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PDP150: Personal
Development and the Liberal Arts |
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Writing Assignment (due 9/2): This is a good time, at the end of your first week at BC, to pause and record some of your initial impressions as a baseline for the reflective writing you’ll be doing over the course of this year for PDP. If time permits, we will start writing in class on 8/30. Continue and finish your writing over the weekend. Please write about 1-1/2 double-spaced pages about your first week here. The focus of your essay may be your first impressions of the College, of your classes, of dorm life and the cafeteria food, or it may be an expression of your feelings about starting a college career or a description of your academic and career goals—whatever you have to say at the end of the first week. Please be prepared to hand it in at the beginning of class Monday, 9/2, when we meet in the library. Group Research Assignment (Week 2): You will be part of a small group assigned to find out as much as you can about some aspect of BC. Topics: Indians of the Shenandoah Valley (visit Alexander Mack Memorial Library’s Special Collections room on the ground floor), Church of the Brethren; John Kline [visit Reuel B. Pritchett Museum]; Battle of Port Republic and Battle of New Market [use library resources, especially books, and Internet sites]; founding of Bridgewater College (see Bridgewater College, the First Hundred Years, 1880-1980 by Francis F. Wayland); environmental concerns of the Shenandoah River (use library resources, especially periodicals, and Internet sites). At the end of the week, the groups will report on these aspects to the rest of the class. Presentation of information (postponed to 9/9): You will have about 8-9 minutes per group to present what you've learned. Please plan your group's presentation carefully so that we stay within the time limit. Give good information in a well-organized fashion. It would be helpful if you supplied a brief handout for the class; I'll be happy to xerox them. I will include questions about the presentations on the midterm exam, so you will want to pay close attention. Please turn in a list of your sources of information (a bibliography), including sources like museum displays. Writing Assignment (due 9/11): Explore how your new and greater knowledge of BC, based on classroom presentations, has changed how you feel about being a student here. Writing Assignment (due 9/2): This is a good time, at the end of your first week at BC, to pause and record some of your initial impressions as a baseline for the reflective writing you’ll be doing over the course of this year for PDP. If time permits, we will start writing in class on 8/30. Continue and finish your writing over the weekend. Please write about 1-1/2 double-spaced pages about your first week here. The focus of your essay may be your first impressions of the College, of your classes, of dorm life and the cafeteria food, or it may be an expression of your feelings about starting a college career or a description of your academic and career goals—whatever you have to say at the end of the first week. Please be prepared to hand it in at the beginning of class Monday, 9/2, when we meet in the library. Group Research Assignment (Week 2): You will be part of a small group assigned to find out as much as you can about some aspect of BC. Topics: Indians of the Shenandoah Valley (visit Alexander Mack Memorial Library’s Special Collections room on the ground floor), Church of the Brethren; John Kline [visit Reuel B. Pritchett Museum]; Battle of Port Republic and Battle of New Market [use library resources, especially books, and Internet sites]; founding of Bridgewater College (see Bridgewater College, the First Hundred Years, 1880-1980 by Francis F. Wayland); environmental concerns of the Shenandoah River (use library resources, especially periodicals, and Internet sites). At the end of the week, the groups will report on these aspects to the rest of the class. Presentation of information (postponed to 9/9): You will have about 8-9 minutes per group to present what you've learned. Please plan your group's presentation carefully so that we stay within the time limit. Give good information in a well-organized fashion. It would be helpful if you supplied a brief handout for the class; I'll be happy to xerox them. I will include questions about the presentations on the midterm exam, so you will want to pay close attention. Please turn in a list of your sources of information (a bibliography), including sources like museum displays. Writing Assignment (due 9/11): Explore how your new and greater knowledge of BC, based on classroom presentations, has changed how you feel about being a student here. Writing
Assignment (Week 3 #1): As we read and talk about the issues of stress, time
management, and study skills, you should be keeping notes on your own
behaviors and feelings. Have
you found yourself overwhelmed by your workload? Are you beginning to
change the way you study or to develop strategies?
What do you do when you are feeling pressured? and so on.
At the end of the week, review your notes and write an essay
reflecting on what you are learning about yourself as a student. Writing Assignment (Week 3 #2, Reading Response): Do you think that Brooks' portrayal of college students is accurate? You may want to consider the following question as well: What has changed about being a student since 9/11/01, if anything? Writing Assignment (Week 4 #1, Reading Response), due Mon., 9/23: Comment on the issue of alcohol use and abuse on college campuses. Does it violate community values? What is the impact of alcohol use on your sense of the college community? (Post this to the P Drive in your Working folder.) Writing Assignment (Week 4 #2) [write this after you attend the convocation "He Said/ She Said" 9/24]: Do you think you were prepared for these issues when you came to college? How do you plan to address these issues in your own life as a student? Writing Assignment (Week 5), draft due Mon., 9/30: In “The Public Value of the Liberal Arts,” John Agresto takes the position that “The liberal arts are the method by which we hope to discover the truth about the most important matters of human life through reason and reflection,” and argues that a liberal arts education has both “a radical nature” and an “aristocratic and conserving nature.” Yet Paul Trout says students “are not only apathetic and unmotivated but . . . belittle and resist efforts to educate them.” If Trout’s comments are true—and he gives a fair amount of evidence to support his contention—what will the effect be on the liberal arts education? To discuss this question, you will need to explain Agresto’s position, then explain Trout’s position, and finally explain the impact of students’ attitude on the effectiveness of a liberal arts education. Please bring a draft of your essay to class on 9/30. We will discuss drafts, and then you will revise them to be handed in on Fri., 10/4. Midterm Essay: Your out-of-class essay should be a critical reflection on adjustment to college, based on the reading we’ve done and your own feelings. You should make specific references to at least three of the readings (including “Managing Time in a Liberal Education,” “The Organization Kid,” “Sources of Stress Among College Students,” “Campus Crackdown,” “Alcohol and Sexual Assault,” BC Survey on Alcohol Use, BC Eagle, “The Public Value of the Liberal Arts,” “Academic Regalia,” “Student Anti-Intellectualism and the Dumbing Down of the University”). You should also include your own thoughts on the subjects discussed. Please remember the guidelines to critical reflection from Professor Pauley’s example of critical reflection: To engage in critical reflection, you must (1)review your knowledge about the topic/question, (2)relate your knowledge to your experience(s) and observations, and finally, (3)analyze both your knowledge and your experience in order to reveal the concepts that underlie them and to develop a broader and deeper intellectual perspective. Please feel free to use parts of your weekly reflections as you write this essay. Just be sure to integrate them fully into the new essay, adding whatever wording you need to for the purpose of this new reading-based reflection. Your thesis sentence should say something about adjustment to college.
Writing
Assignments (due 11/11): Reflective Writing for Final Portfolio: The reflective essay that you will write to pull together elements of this course, focusing on intellect, ethical and spiritual development, and citizenship and community responsibility, together with some wellness issues we explored at the beginning of the course, will serve you next semester when you compose your first-year portfolio as part of the four-year PDP program. The Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for 2002-2003 emphasize “your understanding of the importance of reflection . . . and its value to you as a tool for understanding and documenting your development as a person.” You are asked to “consider the nature of reflection in terms of its relationship to the four dimensions of the Personal Development Program itself.” For your final portfolio for PDP150 (due in the Final Exam period, Tuesday, 12/10, 8:00-10:00 a.m.), please write on the following topics:
As you write, think about the meaning of each topic (e.g., what does “intellect” mean? How does it differ from “intelligence” or “knowledge”?), how the texts illuminate the topic, and how these topics are aspects of your own life. Intellect: Let’s consider Socrates’ defense of his life as an example of rationality and Einstein’s Dreams as an example of speculation (“If this were the case, then what would follow?”). What place does each kind of thinking play in intellectual life? In your intellectual life, specifically? (If you’d like to reflect on what you’ve learned from Asking the Right Questions and critically analyzing various arguments throughout the semester, feel free to refer to this activity as well.) Draft 11/25. Ethics: Dr. King defends his actions, on an occasion somewhat similar to Socrates’, making an ethical argument. Rubenstein makes an academic argument in The Cunning of History, first asserting that “It is necessary to adopt a mental attitude that excludes all feelings of sympathy or hostility towards both the victims and the perpetrators” (2). Drawing on both of these texts, analyze the motives for people’s ethical decisions and choices. What motivates your own ethical decisions? Has reading these texts helped you think more deeply about how you make such decisions? Draft 12/4. Citizenship/Community
Responsibility: Guterson shows us how a community can come together and/or come apart around crisis points, especially when it is racially and culturally divided. LaDuke shows us contrasting cultural attitudes toward responsibility to the environment. What is your own understanding of “citizenship” and “community”? Has your understanding of these concepts been affected by your reading of these texts? Do you see ways in which your ethnic, racial, and cultural identities have shaped your interpretation of these concepts? Has reflecting on these concepts altered your thinking about your future in any way? (You may want to refer to the presentation by the Peace Corps representatives, as well.) I realize that I am making very arbitrary separations of these topics. You might easily reflect on the ethical decisions made in Snow Falling on Cedars or All My Relations or focus on the intellectual elements of The Cunning of History. If you have a compelling reason to mention a different text than those emphasized in each writing prompt, please feel free to do so. However, I’d like to see specific references to the texts mentioned in each of your essays. Other Final Portfolio Items:
Updated by Dr. Alice Trupe Nov. 6, 2002 |