Discussion

Post a response at least 200–300 words to one of the following prompts: EITHER Prompt A or Prompt B. Use the writing resources, writing samples, and the Discussion Rubric to develop your post.

Prompt A

What distractions in your life pull your focus away from your new student responsibilities? What concerns do you have about managing these distractions? After completing the Support Network Exercise, what did you learn about your support network?

Develop and share your plan to either obtain the support you need or to grow your current support network to help alleviate some of your distractions. In addition, explore the Walden Support Community and share something you learned to help yourself transition to the role of Walden student.

Assignment: Analysis of Imagery: Evaluating an Artifact

Humans are art making creatures. From the evocative hunting depictions of our ancient ancestors to modern dance, humans have reacted to their environment by painting, singing, dancing, writing, and recording the things they encounter. In this week’s assignment, you will be asked to select an artifact to analyze. Make sure that you choose something that really resonates with you, but also make sure that you would not mind sharing it with the members of the class. Understand that this is an academic workspace, and select an image, poem, or song that you would be comfortable sending to the entire class. You are free to select any object that is shareable electronically with your classmates.

Photo credit: Microsoft Corporation. (Producer). MP900309017 [photo of brushes and art supplies]. Retrieved February 6, 2014 from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=art&ex=1%20-%20ai:MP900309017|#ai:MP900309017

Discussion: Managing Distractions

Discussion: Managing Distractions

Evaluating a work of art requires some distance from the piece. You will be asked to analyze the artifact that you select and to describe why the piece was selected. Please choose something that you would not mind others critiquing. For example, if you select a painting that your sister painted, you might not want to have someone write that they didn’t like the subject or style. Make sure that you are comfortable with the piece being viewed and analyzed by other members of the class.

In this Assignment you will identify and analyze an artifact of your choice. The resources used in the Week 2 Notes and Readings are just a few of the options for types of media you might select as meaningful to you.

To prepare for the Assignment:

· Read the Reading Images and Texts document in this week’s Learning Resources.

· Select an artifact, something that is important to you or resonates with you in some way. Make certain you have a way to share the artifact electronically. You can save the website/link to the artifact if you found it online or take a photo or scan the artifact.

· Use the Artifact Analysis Worksheet to evaluate your artifact.

· Use the Academic Writing Expectations (AWE) Checklist to guide your writing for each question on the worksheet. Even when you are filling in a worksheet, you should be considering the AWE guidelines.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.