Welcome to Week Nine! You are almost done :-)

Plan on spending a lot of time thinking, reading, writing, and revising this week. At the end of the week the Final Reflective essay and an optional revision essay are due. Plan your time accordingly -- no late work will be accepted this week, as I need to calculate and post final grades.

Learning Outcomes for Week Nine

Read and become familiar with learning theory related to the course curriculum
Connect learning theory to your learning process and thinking/writing evolution
Write an essay that reflects on the critical thinking and college-level writing skills you wrote this semester
*Optional: Revise one essay or major assignment for a new grade
Breathe... you are done!

Week Nine: Final Reflective Essay

As the short semester comes to a close, it is important to reflect on the evolution of your thinking and writing skills as a way to solidify your learning before moving forward and applying these skills within applicable academic, professional, and personal experiences.

Read:

"Democracy and Education" by John Dewey: Almost 100 years old, John Dewey's ideas about the role language plays in society continue to be powerful and pertinent. As you read this essay, think about how you view of language and communication have changed this semester.

"Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Chapter Two" by Paulo Freire: In this chapter, Paulo Friere provides an overview of two types of teaching/learning -- the "banking method" of education and "problem-posing" education. He is a proponent of the latter, but it will take reading the entire essay to fully understand his position. As you read this essay, think about this class may have been designed with "problem-posing" techniques for teaching and learning.

"Theory of Intellectual and Ethical Development" by William Perry: The assignments for this class have been designed with William Perry's theory in mind. You began by locating your subject position in relation to a specific social issue through the "Origins" essay, then analyzed a specific cultural influence through the "Cultural Analysis" essay, and lastly, you finished the semester by researching a social issue that is important to you -- providing you with the knowledge to be informed and act on the issue. Each assignment has used previous skills and evolved them by adding new elements of college-level writing and critical thinking.

Writing Prompt: After reading the associated texts and reflecting on your learning this semester, write an essay that responds to the prompt.

Optional: You may revise one essay or major assignemnt for a new grade.

Congrats!! You have finished the course :-)