Week 9 — Who Belongs to Ego's Group? Reading the Kinship Set

Assignment 8 of the term — work four short problems from the kinship set and the market's family-run stall, read them as an anthropologist, and explain descent to someone who has it mixed up.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Ethnography Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together. It builds on Week 3's genealogical method, collecting a community's kin ties person by person, and on Week 3's rule to record roles, never names.

The task

The kinship set is a three-generation diagram centred on ego, constructed for this course and describing no real family. In words: ego's four grandparents (FF, FM, MF, MM); ego's father F, his brother FB and sister FZ, each married (FBW, FZH); ego's mother M, her brother MB and sister MZ, each married (MBW, MZH); and ego, ego's brother B and sister Z, and four cousins, FBS, FZD, MBD, and MZS. Kin-type strings read outward from ego, so FZD is father's sister's daughter. From the set and the running fieldwork site, an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market of 24 stalls (illustrative):

• if the society were patrilineal, ego's patrilineage would be FF, F, FB, FZ, ego, B, Z, and FBS, 8 people; if it were matrilineal, ego's matrilineage would be MM, M, MB, MZ, ego, B, Z, and MZS, 8 people;
• FBS and MZS are parallel cousins, and FZD and MBD are cross cousins;
• the family-run stall has three generations: the founding grower and her late husband, whose family's farm the stall sells from; their son and his wife, and their daughter and her husband; and the son's daughter and the daughter's son. The founding grower says the farm "came from my husband's side".

A friend sees your notes and says, "Matrilineal means women are in charge, and family is only blood anyway." Your job is to answer the way an anthropologist would, starting from a few plain numbers.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. In the illustrative kinship set, ego's diagram holds 4 grandparents, 10 positions in the parents' generation, and 7 positions in ego's generation. How many positions does the kinship set hold in all?
2. In the illustrative kinship set, ego's patrilineage holds 8 people and ego's matrilineage holds 8 people, and 3 people (ego, B, and Z) belong to both lists. How many people belong to either list?
3. In the illustrative kinship set, ego has 4 cousins, and 2 of them (FBS and MZS) are parallel cousins. What percent of ego's cousins are parallel cousins?
4. At the running fieldwork site, an illustrative farmers' market, the family-run stall has 8 roles across 3 generations, and 2 of those roles are in-laws (the son's wife and the daughter's husband). What percent of the stall's roles are in-laws?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: describe the set in words, generation by generation, using kin-type strings, and name the four in-married spouses in the parents' generation (FBW, FZH, MBW, MZH) as ego's affinal kin, related by marriage rather than by birth.
• Problem 2: explain why FZD is outside ego's patrilineage although FZ is inside it, and why MBD is outside ego's matrilineage although MB is inside it, using who passes membership on, and say why patrilineal descent does not shut daughters out of the lineage.
• Problem 3: name which terminology type calls parallel cousins brother or sister and cross cousins by a separate term (bifurcate merging), and say how many of ego's six relatives in ego's generation are called brother or sister under lineal terminology and under generational terminology.
• Problem 4: describe the stall as a three-generation diagram in words with roles, never names, and explain why the founding grower's remark that the farm came from her husband's side is a clue about how land passed, not proof of a descent rule.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your friend thinks matrilineal means women are in charge and that family is only blood. Write a 3–5 sentence message that tells matrilineal descent from rule by women, using the Trobriand Islanders of the 1910s, among whom a man's heir was his sister's son; explains that kinship is cultural, with one example of fictive or chosen kin; and names one limit, such as that the kinship set is a classroom model and the stall notes come from one illustrative visit. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a cousin who says that in an illustrative family business "the oldest son always inherits, so sons are the only real members of the family." Model answer: "In that business the shop passes to sons, which is how ownership moves, but daughters are still family members, and in a patrilineal pattern they belong to their father's group for life; they do not pass that membership to their own children. Who inherits the shop and who counts as family are two different questions. One caveat: one family's habit about a shop does not tell you the rule a whole society follows."

Use that pattern for your friend, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory cultural anthropology course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about kinship and descent: kinship as cultural, consanguineal and affinal kin, kin-type strings read outward from ego, patrilineal and matrilineal descent and who passes membership on, parallel and cross cousins under lineal, generational, and bifurcate merging terminology, and a working family drawn with roles, never names. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a date, a study, a quotation, a kin term, or a custom of any real people, and never call any people or society "primitive", simpler, earlier, or more advanced.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the kinship set is a three-generation diagram centred on ego, constructed for this course and describing no real family: ego's four grandparents (FF, FM, MF, MM); ego's father F, his brother FB and sister FZ, each married (FBW, FZH); ego's mother M, her brother MB and sister MZ, each married (MBW, MZH); and ego, ego's brother B and sister Z, and four cousins, FBS, FZD, MBD, and MZS. If the society were patrilineal, ego's patrilineage would be FF, F, FB, FZ, ego, B, Z, and FBS; if matrilineal, ego's matrilineage would be MM, M, MB, MZ, ego, B, Z, and MZS. FBS and MZS are parallel cousins; FZD and MBD are cross cousins. The running fieldwork site is an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market of 24 stalls; its family-run stall has the founding grower and her late husband; their son and his wife, and their daughter and her husband; and the son's daughter and the daughter's son. The founding grower says the farm "came from my husband's side". Course terms: kinship is the ties a society recognizes as family, built from birth, marriage, and other bonds; consanguineal kin are related by birth and affinal kin by marriage; fictive kin are treated as relatives without ties of birth or marriage; under patrilineal descent sons and daughters belong to their father's group and only sons pass membership on; under matrilineal descent daughters and sons belong to their mother's group and only daughters pass it on; matrilineal describes how membership passes, not who rules; in the 1910s, Trobriand Islanders traced descent matrilineally, and a man's heir was his sister's son; under lineal terminology ego uses separate words for siblings and cousins, under generational terminology ego calls everyone in their own generation brother or sister, and under bifurcate merging terminology ego calls parallel cousins brother or sister and cross cousins by a different term.
PROBLEM P1: In the illustrative kinship set, ego's diagram holds 4 grandparents, 10 positions in the parents' generation, and 7 positions in ego's generation. How many positions does the kinship set hold in all?
PROBLEM P2: In the illustrative kinship set, ego's patrilineage holds 8 people and ego's matrilineage holds 8 people, and 3 people (ego, B, and Z) belong to both lists. How many people belong to either list?
PROBLEM P3: In the illustrative kinship set, ego has 4 cousins, and 2 of them (FBS and MZS) are parallel cousins. What percent of ego's cousins are parallel cousins?
PROBLEM P4: At the running fieldwork site, an illustrative farmers' market, the family-run stall has 8 roles across 3 generations, and 2 of those roles are in-laws (the son's wife and the daughter's husband). What percent of the stall's roles are in-laws?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, describe the set in words, generation by generation, using kin-type strings, and name the four in-married spouses in the parents' generation (FBW, FZH, MBW, MZH) as ego's affinal kin, related by marriage rather than by birth; for P2, explain why FZD is outside ego's patrilineage although FZ is inside it, and why MBD is outside ego's matrilineage although MB is inside it, using who passes membership on, and say why patrilineal descent does not shut daughters out of the lineage; for P3, name which terminology type calls parallel cousins brother or sister and cross cousins by a separate term (bifurcate merging), and say how many of ego's six relatives in ego's generation are called brother or sister under lineal terminology and under generational terminology; for P4, describe the stall as a three-generation diagram in words with roles, never names, and explain why the founding grower's remark that the farm came from her husband's side is a clue about how land passed, not proof of a descent rule. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a friend who thinks matrilineal means women are in charge and that family is only blood, telling matrilineal descent from rule by women with the Trobriand case of the 1910s, explaining that kinship is cultural with one fictive or chosen kin example, and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (40 points), anthropological reasoning (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 computation points, 4 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the friend only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct position total, either-list count, parallel cousin share, or in-law share = 2; the right numbers and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing figure or the wrong numbers or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH the stall described by roles with the remark read as a clue rather than proof AND a message to the friend that tells matrilineal from matriarchal with the Trobriand case, explains kinship as cultural with a fictive or chosen kin example, and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and matrilineal read as matriarchal, kinship treated as only biology, a person named instead of described by role, or the remark treated as proof of a descent rule is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to anthropology, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to the friend with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable counts, percentages, and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete number or step = 1; a bare final number or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled kinship diagram described in words with a short explanation; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 9 skills — reading the kinship set in words with kin-type strings, telling consanguineal from affinal kin, explaining who passes membership on under patrilineal and matrilineal descent, sorting parallel and cross cousins under the terminology types, describing a working family by roles, and telling matrilineal descent from rule by women — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about kinship and descent. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it read matrilineal as matriarchal, put FZD in ego's patrilineage through her mother, describe the Trobriand Islanders or the Haudenosaunee in a timeless present tense, or invent a custom or kin term for any real people. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com