various readings tackled the weekly issues.  Take some notes based on your reviewing of the syllabus and the arrangement of readings under the issues we studied.  Take notes about how the student presentations or videos helped to shape your thinking or contributed to your knowledge.

Criteria for evaluating the paper

• the thoughtfulness of your reflection on the semester’s readings; how well developed your insights are; how analytically you think about the issues.
• your use of specific evidence from the texts, videos, etc; how much specific evidence you use; how specific and concrete, rather than general and vague, is your thinking.
• the clarity of your own perspective and your explanation of it
• the expressive power of your writing; your ability to capture your own voice speaking about issues that matter to you.
• the coherence and correctness of your writing.