Hum3

Applied Humanities

Research Two Works The Story Behind Assignments 3 Module Three: Examining the Humanities / Page 3.1.1 The Story Behind Assignments On this page: 0 of 1 attempted (0%) Objective: Understand why the exploration document was chosen to help you practice the skills central to learning in the humanities.

We’ve covered a lot of ground during the past two weeks. Some of you have probably examined more art (and done so more closely) in this course so far than during any other two-week period of your life. You’ve also practiced the skills of contextualizing and interpreting these works. Well done! Now it’s time to apply those newly sharpened skills to an area beyond these works of art.

Consider part one of your project for this course: the exploration document. Completing this assignment is essential to passing this course. Earlier, you began working on it by choosing two works and answering some prompts about them. Take some time now to step back and both contextualize and interpret the project. Why would your instructor ask you to complete this assignment?

Some common misconceptions include the following:

Taking a course means doing things, and in this course, this assignment is the thing we’re going to do. There’s no real purpose beyond that. Completing this assignment lets the instructor know you did the reading. It’s mostly a way to hold you accountable, but it’s otherwise pointless. Requiring this assignment is the instructor’s way of punishing students. To earn a PhD, the instructor had to analyze works for years, and now it’s time to haze the next generation. Testing students is how schools stay accredited. This assignment is how SNHU will prove to the government accreditors that students are learning.

Hopefully you can see that these reasons for requiring an assignment are misguided. The real reason behind an assignment like this has more to do with your humanity and the fact that learning itself belongs in the humanities. You learn not by cramming information into your mind, but by going through experiences and then reflecting on them. This assignment has been carefully crafted as an experience that will maximize your learning.

Assignments are a lot like obstacle courses. Both are designed to give people a way to learn how to master the moves required to overcome the obstacles. As you complete the critical elements of this assignment, you will be applying many of the ideas introduced so far in this course. Through this process, you’ll gain insight into how to analyze these ideas, and you’ll become more confident applying them.

This course isn’t the only way to learn these skills, but it is the only course created specifically for students at SNHU to gain these particular insights as efficiently and effectively as possible. All of the readings, videos, and questions in this webtext have been carefully chosen to help you sharpen your skills and proceed confidently with your exploration document.

This assignment is an opportunity to learn, so make the most of it. When you have questions, please contact your instructor. Engaging with your assignments and conversing with your instructor–in other words, going beyond just reading the webtext —will make this course all the more valuable.

Response Board What do you think is the purpose of being asked to build an exploration document?

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