Important Social Skills Assignment.

Important Social Skills Assignment.

Important Social Skills Assignment.

Goal. Professionals working in the fields of medicine, education, or psychology have to develop their communication and writing skills. This assignment will help you to self-examine and develop some important social skills. This assignment should also help you to apply your knowledge to some real-life situations.

Description. Many people come to the United States trying to escape material hardship in their home countries. When they arrive to the United States, many of them dream to have all the opportunities that they did not have in their home countries: freedom, a chance to work, have a home, to receive high-quality education or medical care. Some people, especially people of age, are reluctant to move but want to re-unite with their families. Some move because of their marriage or divorce. Some are brought here by their parents. In other words, people have different reasons for immigration. However to all of them, one issue is common: they have to adjust to a new country and a new cultural environment.

What to do: Find a person born outside the United States who have lived in this country for several years. Ask this person to give you an interview about his or her experiences in the United States. Ask the questions displayed below on this page. (Fell free to ask other questions). Please tell this person that you will not mention his (or her) name in your report. It should take from 10 to 15 minutes for a respondent to answer the questions.

You should ask these questions:

How old were you when you move to the United Sates? Why did you move?
Did you have any friends of family members here when you moved to America?
What did you do (profession, education) your home country before you came to the United States?
Do you think you like your life in the United Sates? (“I like it very much” or “I like it more than I dislike it” or “ I dislike it more than I like it” or “I very much dislike it”). Explain why.
What were the main differences between your life here in America and your life back in your home country?
Do you feel happy here or do you believe you would be happier if you lived now in your home country?
What would you do differently in your life here in America if you had a chance?
Imagine you talk to a 17 year-old person who wants to immigrate to America. What advice would you give to this person? Give this person three best, from your view, suggestions about what she or he has to do to be successful in the United States.

Follow these steps. The paper is graded according to these specific criteria:

After you conduct the interview, describe the answers or include a transcript of the answers on a separate sheet of paper. (2 points). Then conduct a psychological analysis of the interview. In the analysis, mention the following:
Describe the context of the interview, the circumstances, if other people were present, the person’s body language, was this person relaxed or not, did he/she feel uncomfortable, etc. (5 point). 300 words min.
Describe if you felt that the person was open up to you or whether he/she was shy, reluctant to speak in detail, did not want to talk much about personal problems, etc. and why (5 point). 300 words min.
Include you personal views on psychological difficulties caused by immigration. For example, who adjust easier, young children, teenagers, adults, or senior people? Who adjust better, men or women? How education affects psychological adjustment Does ethnicity or religious affiliation (such as being Muslim, Christian, etc.) affect a person’s adjustment in the United States? In which way? (10 points). 300 words min.
Describe what you personally learned from the interview (5 points). 300 words min.Overall paper value: 25 points. Suggested length: 2,000 words.

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.