Author Archives: Academic Wizard

Cultural Foundation

For this Performance Task Assessment, you will develop the script for a TEDx Talk titled “What Does Culture Look Like in Real Life?” Your script will define culture, share the complexity of culture through a diversity iceberg and a mini cultural autobiography, and discuss the complexities of cultural identities.

Professional Skills: Written Communication, Information Literacy, Interpreting Data & Quantitative Fluency, and Engaging Multiple Social and Cultural Perspectives are assessed in this Competency.

Your response to this Assessment should:

• Reflect the criteria provided in the Rubric.
• Adhere to the required assignment length.

Submission Length: A 4.5 to 6.5-page script that includes a 1-page personal diversity iceberg graphic.

This Assessment requires submission of one (1) document that includes your TEDx script. Save this file as IL4001_Firstinitial_Lastname (for example, IL4001_J_Smith).

You may submit a draft of your assignment to the Turnitin Draft Check area to check for authenticity. When you are ready to upload your completed Assessment, use the Assessment tab on the top navigation menu.

Instructions

Before submitting your Assessment, carefully review the rubric. This is the same rubric the assessor will use to evaluate your submission, and it provides detailed criteria describing how to achieve or master the Competency. Many students find that understanding the requirements of the Assessment and the rubric criteria help them direct their focus and use their time most productively.

Assessment: TEDx Talk: What Does Culture Look Like in Real Life?

For this Performance Task Assessment, you have been asked to present a TEDx Talk in your local community on the topic “What Does Culture Look Like in Real Life?” You’re excited about this possibility because, as an expert in intercultural communication, you believe strongly that to be an effective intercultural communicator, you need to understand culture by examining your own personal culture and cultural identity. You have suggested that your presentation will define culture, share the complexity of culture through diversity icebergs and a mini cultural autobiography, and discuss the complexities of cultural identities.

The people at TEDx are thrilled with your ideas! Here are the guidelines they have sent back for your script:

Part 1 What is Culture?

• Drawing on definitions of culture from quality resources, share your definition of culture as a complex concept. (1/2 page)
• Analyze your personal culture by responding to the following:
  • Explain what a diversity iceberg is and how diversity icebergs relate to personal cultures (1–2 pages)
  • Create a personal example of a diversity iceberg, and fill in both “above water” and “below water” dimensions with your own cultural characteristics as follows:
    • 5 highly visible characteristics of your personal culture that people would notice very quickly if you were spending time with them.
    • 10 less visible or not visible characteristics of your personal culture people wouldn’t immediately notice.
    • Note: Please scan and submit your diversity iceberg with your script so that it becomes part of your TEDx presentation.
  • Based on the characteristics you included in your diversity iceberg, write a mini cultural autobiography explaining who you are in terms of the complexity of your personal culture. (1 page)

Part 2: Who Am I? What is my Cultural Identity?

• Based on results from completing the Cultural and Personal Identity Self-Assessment (PDF) analyze and share your cultural identity i.e. who you are as a cultural being whose life has been impacted by a wide variety of influences. In the script for your presentation include the following: (2–3 pages),
  • Summarize your responses to Exercise #1 with regard to specific demographic historical and ethnic/cultural background information.,
  • Analyze your worldview as represented by your responses to Exercise #2.,
  • Analyze your multiple identities related to various aspects of culture—gender age religion ethnicity socioeconomic status profession national origin educational level etc.—based on your responses to Exercise #3.,
  • Explain what you learned about your cultural identity as grounded in your racial ethnic and socioeconomic background and your memories of your relationships to various groups based on your responses to Exercise #4.,
  • Analyze your current cultural identity based on what you learned about yourself your culture and how you have grown from your responses to Exercises #5 and #6.

Research Proposal

This assignment is something that you will be able to draw upon moving forward in the program. A research proposal is a very common start to a research project as it helps to frame the importance of the project itself and show the knowledge gaps that currently exist in the literature. Typically after a solid research proposal is written, the paper unfolds from there as you have a clear framework to follow moving forward.

This assignment requires you to write a proposal that states your research question and your research strategy for addressing it. As mentioned throughout your previous assignments you may draw upon each one to help you build your proposal.

Research Proposal:

The research proposal must be between 8-10 pages in length not including the title page or references.

Your title page should include the working title of your research project, your name, date, and course title. You should also have an abstract on your title page.

Your proposal should have the following sections: Research Proposal

Introduction: The introduction is where you identify your specific research question and where you set the general context for the study. In this section, you need to include:

• a statement of the problem or general research question and context leading to a clear statement of the specific research question;
• background and contextual material justifying why this case or topic should be studied; and
• a purpose statement.

Literature Review: This short preliminary literature review section reviews the literature important to your specific research question. The literature review focuses on discussing how other researchers have addressed the same or similar research questions. It introduces the study and places it in a larger context that includes a discussion of why it is important to study this case. It provides the current state of accumulated knowledge as it relates to your specific research question. In this section, you should:

• Summarize the general state of the literature (cumulative knowledge base) on the specific research question. For example if you discuss other studies that have been conducted you would summarize the researcher’s findings how those findings were obtained and conduct an evaluation of biases in the findings.,
• This section should provide a broad overview of the primary arguments related to the topic and organizes the general views on the main aspects of the topic by theme which could be the prevailing arguments or schools of thought or commonly held beliefs that your particular topic may challenge.,
• Include a short conclusion and transition to the next section.,

In your literature review, you should also discuss the theoretical framework to be used in the study. You should ensure you cover the following in your discussion:

• a summary of the theory or model to be used in the study including a diagram of the model if appropriate;
• comment on the kinds of questions this theory has been used to answer in the past and why it is appropriate to use in this proposed study,
• To really drive this home you want to end your literature review with a discussion of the current knowledge gaps. This is an opportunity to once again promote the importance of your own research., How will your research fit within this larger body of knowledge? What are you doing differently? What gaps will your research fill?,
• For some additional information on how to organize your theoretical framework into your paper, check out this USC Library guide on Theoretical Frameworks.

From here you would then include a transition into your methodology section.

NOTE: Literature reviews can be a bit tricky to write. Think back to how you wrote your short theory lit review in week 4. Chances are you already started to write in a style similar to what one does when completing a literature review. Check out this video (the same one you were guided to in week 4) to help you further prepare to write this section of your proposal. This will not be the last time that you are asked to write a literature review in your academic career so it is important to master this skill. Research Proposal

Research Design and Methods: Describe how you will answer your research question or test the hypothesis. This section describes your overall research design and how you plan to collect, synthesize, and interpret your data. It should include:

• identification and operationalization (measurement) of variables;
• a sampling plan (i.e., study population and sampling procedures, if appropriate);
• justification of case studies used;
• data collection/sources (secondary literature, archives, interviews, surveys, etc.);
• a summary of analysis procedures (pattern-matching, etc.); and
• the limitations of the study and bias discussion.

Conclusion: Reemphasizes the importance of your study and ties the proposal together.

Reference List: As with all academic papers you need to reference the works that you have cited (direct quotes or paraphrases) in the text of your document and incorporate a complete reference list or bibliography at the end. This list needs to be in the style used within your field. APA= Criminal Justice, Turabian for all others in this course.

Remember that the references you use demonstrate your knowledge of the topic area. This research proposal is meant to convince your professor that you not only have identified a worthy question in need of investigation but that you are also capable of carrying out the research involved to successfully answer that question. At the very least you should have referenced 12-15 peer-reviewed sources in this proposal.

Since multiple writing styles are in use within this course, on your title page, please note which style you are using within your assignment. This will help me cater my comments to the style you are using. The style you use needs to be the one that is used within your program of study.

Format:

The standard academic format will suffice: one-inch borders on all four sides, double-spaced, with times new roman 12-point font.

The research paper must be submitted as a Word Document Attachment in the Assignments section of the classroom by Sunday, 11:55 pm EST at the end of week 8.  Entitled (NameFINALW8.doc) and upload in the Assignments sections.

Good luck!!