Reflection Journal

Description

Worth 20% of your final grade (divided across 11 reflections).

Personal opinions and responses are an important part of ‘learning’ in this course. The online environment does not allow for the kind of informal discussion that takes place in a classroom in the midst of a lecture or learning exercise. Nevertheless, as you work through the topics in each module, I would like you to reflect on and write about some of the issues raised in the content. This will help to achieve the learning outcomes of the course, especially to “identify and evaluate your own ideas and values about peace and nonviolence.”

Here is how it works:

At some point in each module, you will see the activity Reflection Question for Journal. A blue feather will flag this for you.
You will see one or more questions that prompt you to think about some of the ideas presented in the course content. In each module, I will indicate whether you should respond to all of the questions or just one of them.
Open a Word Document that you call your Journal and keep adding to it each week.
Your weekly response should be about 200 words or less (a little more or less is okay). You don’t need to draw on external sources, but rather develop your own personal opinion based on course material.
I won’t grade your Reflection Journal each week, but will provide feedback and a grade after Modules 3, 6, 9, and 11. There will be a Dropbox for you to submit your Reflection Journal in stages; it will be due by the date listed in your Course Schedule.
You should keep submitting the same document on the 4 due dates (not every week), so that both you and the instructor can see the accumulation of reflections and feedback, as a way of building your skill on this assignment. For example, when you submit your first 3 Reflections at the end of Week 3, I will offer feedback in the document and upload it back to you; you will then continue using that document for your next 3 Reflections, which you will submit at the end of Week 6, and so on.

Response Rubric

Here is a small rubric for grading your Reflection Journal responses. Your response:

	Focus	Completion	Research	Originality	Clarity, Spelling, and Grammar
80-100%	speaks directly to the question(s)	addresses all aspects of the question(s)	shows evidence of having done the readings and module content that are necessary to speak to the question(s)	presents your own opinions	is clearly written and without typos or significant grammatical errors
65-79%	speaks more or less to the question(s)	addresses at least a portion of the question(s)	shows some evidence of having done the readings and module content that are necessary to speak to the question(s)	may be less clear about your opinions	has some typos, grammatical errors, and may lack clarity
> 65%	falls significantly short on most criteria

Examples

Here are examples of good and not-so-good Reflection responses, using these questions from Module 1:

Based on the above definitions, have you ever participated in a peace movement?
How would you describe that experience? What were its characteristics as outlined above?

A good Reflection response:

“In the 1980s, I participated in several marches to oppose the U.S. testing of the cruise missile in northern Canada. Although the missiles did not have nuclear warheads, many of us felt that such testing only escalated the arms race and increased the possibility of nuclear war. There were many mass marches happening around the world at the time. At the time, there was a lot of fear about the obliteration of the planet and humankind, resulting from a nuclear attack or even a testing accident. I found this was one thing I could do to express my opposition to nuclear weapons, and also to the Cold War politics between the United States and the Soviet Union.

There were many different groups on the march such as church groups, feminists, and communist party members, so there wasn’t just one ideology that supported the anti-nuclear cause. Many people were carrying placards with the familiar ‘nuclear disarmament’ peace sign; before I completed this module, I didn’t know that the symbol originated with the anti-nuclear movement. I think the aims and methods of this movement were very clear – none of us wanted to die in a nuclear war!”

A less-than-good Reflection response:

“I was on a peace march a while ago, against nuclear weapons. We were all really afaid of them. It was really cool to be part of a big crowd, though I remember it was super hot and I got a bad sunburn. I signed a petition too.”

Reflection Questions

There are 11 reflection questions, submitted in 4 sections:

Reflection Journal Submission 1

Module 1b Introduction to Peace Movements
Module 2c Debates and Controversies
Module 3b Ancient Greece

(Submit Modules 1-3 in Week 3)

Reflection Journal Submission 2

Module 4b Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
Module 5b Case Studies
Module 6e Tactics and Methods

(Submit Modules 1-6 in Week 6)

Reflection Journal Submission 3

Module 7b Martin Luther King Jr.
Module 8b Second World War
Module 9a Introduction

(Submit Modules 1-9 in Week 9)

Reflection Journal Submission 4

Module 10d Madres de la Plaza de Mayo – Mothers of the Disappeared
Module 11c The Peace Movement Response

(Submit Modules 1-11 in Week 11)

How To Submit Your Assignment

Please note that the following instructions pertain to this specific assignment. Instructions for other assignments may differ.

Your assignment must be submitted online to the respective Reflection Journal Submission Dropbox by the deadline specified in the Course Schedule. Dropboxes can be accessed from the Course Home page by clicking Submit and then Dropboxes on the course navigation bar.

Your assignment must be submitted in a Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) file.

Please refer to the Submitting to a LEARN Dropbox page for general guidelines, and how to submit to a dropbox.