This is upper division General Education course conforms to the GE Upper Division Writing Policy, which reads as follows:
All upper-division required GE courses shall be designated writing-intensive. In each such course, students will be required to complete writing assignments totaling a minimum of 2,500 words."
Thus, the writing assignment is a critical part of the course. The writing assignment is an analysis paper due on November 9th. In that paper, I want you to analyze your childhood in light of the motivation theories we've discussed throughout the quarter, from the biological motivations up through goal motivation, which will be the topic just before the paper is due. How did your parents and others around you motivate you, and how did you motivate yourself? How did those motivations change as you got older? What motivated you to make both good and bad choices in your lives? You should organize the paper both chronologically and by type of motivation. So you should start with very early childhood, from preschool through early school years, then move on to late childhood, then adolescence, and then adulthood. In each of these time eras, you should discuss what role reflexes, drives and biological needs, reinforcements and punishments, observational learning, need for stimulation and arousal, personality, utility, and goals played in your motivation, and how those things changed from previous eras in your life. This assignment should require about 10 double-spaced pages to complete, which is generally around 2700 words and thus meets the 2500 word requirement.