Students are expected to write critical autobiographical descriptions throughout the semester as part of their ‘Our Sporting Lives’ project. These reflections provide points of reference for the Our Sporting Lives project, track understandings of social and cultural differences for the courses concluding dialogues, and contribute to discussions by prompting students to think about how course concepts apply to their own lived experiences.
Module 1 topic reflections will build upon each other to deepen personal reflections by integrating additional research. Students will first write an empirical/experiential reflection, next summarize a related additional scholarly source, and finally synthesize their empirical and scholarly sources to further critically reflect on their gendered sporting experiences.
Module 1 topic reflection 2 is due by midnight on Friday, September 25th. Each of the Module 1 topic reflections are worth 10 points and the topic reflections together are worth 20% of the total course grade.
Please note: This class, and these reflections and the discussions they will prompt, are for students with all levels of experiences with sport – elite and recreational, team and individual, participant or consumer (i.e. fan), enriching and alienating, inclusive and exclusive. Please utilize topic reflections to think and write about these experiences, whatever they may be.
Module 1 topic reflection 2, Our (Gendered) Sporting Lives – research summary
Article selection
For Module 1 topic reflection 2, students will choose 1 appropriate article from pre-selected academic articles (see the shared Module 1 bibliiography google doc) exploring the experiences of men, women, and various LGBT athletes to situate their own lived experiences and supplement their discussion of a personal experience related to Module 1 content (gender, sex, and/or sexuality) (see Module 1 topic reflection 1).
Students may want to consider the following questions when selecting an article:
What is the gendered sporting experience(s) you will be focusing on (see Module 1 topic reflection 1) and its connection to related concepts and consequences of orthodox gender ideology?
How would this article support a critical reflection on your selected experience?
e.g. The article is about ______ (see the article abstract). This supports my experience of ______ (see above) through the author’s focus on ______ (key concepts or research findings that are similar, or in some way relatable, to what you’ll be writing about).
Once selected, students should download a .pdf of the article to closely read and annotatePreview the document in order to achieve the level of comprehension necessary to integrate the source into their writing.
Research Summary Criteria
Module 1 topic reflection 2 (10 points) will be evaluated on the following criteria. Each of the criteria will be graded as complete, incomplete, or absent.
Summary (8 points)
Summarize your selected scholarly article (approx. 250 words; paragraph format; in the following order)
Content (approx. 100 words; 4 points)
what is the article about? (e.g. what topic, sport, person/people are the authors researching)
what are the major findings? (of their research)
Critique (approx. 150 words; 4 points)
how did the author(s) come to their conclusions? (e.g. what questions did they ask? what ‘methods’ did they use to answer their questions?)
what do your agree and disagree with about the article? (e.g. what are your critiques of the research? what points of the research really resonated with you? how will the article be useful to reflect on your own sporting experience(s)?)
Support (2 points)
Support your summary by paraphrasing (Author, Year) or directly citing (Author, Year, p. #) your selected scholarly source.
Students should use correct APA in-text citation when paraphrasing or directly quoting from sources.
For examples of correct APA citation format, see: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.
Incorrect citation practices can result in plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined by the CLAS Code of Academic Honesty as “using the words, sentences, arguments, rhetorical structures, and ideas of another without proper citation and acknowledgment” and includes:
Failing to use quotation marks properly or when needed, give a source for quoted materials, give a source for paraphrases, paraphrase language completely, and/or cite sources correctly and completely
Students should provide an APA-formatted bibliographic citation for your selected scholarly source at the end of their reflection
For examples of correct APA bibliographic format, see: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.
Students will post their Module 1 topic reflection 2 in a group discussion between students in the same community cohort, or ‘homeroom’. Students will not see any posts by their peers until they have posted themselves. Though students will not be required to respond to other students in this discussion they should still read the posts of their peers to become familiar with additional article selections and research on Module 1 topics and/or to better understand their own selected article (if others in their group had the same selection).
