RTM 404 Portfolio Project
General Directions:
The Portfolio is intended to encourage your reflection on course topics in personally meaningful ways. Your responses should be within the page length guidelines provided for each assignment and no longer than that. I encourage you to compose outlines and rough drafts prior to writing up the final entries to gauge the length of your project.
Your responses should be written in Word files, which are compatible with the Blackboard system. Be sure to save electronic files on your computer and a flash drive so as not to lose your work. Responses should be double-spaced using 12-point font and 1 inch margins. For full credit you must follow the directions in terms of format, length and content. You are encouraged to include photographs or other creative elements.
The title page should include your name and title of the course. Beyond that, the design of the cover page (graphics or photos) is up to you. If you do include graphics within the project those materials will not count as space toward your writing page limits. The overall design of your Portfolio should be attractive and professional looking.
Include a table of contents and remember to number the pages. A sample table of contents is provided at the end of this document.
Submit your Portfolios online by the deadlines using the directions provided on Blackboard for the Turnitin system. Note that this is a plagiarism detection system. Do not directly copy the work from your sources or copy the work of a previous student.
Projects must be received (you will receive a time stamp from the Blackboard system) by the deadline. Late assignments will lose 20% of total points.Plan ahead and submit your materials on time.
If you have trouble submitting your work, you must immediately contact me (before the deadline); otherwise your project is considered late. If you follow directions there will be no problem with your submission of the project. Thousands of my students have done it.
For each section of the Portfolio, copy the headings followed by your responses for a well-organized project. For example, for Section #1 the main heading is Personal Meanings of Travel and the sub-headings are: Favorite Travel Experiences, Qualities That Made These Your Favorite, and Themes Determining the Importance of Travel. (These are the same as the headings you will find in the sample Table of Contents.)
I have been using Portfolios for many years now and have found that students who put forth an earnest effort and answer the questions fully ALWAYS do well. If you follow the directions and put forth an honest effort you have nothing to worry about. Also, for information on evaluation refer to the grading rubric under the menu item “Portfolio.”
Section #1: Personal Meanings of Travel
As you will see, the Portfolio assignments are designed to provide a personal connection to the course materials. There are no right or wrong answers. What will ultimately be valuable to you is the degree to which you think about the material and provide complete and well-thought-out answers. The first assignment is to analyze the degree of importance of travel in each of our individual lives. Complete the following:
Favorite Travel Experiences
1. Think deliberately about what you consider to be your five most meaningful travel experiences. These could be locally (Balboa Park, for example), national, or international. Your choices can be from when you were very young (say a trip with your parents) or something you did this summer. The travel you choose can be something you did alone or with others. That is, just about anything that involves travel could be considered. At this point your task is to determine the five most important travel experiences of your life. Although this is the only exception, I will allow simple bullet points for your listing of the your top five travel experiences. Otherwise, all other responses for your Portfolio entries should be in full sentences.
Qualities That Made These Your Favorites
2. Describe the qualities that made these travel experiences important and meaningful to you. In this instance take each of the individual travel experiences, as listed above, and provide a detailed accounting of what, exactly, made these experiences special to you.
Themes Determining the Importance of Travel
3. Finally, what are the patterns or themes or commonalities among those qualities you listed above. In other words, as you look at the qualities that make certain travel experiences your favorites, what are the themes that really focus on the importance of travel to you in your life. At this point I don’t want to give you any more information that may influence you to come up with certain pre-determined answers. However, you will find as the course progresses that we will address several general qualities that attract people to travel. Keep in mind, of course that these will differ according to the individual.
Length: Two to three pages grand total for the entirety of Section #1
Recommended Date of Completion: The week it is assigned
Points: 10
Note: Read the general directions for the Portfolio (on the first page) carefully to assure the best grade possible. The Portfolio will be submitted on two different deadlines consisting of Sections #1-4, then later Sections #5-7 as indicated on the course calendar. In other words, you don’t submit anything right now.
Section #2: PBS Untold Stories Project
View the video segment, read the PDF file, and complete the study guide for each of the Untold Stories on African Americans, Native Americans, and Japanese Americans.
Note that the study guides can be used as reference material for the exam. You DON’T have to turn in the study guides. This will be the only online assignment that will also require information for an exam. So, again, hold onto the study guides to be used as reference material for the first exam.
Respond to each of the essay questions below:
Yosemite Buffalo Soldiers
1. African American tourists comprise less than one percent of the visitation to Yosemite National Park. Shelton Johnson has made it his life’s work to connect the general African American population to the national parks. Present ideas that you have that would result in the national parks being more attractive to African Americans as a tourism destination.
Mount Rushmore, Telling America’s Stories
2. Gerard Baker is the first American Indian to be Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Discuss your thoughts on the inclusion of American Indian history and culture, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. In other words, to what extent should Native American history be interpreted in our national parks? What, specifically, should tourists be exposed to in terms of Native American history?
Manzanar, Never Again
3. How should our country at war balance our citizens’ civil liberties and the need for national security? What relevance does this period of history (WWII) have in our world today (think 9/11) and some of the statements of President Trump? How does the fact that our country established a national site to honor a difficult period in our past reflect on us as a nation? What is it that tourists should learn about when they visit Manzanar?
Length: Three to five pages for all of Section #2 in its entirety
Recommended Date of Completion: The week it is assigned
Points: 15
Section #3: Personal Values and Culture
Click on the link provided this week for the Personal Values Assessment. This is a free assessment that will help you become more aware of your own values and how these values influence your decisions and actions. Note that there are many different scales and distinctions for our values and this is just one of many. One of the reasons I like this model is because it breaks things down according to Self Interest, Transformation, and Common Good, which are excellent categories in which to assess travel in our lives.
Complete the Personal Values Assessment and the answer the following:
Barrett Seven Levels
1. Describe the Barrett Seven Levels of Consciousness Model. A description of the Model is provided when your results are returned to you. Study the information provided and then describe the Model in your own words.
Your Results
2. Provide a summary of your results. You can either a) take a screen shot of your results to be included with this section of your Portfolio OR b) summarize your results in your own words.
Application to Travel
3. Analyze how your values may influence your travel such as where you choose to go and how much you enjoy the travel experience. According to your values, what are travel experiences that you would seek and what types of travel experiences would you want to avoid?
Length: Two to three pages grand total for the entirety of Section #3
Recommended Date of Completion: The week it is assigned
Points: 10
Section #4: Mountains Beyond Mountains Essays
Answer each of the following questions from the course readings.
Application of the W Curve of Cultural Change
1. In his first year in Haiti, Paul Farmer reflected on a young doctor who was anxious to return to the United States. Farmer revealed, “I wasn’t feeling judgmental. Haiti was something he was seeing that he could leave and erase from his mind, and I was thinking, Could I do that? He was leaving Haiti, really leaving in body and mind, and I realized I was going to have trouble with that.” Relate this to the “W Curve of Cultural Change, Adaptation and Adjustment” discussed in class. Explain the obligation you feel we have, if any, to other places we see—even though we return home.
Connecting with People Who are Different
2. Paul Farmer finds ways of connecting with people whose backgrounds are vastly different from his own. How does he do this? Are his methods something to which we can all aspire? Consider how you might adopt some of his methods.
Beyond Mountains There are Mountains
3. The title of the book comes from the Haitian proverb, “beyond mountains there are mountains.” What does the saying mean in the context of the culture it comes from, and what does it mean in relation to Farmer’s work? Can you think of other situations—personal or societal—for which this proverb might be apt? Explain.
Five Major Lessons
4. What do you believe are five major lessons that can be derived from the book? These can be anything that you believe are most important.
Perspectives on How You See the World
5. How has reading this book changed how you see the world?
Length: Three to five pages for the entirety of Section #4
Recommended Date of Completion: The week it is assigned
Points: 15
