Week 1 — Reading Two Towns: Counts, Rates, and the Sociological Imagination

Assignment 1 of the term — read a first statistic the way a sociologist does, and explain it to someone new to sociology.

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 Sociology in Action Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one small comparison.

The task

The two-town example is an illustrative dataset constructed for this course (not real data). Town A records 12 events among 40,000 residents in one year. Town B records 15 events among 30,000 residents in the same year. A neighbor sees only the counts and concludes that Town B must have the bigger problem. Your job is to check that conclusion the way a sociologist would.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. Town A records 12 events among 40,000 residents in one year. What is Town A's rate per 100,000 residents?
2. Town B records 15 events among 30,000 residents in the same year. What is Town B's rate per 100,000 residents?
3. Town B's rate is 50 per 100,000 and Town A's rate is 30 per 100,000. By how many events per 100,000 residents is Town B's rate higher?
4. Town B recorded 15 events and Town A recorded 12 events in the same year. How many more events did Town B record than Town A?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: say what the rate measures (events for every 100,000 residents in one year), and explain why dividing by the number of residents matters, using the words count and rate.
• Problem 2: say which town has the higher rate, and answer the first two of the four questions: what is measured, and over what population and period.
• Problem 3: answer the last two of the four questions: what the comparison shows and what it does not show, and whether it is a correlation or a cause.
• Problem 4: explain why the count difference and the rate comparison can tell different stories when towns differ in size. Then use the sociological imagination: tell one Town B resident's experience of the event (a personal trouble) apart from the town-wide rate (a pattern), and name one question a sociologist might ask next about Town B's higher rate, saying whether it works at the macro or the micro level. Do not answer that question or invent a reason; ask it.

Explain it to a non-expert

The neighbor who saw only the counts asks you, "So is Town B the worse place to live?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains the difference between a count and a rate, reports both towns' rates in everyday words, and names one limit, including that the numbers are illustrative and that a town's rate says nothing about any one resident. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine two public libraries, where the larger one reports more overdue books. Model answer: "The bigger library has more overdue books, but it also has many more members, so the raw number is not a fair comparison. To compare them, divide each library's overdue books by its number of members, which turns each count into a rate. The rate tells you how common overdue books are at each library; it does not tell you why, and it says nothing about whether any one member returns books late."

Use that pattern for the two-town example, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the neighbor 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 sociology course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about reading a statistic as a rate and connecting a personal trouble to a public pattern. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, or a quotation, and never judge me or anyone I describe.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the two-town example, an illustrative dataset constructed for this course (not real data). Town A records 12 events among 40,000 residents in one year; Town B records 15 events among 30,000 residents in the same year.
PROBLEM P1: Town A records 12 events among 40,000 residents in one year. What is Town A's rate per 100,000 residents?
PROBLEM P2: Town B records 15 events among 30,000 residents in the same year. What is Town B's rate per 100,000 residents?
PROBLEM P3: Town B's rate is 50 per 100,000 and Town A's rate is 30 per 100,000. By how many events per 100,000 residents is Town B's rate higher?
PROBLEM P4: Town B recorded 15 events and Town A recorded 12 events in the same year. How many more events did Town B record than Town A?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, what the rate measures and why dividing by residents matters, using the words count and rate; for P2, which town has the higher rate, plus what is measured and over what population and period; for P3, what the comparison shows and does not show, plus whether it is a correlation or a cause; for P4, why the count difference and the rate comparison can tell different stories, how one resident's experience (a personal trouble) differs from the town-wide rate (a pattern), and one question a sociologist might ask next with its level (macro or micro), without inventing a reason. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a neighbor who saw only the counts, explaining count versus rate, reporting both rates in everyday words, and naming one limit, including that the numbers are illustrative and that a town's rate says nothing about any one resident. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (40 points), sociological 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 final message only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct rate or difference = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong values 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 a trouble-versus-pattern explanation with a next question and its level AND a neighbor message with both rates and a named 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 an invented reason for Town B's higher rate stated as fact is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to sociology, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the final message with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable values and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete value or step = 1; a result alone 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 neighbor 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 neighbor — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch comparing the two towns' rates with a short note; 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 1 skills — comparing places by rate rather than count, reading a statistic through the four questions, and using the sociological imagination to tell a personal trouble from a town-wide pattern — 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 neighbor. 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. 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 supply a reason for Town B's higher rate that the data do not show. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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