4 Week 1 Journal Assignment: “The Danger of a Single Story”
Please read the following instructions carefully before writing your journal entry. Your journal entry should be 5-8 sentences. You can write more if you feel you need to. What you write in your journal entries will only be seen by me. For journal assignments, I am not grading you on your writing abilities. I am more interested in your thought process and that you are really trying to expand your mind around the issues you are asked to write about. The journal entries you complete for this course will ask you to examine your own research process in a variety of ways. Doing this type of critical thinking and self examination will make you a more conscientious and skillful researcher. Learning to become a better researcher is not just about knowing where to find things but also how to examine and evaluate what we find and think about how it relates to our learning goals and larger lives.
- Take some time to reflect on Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” and consider how we piece together stories when conducting research. It may help for you to talk about this with someone else you trust (family member, friend, co-worker, or another student, for example) before beginning to write your journal entry.
- Write a 5-8 sentence journal entry that addresses the following questions.
- Why do you think it is important to look at many different information sources and consider multiple perspectives when developing research stories/narratives?
- How do you think you can find multiple perspectives when researching a topic or trying to find an answer to a research question?
- What comes to mind when you think about conducting research as piecing together a story or narrative?
Within your journal entry feel free to use quotes from Adichie’s talk that really spoke to you or inspired you (this is not a requirement). If you do decide to use a quote in your journal entry, please be sure to explain why you selected it and how it helps you express your feelings on this matter.
If you are unclear about what you are being asked to write here or have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me (knight_annie@sac.edu) or post to the Questions discussion board forum.
This assignment is worth 10 points and is due by 11:59pm on Sunday.
