Sociology instructors have long used nontraditional texts such as literary fiction to demonstrate core course concepts, increase student engagement, and develop students’ critical thinking in the classroom. In this article, I explore how written assignments structured around identifying core course concepts in a dystopian novel that connects to student interests can help develop higher-level and critical sociological thinking skills. Using data from an upper-level Sociology of Media course at a large, Midwestern university, I detail a final paper assignment centered around M. T. Anderson’s dystopian satire novel Feed. I present qualitative and quantitative findings that demonstrate students’ successful use of higher-level and critical sociological thinking to identify, analyze, and support original arguments regarding core course concepts within the dystopian world and our own.

社会学教师长期以来一直使用文学小说等非传统文本来展示核心课程概念，提高学生参与度，并在课堂上培养学生的批判性思维。在本文中，我探讨了围绕确定与学生兴趣相关的反乌托邦小说中的核心课程概念而构建的书面作业如何有助于培养更高层次和批判性的社会学思维技能。使用来自中西部一所大型大学媒体社会学高级课程的数据，我详细介绍了以 MT Anderson 的反乌托邦讽刺小说Feed为中心的最终论文作业. 我提出了定性和定量的研究结果，证明学生成功地使用更高层次和批判性的社会学思维来识别、分析和支持关于反乌托邦世界和我们自己的核心课程概念的原始论点。