The life of Christopher Gardner-The Pursuit of Happyness Film
M5 Assignment 1: Final Analysis
Overview
The purpose of the final analysis is to explore the relationship of the individual and their environment to the individual’s physical and emotional development. How do all of these facets play a role in the individual’s life story? The Final Analysis assignment offers an opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about the theories and science of life development over the course of the semester.
Instructions
The final analysis will have three parts: Part A, a section on the character from your movie and the theory you choose analyze them through; Part B, a section on what life stage of development the character is in and applying course learning from that stage to the events and choices of the main character; and a Part C, final section that covers the top three ideas or concepts that you learned from the course, and how the learning from this course can be applied to your future career and/or daily life.
In Module 3 and Module 4, you will complete assignments to help you get a start on writing Part A and Part B of your Final Analysis. These assignments will help you organize and draft your final analysis and will provide an opportunity for instructor feedback before the final module.
Parts A and B: Final Analysis
Your paper should have a strong integration of theory, life stage of development chosen, and movie excerpts throughout the paper.
In your introductory paragraph, begin with a brief summary of your movie and a short introduction to your character. Present your thesis statement at the end of your introductory paragraph. Using your theoretical lens and scholarly research, your thesis statement should pose a unique argument about your character’s developmental stage.
Next, use your work from the previous modules as a foundation for your analysis. In the paragraphs that follow your introduction, provide an overview of your theoretical lens and theorist and what they can tell us about your chosen developmental stage.
In the remainder of the analysis, analyze your character and their developmental stage using your theoretical lens and scholarly sources. At the beginning of each of these analytical paragraphs, pose a topic sentence that supports your thesis statement. Next, introduce evidence from the film and your scholarly sources to support your topic sentence. Analyze this evidence to explain how these examples support your topic sentence and, in turn, your thesis statement.
In your conclusion, provide a final reflection upon the significance of your argument. What final thoughts do you have about the character and their life stage development? What insight does your analysis provide about the meaning of the film and/or real-world instances of the behaviors and events you’ve examined?
Important note: Although you should include a brief summary of the movie in the introduction, the remainder of the analysis should be focused on analysis (not movie summary). Explain the observed developmental stage from which you chose to analyze your character using supportive examples from the film and explanations from our textbook and your outside research. For each example you provide, please say how or why that example fits the theory chosen or how or why it can be explained by human development at that life stage. If a particular example (character behavior) does not fit the model, please include a few sentences about how it does not fit. There will likely be some parts of the movie or the characters that do not fit your chosen theoretical perspective well. In this case, feel free to talk a bit about another theory/theorist that might better explain the developmental stage.
Part C: Top Three Ideas or Concepts Learned and Future Application
In this section, you will identify the top three ideas or concepts you learned from any of the content of the course and explain why this new learning has stuck with you. In other words, you want to explain the top three things you enjoyed learning from the course and why that is. Ideas can be a certain stage of development, a certain theory or theorist, or new information you learned from the discussions. Take a risk here and really reflect on what you learned in the course. Explain in detail how what you learned in this course will be applied to your current or future career or in your overall life. This section must be 500 words.
Final Analysis Requirements
The minimum word count for this paper is 2,000 words.
You must include at least five sources where two can be the class text and the movie you choose. The other three must be scholarly and peer-reviewed.
Your written analysis must also include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. College-level writing is required. All assignments require APA formatting, including a References page.