Essay 1 - Advice

Hello all,

I thought you may appreciate some advice on Essay 1, which I have broken up into several emails beginning with this one.

I hope it helps clarify the question.

Regards

Phil (E-tutor)

I presume you have looked at the Unit Information Sheet which provides some guidelines to approaching Essay 1.

Essentially, we want you to identify 2-3 key factors that have influenced your world view, whether it is community, gender, family upbringing, cultural etc and then discuss how these have influenced your beliefs and attitudes about learning. Choose the most important points/influences. For example, if you were a non-white, indigenous person coming to study in a white, western European school, do you think that different world views would be an issue? What about your parent's attitude towards study? Do you come from a low socioeconomic group (as does my family?).

Now, then we want you to use any materials in your readings to help explain or support your points.

For example, if you are talking about 'world view' do you think it would be important to define what a world view is? Use Samovar and Porter or Hobson etc.

There is useful material in the first chapter of Marshall and Rowland to help get you thinking about yourself as a learner. Have a look at this and use any ideas (referenced) in your essay as long as they back up something you want to say.

Importantly, this essay is NOT TO BECOME A NARRATIVE or story of your life. Read the question carefully and then see what is required, outlining key words.

So in summary, you are looking at factors that have influenced your learning through how they have shaped your world view.

Here is an example of what may constitute a paragraph within your essay.

My grandparents were fairly complacent when it came to the subject of education. This greatly impacted upon me in terms of my own beliefs and attitudes towards education. If my parents never went to university, why should I even bother to attempt going? As Rogers (1967) states, " Some individuals have absorbed so deeply from their parents the concept 'I ought to be good' or 'I have to be good', that it is only with the greatest of inward struggle that they find themselves moving away from this goal" (p. 163).

Here I am using the reading to back up my experience (note too, how I am referencing).

I hope this helps.

Incidently, break your work into small chunks with clear goals and give yourself a reward every time you achieve one goal.

In addition to the various activities in A Learning Companion that deal with essay writing, there are other resources that you may use that will assist in the production of a good quaility essay.

Firstly, Macquarie’s Gateway to Academic Literacy. This can be accessed via the following link and contains excellent materials and tutorials on writing, including examples:

http://www.open.edu.au/gw-aca-lit/

This Gateway is a resource that is freely available to all students registered with Open Universities Australia.

(in addition, there are numerous websites on how to write an essay which may be helpful).

Secondly, once you have completed your essay, be your own assessor and use the criteria on the Essay 1 Assessment sheet in the back of your study guide to see if you have met each requirement.

This is a very useful activity and is highly recommended.

Regards

Phil (E-tutor)