Communication Competence

Learners will become effective communicators in their discipline.

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The artifact that I chose for this program outcome is my midterm essay from my ENG 231 sixteen-week class. The instructions for the assignment was to write a research paper that analyzed a text from our textbook in class and explained a critical theory associated with it. The text I chose was “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley. Throughout this paper, I introduced readers to African-American literature, explained the post-colonial theory and race studies, Wheatley’s significance to African-American literature, and the three main points of the paper. Formulating all subtopics together was a little challenging, so I created two smart goals.  

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My first goal that I set for this artifact was to effectively relate a theory to a poem. To achieve this goal, I chose a poem that I found the most interest in which was “On Being Brought to Africa from America. After reading through each line, I wrote down my own interpretation for each statement. This was a challenge for me. Analyzing and interpreting poems in general can be a challenge, especially if you don’t understand the author and the events contributing to the writing of the poem. For better understanding, I researched the purpose of the poem and defined the meaning of some vocabulary words. Once my research was complete, I was able to gain a better understanding of some things that Wheatley may have meant while she wrote the poem. Next, I identified the critical theory that explained the poem. The theory used was the post-colonial theory and race-studies. Within this theory, I chose three ideas to examine the poem and included supporting evidence. This bring me to my second goal.

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My second smart goal was to organize appropriate ideas for a developed essay. The ideas chosen from the critical theory was: the idea of Good versus Evil, how “embodying hegemonic beliefs and values” invent identities for the Other created by those in power, and the “lost African-American self-presentation. Of these ideas, I explained and demonstrated phrases from the poem to support the claims of the idea. By using phrases for each idea, I was able to create appropriate ideas and organize them based on the structure of my paper and this is how I achieved my goals.

 

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Cultural Competence

Learners will recognize and adapt to various cultures, ideas, and practices within their discipline.

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Culture is a very important part of our society and shapes our world. It is embraced through unique customs, art, generational stories, and music. For my cultural competence skill, I chose an artifact titled, Musicology from my SOC 210 class. The paper described how pop and hip-hop music has positively contributed to mainly African-American culture and social movements. Also, it focuses on a popular song by Michael Jackson called, “We Are the World.” Most importantly, it explains the origins and authors of the song, as well as the purpose and social theory it connects to.

 

For this paper, I set two smart goals. My first smart goal is to obtain a better understanding of music’s effect on society and social movements. Before I began my paper, I chose the topic of music and culture. Keeping in mind the millions of songs about culture, I narrowed down my topic to music that affected African-American culture and social movements. I chose this culture because this is the culture I identify with and it relates to the current events of our society today. As a final result, I chose the song called “We Are the World” by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones because it addresses racism among the African-American culture and the way to reverse it. This song impacted many individuals and other movements outside the African-American movements. Through this song, my eyes were widen as to how much music effects society.

 

My second smart goal is to understand a social theory related to culture and society. In my musicology paper, I had to connect my ideas to a social theory. The social theory I used was Karl Marx’s conflict theory, also known as, Marxism. His theory describes how conflicts occur when resources, status, and power are controlled by the superior in society. Obviously, there is major conflict between the inferior African-Americans and the superior Caucasians/Whites.

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Creative Problem Solving

Learners will apply appropriate techniques to solving problems within their discipline.

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The artifact that I am using for this core skill is my English 112 Discipline Specific Proposal Paper. It was written during an eight week online class. The paper describes the effectiveness of a specific treatment in children with ADHD called the restricted elimination diet. The restricted elimination diet analyzes different foods consumed in children that could possibly increase the symptoms of ADHD. This artifact is titled “The Effectiveness of the Restricted Elimination Diet on Children with ADHD.” The assignment consisted of choosing a specific topic related to my disciple of social work and write a research paper including a literature review.

 

For the written communication core skill, I have set two goals. My first goal was to effectively organize a research paper by using an outline. Before creating an outline, I had to define my focus. Starting out, I wrote an essay about the Restricted Elimination Diet and medications that are used as treatments. Due to the broadness of the topic, I narrowed the topic to only the Restricted Elimination Diet.

Once my topic was narrowed down completely, my focus turned to how to organize the paper. I decided the placement of my topics should be based on what the audience needed to know first. When reading an article or paper, readers want to know what it’s about before reading it, so I decided to describe the diet in the introduction. I also included my thesis statement. Next, I worked on the importance of the study section. By far, this seemed to be one of the easier sections because I worked with children with ADHD at the time and witnessed the issues they had with the illness.

 

After reading over the draft, I realized that I had several sentences and paragraphs out of place so I reordered them in a logical way. After each section was filled in, I connected and organized the paragraphs according to what was discussed and added transition words where they were needed.

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My second goal was to use a thesis statement to explain my case. My first thesis statement was “Within my paper, I will argue that non-pharmacologic treatments are more effective at managing and treating ADHD compared to medication.” This statement is loaded with a lot of details and not as specific as it needs to be. Since I narrowed my topic to a more specific concept, my thesis statement had to be revised. The first step was to ask myself “What is your paper really about?” After answering, I wrote down key points that could summarize the paper. My finishing thesis statement was “Within my paper, research will show that the restricted elimination diet is an effective and harmless method of treatment for managing and treating ADHD in children.” This statement compared to my original statement shows how I narrowed the topic, added more details about the paper, and more concise. After changing my thesis, I proposed an argument for future resolutions. These resolutions explained what is ahead for the future of the elimination diet and if it would be an effective treatment for children and possibly adults.

 

This assignment was a challenge for me. On many occasions, I procrastinated and didn’t put a lot of effort into the paper, which was a major problem for me. Also, I took English 111 at another institution and my writing skills were dull and undeveloped. This assignment help me sharpen those skills and put them to use, and ultimately, this is why the assignment stood out to me. Moving forward, I plan to use these writing skills in my profession of Social Work.

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Overall, I not only learned the importance of organization and the process of choosing a thesis statement, but to pull out the main and most significant details that matter in the literature review.

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Information and Media Literacy

Learners will demonstrate the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand.

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The artifact that I chose for this skill is from my ENG 112 class. The instructions for this assignment was to research four creditable and reliable sources and summarize them. This assignment is known as an Annotated Bibliography. The sources related to our chosen topic for a five to seven page research proposal paper. My topic involved ADHD in children and methods of treatment. I chose this topic because at the time, I worked with children who had ADHD and wanted to develop a deep understanding of ways to treat it. Within my summaries, I discussed different case studies that evaluated different age ranges of children with ADHD, the effects of one particular treatment called the restricted elimination diet, and the future of ADHD treatments.

 

While working on this assignment, I created two smart goals for myself. The first smart goal is how to properly research sources for a specific topic. Before I began my research for sources, I had to choose a topic and then narrow it. My topic, once narrowed, was ADHD in children. Next, I had to discover with database to use for researching. Since I am a student at SPCC, I have access to our library database, which located on the school library website. It is a very useful source with tons of credible sources. After I located this database, I began to research my topic. Because this my is a popular topic, I found several articles about it. At first, I began to choose and read through several articles, but I realized I wasn’t accomplishing anything. I turned my focus to specific case studies that compared the effectiveness of the  restricted elimination diet to other treatments for ADHD in children. Changing my focus helped me find better sources for my topic.

 

My second smart goal is to demonstrate how to synthesize information from my sources and make them into my own words. When writing any research paper, it is important to not only find useful sources, but to use the sources in the correct way. The way I used my sources was by pinpointing the main ideas throughout the sources and wrote them out. Once they were written, I described in my own words what those main ideas meant to me. From there, I combined all the main concepts in my own words into a summary. This is how I created a well-written annotate bibliography.

 

Before this assignment, I struggled with finding useful sources and formulating them. Back at my previous institution, I was not taught how to effectively find sources that would help me create paper nor how to summarize them so readers could identify my main ideas and own words. Today, I am better at finding sources for my research papers and written assignments, but there is still room for improvement.

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Understanding the Arts and the Human Experience

Learners will demonstrate an understanding of arts and humanities in historical and cultural contexts.

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The artifact that I chose for this program outcome is “The Black Count Book Review” from my HIS 131 class. The purpose of the assignment was to choose a book that could be critically examined that related to American History. In the review, I provided an overview of the book, the author’s credentials, bibliographic information, and an analysis of the authors work.

 

The two smart goals I set for this paper are to display my ability to see from the authors point of view and to understand human relationships better. To achieve my first goal, I choose a book related to America History and very detailed. The book I chose was called, "The Black Count." From an authors perspective, it is important to be credible, reliable, relatable, and informative of the topic being introduced. Also, to keep them interested and engaged. Thinking from that perspective, I analyzed the authors work as if I was in his shoes.

 

My second goal is to understand human relationships better. This is what the "The Black Count" is all about. The story describes the life and career of a man named Thomas-Alexandre Dumas through the eyes of his son, Alexandre Dumas. His views of his father inspired him to write other books. Thinking about his relationship with his father, provides an example of how a relationship between a father and son should be. 

 

Through this story, I have learned to broaden my horizons when reading different material. Also, I have been inspired to put my inspiration given to me from others into a story one day.

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Social Scientific Literacy

 

Learners will demonstrate an understanding of social science methodologies in order to explain the consequences of human action.

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The artifact that I chose for this program outcome is my Mass Movement Presentation video from my HUM 115 class. The purpose of the assignment was to choose a Mass Movement that could analyze and interpret your understanding of it based on a book by Eric Hoffer, The True Believer. Also, it included synthesizing scholarly research and applying critical thinking skills. The movement that I chose is the Million Man March in which I discovered is a mass movement according to Eric Hoffer’s perspective, the definition of a fanatical leader from The True Believer, and the significance of the movement.

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For this artifact, I set two smart goals. My first smart goal was to effectively show the characteristics of a mass movement based on Eric Hoffer’s book, The True Believer. Within the book, Hoffer describes various characteristics of different types of mass movements and explained the individuals that are apart of those movements. For example, he describes that those who are frustrated with things in their life are willing to give up their life to fight for a cause. This is one of the ideas that I incorporated in my presentation. As I began my process, I read through and wrote down key statements that stood out to me. Of those statements, I chose which statements related to my specific movement. Afterwards, I created topics for my slides that revolved around Hoffer’s ideas to effectively use the material and included the information that I discovered through scholarly and credible sources. This brings me to my second goal.

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My second smart goal was to research scholarly and credible sources that give a substantial amount of information concerning my mass movement. When researching for information for papers or presentations, it is important to use credible sources. Before I began my research, I chose my topic of the Million Man March. With this topic, I looked for websites and database that would provide me with scholarly knowledge. The main website that I used was my school online library database. From this database, I found several sources that related to my topic. Next, I chose six sources that expanded on the topic of the movement, the leader (s), members, and the significance. Through this process, I was able to achieve both of my smart goals.

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