Assignments

First-Half Draft
By now you’ve had the opportunity to gather most (if not all!) of your research, so this is a good time to begin reflecting on your topic and how it affects you on a more personal level. Even if the cultural/historical event you are researching happened long before you were born, it can still influence you in a number of ways. This week, you will reflect on just what this event means to you, personally, and also write your first draft of the first half of your paper. You’ll be looking over your outline to find a logical place to divide it in half (or close to half) and will submit the first half draft as your Unit 6 Project.

Unit Outcome 
•	Evaluate the effects of historical/cultural events
Course Outcomes practiced in this unit: 
LI499-2 Apply appropriate theories and concepts to personal, social, and organizational issues in a formal research project statement demonstrating the achievement of BSLI-3 (Professional Competencies), BSLI-4 (Cultural and Diversity Awareness) and the General Education Literacy Outcomes: Communication (GEL-1) and Critical Thinking (GEL-8)
LI499-3 Assess the underlying ethical standards, values, and concepts in the theory and practice of human behavior demonstrating the achievement of BSLI-4 (Cultural and Diversity Awareness) and the General Education Literacy Outcomes: Social Sciences (GEL-4), Arts and Humanities (GEL-5) and Ethics (GEL-7)
LI499-4 Evaluate the use of contemporary tools and technologies to communicate concepts effectively in diverse social and professional settings demonstrating the achievement of BSLI-3 (Professional Competencies) and the General Education Literacy Outcome: Critical Thinking (GEL-8)
LI499-5 Utilize primary and secondary sources of data and information demonstrating achievement of the General Education Literacy Outcome: Research and Information (GEL-6)

What do you have to do in this unit?
Following are summaries of the activities you need to complete this week. You can find these activities in this order in the left hand navigation. 
•	Reading 
This week, you'll determine how significant cultural/historical events can lead to personal effects on an individual. You'll have the opportunity to reflect on your own personal responses to events and also learn how to put together a draft of the first half of your paper.
•	Discussion 
In this discussion you will reflect on how your research topic affects you personally—either directly or indirectly—and you'll also consider the societal effect of such issues as immigration, genocide, and revolution.
•	Seminar 
For our seminar, we will consider strategies for moving from your outline to your draft and consider important factors such as your thesis, audience, and writing style.
•	Project 
You'll be submitting the first-half draft of your paper.

Reading 1 - Personal Effect 
If you’ve taken a psychology course in your program, you probably have come to understand that all of life’s experiences (from infancy through adulthood) have a great impact on shaping your personality, values, behaviors, motivation, and beliefs. Likewise, historical and cultural events can have an indirect effect on you as you learn about the way they have influenced your family through generations (for example a grandfather who served in the military during war time) or your opportunities through society (the women’s movement making career opportunities more accessible to women, for example). 
In many cases, a significant cultural or historical event may have had negative consequences or have had a negative perception when framed through a historical lens looking back on the event. Think about slavery in the United States or the horrors of Holocaust. As society reflects on the event, it may find itself trying to come to terms with its past, it may make excuses in defending past actions, or it might simply avoid acknowledging the reality at all. Individuals find themselves polarizing with different perspectives based on their subjective experiences and beliefs. What you think about slavery or the Holocaust may be a result of your own background—the values you’ve been raised with, the beliefs of your family, the perspective of history you’ve been taught, even your cultural or religious background will influence your reaction to these kinds of events. You didn’t have to be around and live through these events to have an opinion about them! 

So, as you see, every event usually has some sort of trickledown effect on all of humanity. Your goal is to now put your critical thinking skills to use and explore how your specific topic affects you, personally. You’ll be addressing this in the discussion threads this week. 

Reading 2 - Your First-Half Draft 
You’ve now reached the point where you are ready to start the writing phase of your project! Having had the opportunity to develop an outline and reflect on whether your resources support all that you want to address, you can determine if you still need to continue with a bit more research as you start the first half of your paper. You should be prepared to complete all research by the end of this unit. 
For your first-half draft, you will work from the outline you created in Unit 5. Try to find a logical point to split up your outline into two sections—for example you might include your introduction and your Human Behavior and Expression discussion in your first-half draft and then your ethics and conclusion for your second-half draft. Split the outline so your first draft and second draft aren’t completely disjointed. 
The length of your first-half draft should be approximately 4-5 pages. Include the references that you have so far so that your instructor can give you feedback and help you with APA formatting.

This week’s project requires you to complete your first-half draft. Consequently, we will be discussing strategies for moving from your outline to a draft.
Remember that you should make every effort to complete the assigned readings for the unit before the seminar so you will be prepared to discuss the topics listed on the following page.
Seminar Topics: 
1.	What is your thesis? How will you connect it to the discussion section of your paper?
2.	Who is your audience? How formal or informal should your paper be? 
3.	What aspects of writing style can enhance your paper (organization, descriptiveness, flow, etc.)?
To participate in seminar for this unit, complete one of the two available options:
Option 1: Participate in a synchronous seminar discussion. You are strongly encouraged to participate in the live seminar for this week’s discussion if possible. Many students find this live discussion very helpful because your instructor will clarify the seminar information and your classmates may pose questions that you also have about the material.
Option 2: If you are unable to attend the live seminar, complete the Option 2 written assignment that follows. Your responses to the questions above should be composed in complete sentences and paragraphs and be 100-200 words in length. APA style is required.
You should create your seminar responses in MS Word. Save your answers and submit them to the Unit 6: Seminar Dropbox. The Dropbox is located at the top of this class on the blue toolbar. Be sure to complete all questions to earn your seminar points.
For more information on submitting your work to the Dropbox, click the Dropbox Guide button.

Complete your first-half draft according the instructions in Reading #2
When you have completed your first-half draft, submit it to your instructor using the Dropbox. Click the Dropbox Help button below for more information on submitting your work.