IST 420
Thought Stance Assignment Guidance

Thought Stances are an assessment tool used to encourage systematic study, to improve content retention, and to provide a forum for capturing your thoughts and reflections for each lesson and topic. These “weekly writings” are a tool to assist with my assessment of your comprehension of the course objectives and reading materials, as well as an instrument to improve your analytical writing skills.

During the semester, you will have several Thought Stance opportunities in which you will write the appropriate, analytical “thought stance.” Each should include the following elements—follow the template examples exactly:

Student name / Date

Citation of the TED Talk, to include Title, Speaker, Date, & Length of Video

Select three (3) ideas or comments presented by the TED TALK speakers that you found interesting, significant, or controversial from the video. Your three passages should be not more than 2-3 sentences maximum. The three passages should be verbatim, not paraphrased (using the video transcript will be helpful for this part). I also highly recommend that you type-out (versus cut/paste) each passage to better retain the material. Note: you don’t need one of each, as “or” is the operative word, but three passages total are required.

REFLECTIONS (i.e. your thoughts) section: Take 20-30 minutes to reflect and either answer “what did I learn from this speaker?” or comment on why you selected your particular passages, or simply record your thoughts about the speaker’s topic. This is where we capture your initial reaction to the lesson material. I am looking for 250-350 words in this section.

Thought Stances should be No Longer than one (1) page and you are expected to include the Word Count for your Reflections section, as indicated in the template example.

Once completed, submit in the appropriate Canvas section. “Thought Stances” will be read, assessed, and graded by your professor based on your level of input in relating relevant concepts/ideas from the course into your Reflections essay portion. No Late ones will be accepted—so please plan accordingly.

Reviewing any video not on the list of choices will greatly diminish your grade for that Thought Stance.

I have included a few example templates of the proper format on the Though Stances Guidance & Instructions page for your reference. I want this exact format, e.g., submissions without a Word Count will not receive full credit for the assignment. Be precise.