Project Overview and Goals
This
project asks you to look at one of six films as
a teaching tool to help teens understand the concepts in the first chapter
of Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The
films are
- October Sky
- Remember the Titans
- Secondhand Lions
- Batman Begins
- Cinderella Man
- Ella Enchanted
Following the guidelines provided in the memorandum, write an essay of 1500 to 2000 words explaining how one of the six films can be used effectively to teach the concepts Covey presents in his first chapter, "Inside Out." The audience is the Curriculum Development Team.
The primary considerations in grading this essay are
- achieving the purpose of the assignment
- addressing the audience for the report
- the clarity of your explanation of Covey’s ideas
- the clarity of your explanation of how the movie illustrates Covey’s ideas
- the thoroughness of the support you provide (both for Covey and for the movie)
- proper use of quotations and details as part of that support
- depth of thought and analysis
Project Goals
The report on Covey is constructed around a "make-believe" situation: I am your boss, and you are a researcher and writer working for an education consulting firm. Also, as you can see from the due dates, I have broken the report into many steps. I have several reasons for setting up the assignment this way:
- Writing is not just something you do in school; this scenario I've created gives you the opportunity to think about how writing might function in a work setting.
- By creating a situation with a highly specific audience and purpose, you get more practice in shaping your writing to effectively communicate to that audience and purpose.
- Longer, more complex writing assignments can seem overwhelming. By breaking the production of the report into pieces, I'm providing you with a model of the way you can approach other writing projects—like term papers you might be assigned in upper-level courses for your major. Almost any piece of writing can be broken into small pieces, and each piece of writing you produce along the way feeds into the bigger, graded report.