The Transformation Project assignment is designed to help integrate the knowledge you gain across all four units. In Unit I, you chose a person for your study and presented a plan for writing about that person in each of the three succeeding units. In Unit II, you focused on the quantitative context of the person, placing the person as a member of a population. In Unit III you will examine the social world your subject inhabited. Specifically, you should choose the one or two aspects of your person's social context that are most important to an understanding of his or her experience. Remember, it is important to write about the social world in a way that illuminates your person's transformations.

These are some questions you may ask as you begin to think about Chapter 3. However, do not try to answer all of these, as some may not be appropriate for your subject. To which groups or communities did your person belong? What beliefs and values did members of this community share? What can you say about the place of this community in the larger society? How did these groups understand themselves, and how did others view them? What changes was society undergoing at the time the person lived? What social roles were important? Were any roles changing?

As a concrete example of what is expected, consider Joe DiMaggio. The first step in forming a thesis is to identify the important social groups to which DiMaggio belonged. All people belong to many different social groups during their lives. DiMaggio was a first-generation Italian American, a professional athlete, a World War II veteran, and so on. Note that he belonged to a multitude of different social groups, but you need to select the group that contributed to our subject's life in the most important ways. For DiMaggio, a fruitful strategy might be to focus on his being part of the social group of Italian Americans.

The second step towards developing a thesis is to examine a major event that changed the subject's social group during his or her lifetime. Again a wide range of possible events that changed the lives of Italian Americans during DiMaggio's life: The Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and so on. For DiMaggio, we will focus on World War II. For Unit III, a good starting point for this paper would be to examine how World War II transformed the lives of Italian Americans at home and abroad. This topic is still likely to be too broad, but it provides a good point of departure.

This illustrates a two-part process. First, place your transformation subject into the social group that you believe contributed to the social world of your subject. Second, find an event or series of events that transformed the social group you selected. This two-part process will help you narrow down the social context of you subject. By following the process you will be able to construct a fuller understanding of your transformation subject. You will gain an understanding of the social groups your subject participated in and you will see how exterior forces changed these significant social groups.

It is important to notice two things about this assignment: First, although you will base your choice of the social group you discuss on its relevance to your subject person, the focus in the paper is primarily on the social world rather than on the person. Second, remember the statistical population you examined previously is not necessarily the same as the social world of your subject.

The final paper should be 5-7 pages (1250-1750 words), typed. It should include an annotated bibliography listing at least four authoritative sources actually used in your essay (encyclopedia articles can be used but do not count as authoritative sources.)

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