Putting The Fun Back Into Functionalism.

At some stage over the next few months, most students will spend some time thinking about how best to prepare for the exams this summer. Good advice from teachers and tutors will focus on the need for a structured revision plan - no doubt based on some kind of Knowledge and Skills audit. For Sociology students, this can seem to be a daunting task. For each topic there is so much to learn and revise. All those sociological studies and theories can easily become confused and conflated.

One approach to this problem is to create something like "The Deviance Tree." I first came across this many years ago (originally devised by Pam Law or Ruth Moores, I think)and used it successfully with A2 students many times. The point is we have to think creatively here. Imagine the topic - Crime & Deviance, in this case - as a living organism like a tree. The main sociological theories form the roots from which approaches and perspectives grow. Functionalism, for example appears as a branch flourishing with the work of early structural and subcultural theorists like Merton and A.K. Cohen and developing, over time, to include the work of the New Right and Right Realists. Studies can be represented as the leaves of the tree, attached to the appropriate limbs and branches, revealing key facts and information.

One year, my A2 students created a floor to ceiling display tree(you`re never too old to enjoy some display work and colouring in)in the corner of our classroom. Some leaves were artistically done with real flair while others were more basic but the finished article provided a reference point and revision aid for everyone. Even from a distance, nobody would have mistaken this for a living organism, but close up it revealed a huge amount of information imaginatively and creatively presented. If you can visualise this working for you, or for you and some class-mates, or for the whole class, then get creative and give it a go!

In addition, of course, students will still have to cover the "hard yards" of careful exam preparation with plenty of timed essays and at least one "mock exam". Make some time also to look at the Chief Examiner`s report on how last year`s candidates performed. These reports can be very revealing not just on where students went wrong - but on what they got right. They`re readily available on-line so students are well advised to take a quick look before they sit down to take their exams in the Summer.