Course: Introduction to Sociology (SOC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Adeyemi
Module: Week 1 of 16 · Fall 2026 · in-person, two 75-minute sessions
Objective covered: Objective 1 — Apply the sociological imagination and the three major theoretical perspectives to interpret social phenomena.

This file holds two pieces: (A) the Module 1 Overview page ("Start Here") and (B) the Welcome Announcement that drips out when the module opens. Dates below assume a Tuesday/Thursday session pattern with Week 1 meeting Tue Sep 1 and Thu Sep 3, and end-of-week work due Sunday Sep 6, 11:59 p.m. Adjust the day-of-week and times to match your section.

(A) Module 1 Overview — Start Here

Welcome to Week 1: The Sociological Imagination & Doing Sociology

This is your home base for the week. Read it first, then work the checklist below from top to bottom. Everything you need is linked inside the module.

This week is the foundation the whole course is built on. Before we explain a single social pattern, we have to learn the discipline's core move: seeing the connection between your private life and the larger society that shapes it. You make sense of people's choices all day long — why your friend dropped out, why a neighborhood is poor, why a trend caught on. Sociology takes those everyday explanations and asks a harder question: what about the structure of society itself is producing these patterns? And it hands you three different lenses — three theoretical perspectives — for looking at any social phenomenon.

The week's big question

"What is the 'sociological imagination,' and how can three very different theories all be 'right' about the same slice of social life?"

By Friday you'll be able to tell a private trouble from a public issue, run a social phenomenon through all three perspectives, and place the discipline's founders — Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Du Bois — with the ideas they're actually known for.

By the end of this week, you can…

Use this as a checklist. If you can do all four out loud, you're ready for the quiz.

• [ ] Define sociology as the systematic study of society and social behavior — groups, institutions, and social structure — and say how it differs from psychology (the individual) and "common sense."
• [ ] Use the sociological imagination (C. Wright Mills) to connect personal troubles to public issues — e.g., one person's unemployment vs. a 10% unemployment rate.
• [ ] Name and contrast the three major perspectives — structural-functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism — and say whether each is macro or micro.
• [ ] Match the founders to their ideas — Durkheim (social facts, solidarity, anomie), Marx (class conflict, alienation), Weber (rationalization, verstehen), Du Bois (the color line, double consciousness) — and explain why sociology is a science built on evidence, not opinion.

What's due this week, and when

Work these in order — each one gets you ready for the next.

Heads-up on the AI tools: you'll use a chatbot to draft and explain, and then you judge its work. Chatbots routinely garble this week's content — they'll credit conflict theory to Durkheim (it's Marx), call Weber the founder of symbolic interactionism, or invent a statistic to make a point. Catching the model is the point — and it's the whole skill the Workshops build.

Late policy reminder: 10% off per day late. If life happens, reach out before the deadline — I'd much rather hear from you early.

How to succeed this week

• Lead with the idea, not the jargon. Every term this week is a plain-English idea first (a perspective is just a lens; the sociological imagination is just connecting your life to the bigger picture). The vocabulary comes after the idea clicks.
• Memorize two tiny hooks. "Troubles are personal; issues are structural." And for the lenses: "Function (glue) · Conflict (power) · Interaction (meaning)."
• Practice the three-lens move. Pick any headline (rising rent, a viral trend, remote work) and force one sentence per perspective. Filling all three — even when one feels like a stretch — is the whole skill.
• Remember the headline lesson: evidence beats anecdote. "I know someone who…" is a story, not data. Sociology asks for the pattern and the evidence.
• Treat the chatbot as a smart intern, not an oracle. It drafts; you check every figure, study, and name. That habit is the whole semester in miniature.

You don't need any background for this week — just curiosity and a willingness to question the explanations you take for granted. Come to class ready to argue about whether "anyone can make it if they work hard." See you Tuesday.

(B) Welcome Announcement — Module 1

Release setting: post on the module's start day (offset = 0 days), i.e., Tue Sep 1, 2026 — not before. If your platform won't preserve the scheduled date on import, post this as a draft labeled "Release: Tue Sep 1."

Subject: Welcome to Week 1 — let's learn to see society, not just individuals 👋

Hi everyone, and welcome to Introduction to Sociology!

Quick warm-up before we start: when someone can't find a job, is that their personal failing — or a sign of something bigger? When one person is unemployed, that's a private trouble. When ten percent of a city is unemployed, no amount of individual hustle explains it — that's a public issue, baked into the structure of society. Learning to tell those two apart, and to see how your own life is shaped by forces far larger than you, is what the sociologist C. Wright Mills called the sociological imagination. It's the single most important habit this course will build.

This week — The Sociological Imagination & Doing Sociology — we tackle the big question: What is the sociological imagination, and how can three very different theories all be "right" about the same slice of social life? By Friday you'll connect personal troubles to public issues, run a social phenomenon through all three major perspectives, and place the founders — Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Du Bois — with the ideas they're actually known for.

Four things not to miss:
1. Lecture Tutorial 1 — work through the week's ideas with one approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) and submit the share link. You'll catch the model's mistakes, not just trust it. Due Sun Sep 6.
2. Quiz 1, Discussion 1, and Assignment 1 also close Sun Sep 6 — the discussion is a quick AI dialogue you summarize and post, so start early and leave time to reply to classmates.
3. Workshop 1 — "Your Biography Meets History" — our signature weekly activity. This week you'll apply the sociological imagination to your own life and then fact-check an AI's reasoning. Due Sun Sep 6.
4. Open the Start Here page first — it lays out everything in order with due dates.

One promise: this is a course about thinking clearly about society with evidence, not about memorizing definitions. We lead with plain-language ideas every single week. By Friday, the next time someone says a social problem is "just people making bad choices," you'll know exactly what to ask.

Bring your curiosity (and maybe a strong opinion about whether hard work alone explains who gets ahead) to class on Tuesday.

See you soon,
Prof. Adeyemi