Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:

This 5 to 7 page paper should not be considered in the format of a standard college essay or research paper. Your task is to consider and craft a well-thought and written paper that illustrates your personal position on one or more areas of the psychological or sociological aspects of sport injury, illness, and rehabilitation. In some cases you may move into areas that are more cultural or personally historical and that’s fine so long as you introduce relevant approaches as found in our readings or our class lectures. As you’ve seen these areas of study can and do tend to overlap at times. You should include all or most of the following: Some personal background on how you arrived at the position you take Stories or anecdotes that illustrate or exemplify how you “feel” about your personal relationship with sports-related injury and illness. Any key thinkers or writers in these areas pulled from any of the critical authors we have noted over the term. They can be early or modern sociologists, academics, writers, or business/political figures that have had something interesting, thoughtful, and contributory to say about the world of sports injury and illness. How has this approach that you have been viewed and/or used at any other period in history? How do you see this personal philosophical position on injury, illness, and rehabilitation informing your current and future connections to sport Cite any sources* that you use in APA or MLA style Essentially, you are writing about yourself and your “feelings” toward sport injury and illness in a thoughtful but scholarly way, using the material that you have been introduced to in this course. For example, if you feel that a sport injury has made you a more thoughtful trainer or therapist you might talk about how and why you think this is so and then try to reflect on whether you feel that the connection came from your “experience” in playing sports (and getting hurt) or perhaps it was because you thought about it a lot and believe that the body is both fragile and resilient. Or you might take a position on the nature of your competitive zeal and relate it to what some of the people we’ve read have offered as other views on the nature of pain perception or cognitive appraisal. What roles would risk or violence or philosophies seen in alt sports play in these areas? Maybe you feel that your attitude toward sports injury, risk, and pain have been affected by your gender, socialization, socioeconomic class or sport choice. Can you explore this a bit and determine if it was socially-inscribed or affected by other factors that you hadn’t even considered? Are there readings or lecture notes from this class that support any of your conclusions? Can you relate a story that illustrates this? Or maybe you are confused by your overall attitude toward sports injury and want to talk about that confusion (it’s okay to blame this course but be specific about the reasons and what you will do with this confusion). If that’s the case you could discuss historical periods when society was in confusion about injuries and illness and the conflict seems relevant to you now. Don’t over-think or be afraid of the assignment or spend weeks trying to figure out if you are closer to an existentialist or a pragmatist view. The goal is for you to first think about how you really feel toward sport injury, illness, and rehabilitation in your life and then second, give it a label and connect it to other readings and writers seen in this course who may have had similar feelings and expressions about sport. Finally, you need to articulate it in a clear, cogent, and academic form**. You’ll want to write with clarity. Passion and creativity are fine so long as we can understand your thesis. Grading is based on a combination of effort, connections to theoretical approaches, and the significant people we’ve read from or about***. I will review them and be able to decide how much time you invested. Grading is CR/NC. If your paper is obviously written at a NC level, I will return your hard copy to you for ONE re-write due no later than 3 days after the due date. Email or ask about ideas after class or during office hours. *I highly suggest that you cite at least 2 or more sources from the many readings you have access to in class or others that you find appropriate. A borderline “return-to-student” paper can be re-evaluated if there are a number of properly cited sources.