Journal #1
The personal statement is a familiar assignment that is frequently assigned in writing courses.
Students are usually asked to write about the prompt that is given from the prospective graduate
program in which they are seeking. The personal statement assignment is very beneficial because
it allows students to be actively engaged and write coherently in as little words as possible. This
assignment was very easy to write since I have been writing so many personal statements for
other graduate programs. The personal statement assignment fulfills the course goals of
disciplinary literacy and communication skills. It allowed us to demonstrate familiarity with
major types of papers and to effectively communicate in a format for all types of audiences.
Journal #2
While writing the profile of research community essay, I was happy to learn about all the
components that needed to be addressed. These components allowed me to further investigate
into social psychology and learn about the different associations, conferences, funding and
forums. It is very useful to have these elements readily available because they allow both
researchers and visitors to quickly reach the answers to the questions they are looking to
resolve. The profile of research community essay addresses the course goals of discipline literacy
and collaboration. Specifically, this assignment has allowed me to become familiar with the
relative associations and conferences within the discipline of social psychology and it has
allowed me to interact with a professional in the field of social psychology.
Journal #3
When my group members and I met up the very first time this semester to review our annotations
and finish our PowerPoint for the reading facilitation, I found the time we spent together to be
very effective. Before we knew, six hours had passed by and so much work was completed. The
interactions I made with my group members allowed me to reach the course goals of discipline
literacy, communication and collaboration. Specifically, we had to analyze APA style empirical
articles by reading and understanding the content presented. Moreover, when creating the
handout for the reading facilitation, we learned how to tailor communication for a specific
audience, our classmates. The effective collaboration with my group members not only allowed
me to better understand their strengths and weaknesses in writing assignments, but it opened up a
door of friendship and collaboration outside the classroom. Being able to understand and know
your group mates at a personal level significantly speeds up the process of completing
assignments. Thus, this allows us to help one another more effectively with our weaknesses.
Journal #4
I found our reading facilitation in class today to be very successful, especially since all the
students in class were engaged with the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game. Our goal as a
group was to engage the interest of our audience by presenting them information in a different
way than other groups. In turn, our strategy was quite effective, as it allowed a half dozen people
to interact in our game. This reading facilitation allowed me to achieve the course goal of
personal development and career planning. Specifically, since I teach biology at Pitman High
School in Turlock, I was able to acquire different, yet effective strategies to present/teach
information to a different type of audience. Moreover, the course goal of disciplinary literacy
was also achieved because the reading assignment gave me the opportunity to read, understand,
and accurately interpret material in the psychology discipline. Overall, the reading facilitation
assignment was a win-win situation in all aspects.
Journal #5
In class this week, we discussed the 18 page literature review to prepare for our own literature
review. I felt this was an important step to take because it allowed us to see the components of a
literature review and how we can adapt a similar pattern for our paper. Specifically, I feel this
meets the course goal of disciplinary literacy because it allows us to demonstrate familiarity with
the major concepts and empirical findings in the discipline of psychology. I look forward to
writing this paper because it will allow me to strengthen my abilities annotating empirical
articles and being able to condense a dozen or so research articles into a concise review. This
also meets the course goal of collaboration because it allows me to work effectively in my group
and take on both a leadership and team role.