Response & Reflection (journaling)

• What does this mean to me personally?
• Where do these ideas fit in my reality?

The purpose of this assignment is for you to:

• Reflect on the meaning and importance of the course material from your personal perspective
• Apply the ideas to your own life
• Reflect on the potential impact of the learning on your own present or future behavior, attitudes and actions
• Engage in self-reflection related to the learning process
• Apply your learning through use of real-life examples
• Develop new ways of explaining ideas
• Enhance or expand on ideas
• Reflect on how the learning has affected you on a personal and/or professional level
• Demonstrate appreciation for alternative perspectives, finding some value in it, even if you do not personally agree with it entirely

Specific Question Prompts:

• What did you know and/or think and how did you feel about this religion when you entered this course?

• What would you say are the three most interesting, important, and/or valuable things you learned here about this religion? Why did you find them interesting/important/valuable?

• In what ways has your learning here changed your understanding and/or perspective regarding this religion? (in contrast to your response to the first question, above)

• What lessons, values or insights can you take from this religion to inform your own life?

Suggestions to make sure you write the best personal response you can:

• Scan through what you have written to see where you have first person pronouns: I, me, my... If there are more than a few lines in a row that do not indicate such terms, then you have likely slipped too much into descriptive fact and away from personal perspective on the facts. 
• Also look for terms like "because" that explain why you think or feel as you do about the facts. When you find yourself writing about what you find interesting, important or valuable, see if you have gone on to answer the question of why you find it so. Avoid trending off in the other direction to describe what it is.
• To get more depth of thought to your "because" statement, think about how the ideas, beliefs, values and practices of the religion might relate to your own life, your own worldview or religion, and/or those you observe in the world around you - imagine what it would be like to be following these ideas and values and how your life or that of our society might be different if we all lived this way.

What this assignment is not to be:

• a summary of the facts regarding the religion in question (rather than more personal in nature)
• an overly negative critique of the religion in question (discussing what is wrong with it)
• a personal testimony or something you could have written without benefit of your learning in this course - based entirely on prior knowledge and experience
  • What if your study was on your own religion? I expect that there should be something new you have learned here - perhaps something about the history of your religion, or about other forms (denominations) of it, or simply having gained new insight or perspective on things you did already know. This new learning is what you should focus on.

A minimum of the above would be within reason but avoid going overboard on these faults. See rubric below for information on penalties for these infractions.

Grading Rubric:

My evaluation of the quality of these papers is holistic in nature, resulting in an A or a B for overall content. If some aspects of the paper fall in the A range for quality and other aspects of the paper fall in the B range, whichever quality grade has more standards met, that will be the grade assessed or a borderline grade will be given