Social Science Fiction: Writing Sociological Short Stories to Learn about Social Issues

In this paper I introduce a creative and substantive alternative to the term paper, student-written sociological short stories. Students choose a topic and use sociological theories and research to outline a plot, characters, dialogue, and settings. Guidelines based on symbolic interactionism help students construct and write the story. Put simply, these guidelines instruct the student-as-author to imaginatively experience the characters' thoughts, feelings, interactions with others, and movements in settings. A literary style is presented to help students record these imaginative experiences in literary form. The paper also discusses grading, common mistakes, teacher involvement, student response, and the assignment's pedagogical value.