Portrait of Myself as a Learner

2-3 (single-spaced) pages

Overview

This paper provides an opportunity for you to reflect on the readings in the course up to this point and apply them to your own life and college career. As such the paper will have two objectives. First, you will define what it means to be an educated person. Select from the class readings and discussions a minimum of four characteristics of an educated person. These should be characteristics you believe are essential and would like to consider as goals for your college career. Consider such things as the purposes of the liberal arts, learning as power, and intrinsic motivation vs. external motivation (grades). You will need to cite a minimum of five of your course readings/film resources. The purpose of the first section of the paper is to create a foundation for the second section.

In the second part of the paper you will reflect on your own identity and goals as a learner. Use the list of questions below to stimulate your thinking. The paper is NOT to be a sequence of answers to these questions; the questions are intended only to direct your thinking about the ideas you might want to cover in the paper. Organize your reflection around the characteristics of an educated person. Describe the ideal you four years from now, that educated person you hope to be. Discuss how you plan to nurture the characteristics you have identified in order to attain this ideal.

Helpful questions for reflection before writing

1. Why did you come to college? What did you hope to gain from the experience? Is it turning out to be what you expected?
2. What are the goals of a liberal arts education? Remember that our readings offer a range of answers to this question, not a single answer. Get a grasp on the range of options, and include specific answers from at least three different primary sources (which may be but need not be our class readings ).
3. Which, if any, of the goals suggested by class materials are consistent with your own goals?
4. What motivates you to learn, and what diminishes or destroys your desire to learn?
5. What is the role of other people in your education? To what extent are you responsible for you own education?
6. How do you plan to achieve your learning goals? Is there anything that you need to change about yourself or your environment in order to improve your chances of reaching your goals?