Guide for Writing Media Journal

Paragraph 1: Begin by selecting 5 articles from reputable news sources. Each article should discuss a particular issue or opportunity a family encounters. The article should contain information about the issue and information about the family. The first paragraph of your paper introduces the article with a summary of the issue and information about the family. Select a variety of issues and families among the articles. With the selection and analysis of differentfamily stories in 5 articles, you are demonstrating the breadth of knowledge you have gained in this course. Avoid much repetition of family style, structure, issues, child ages and links you will make. See the instructions for selecting articles.

Article Selection: Select articles that feature a family’s story. Here’s an example: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/nyregion/long-nights-with-little-sleep-for-homeless-families-seeking-shelter.html. The writing technique the reporter uses is places  a homeless family in the context of what she is investigating, New York City’s overloaded subsidized housing system for the homeless. Your assignment is to find similarly constructed articles. The subject of the article can be an investigation of any of a number of difficulties faced by one particular family.

End paragraph 1 with a statement introducing the 3 links you will make between course content and the article.

Paragraphs 2-4: In the next 3 paragraphs, you will draw 3 links between course content and the article, which support the analysis you are making of the effects of the family’s dilemma or decision making on the parents’ parenting methods and the child’s developmental and relationship needs. Discuss each link in a separate paragraph. Taking the New York Times article, the assignment asks for you to link your course knowledge about families to the experiences of the family in the article.For this example, in paragraph 2, I would write about Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model, the Microsystem. I would briefly define the Microsystem and Bronfenbrenner’s theory (Heath, pg. 17)and justify the correctness of my link with a quote from the article, “The city had found her (the mother) shelter in Far Rockaway, Queens, far from her job in Harlem and far from a babysitter for her 1-year-old daughter.” I would then state that the family currently has a small Microsystem consisting of themselves, and the support of a babysitter and near-by job,  important factors in parenting success. The city has a severe shortage of housing and can only find shelter for this family far from the support they have now. These parents have to start over and create a new Microsystem that may not last long. The reporter suggests the new housing arrangement may be temporary.  Homelessness means frequent moves and separation from support. I would conclude this paragraph with what I understand the effects of Microsystem instability to be on the parents’ ability to meet their child’s developmental and relationship needs and outcomes for children in such situations.

Note: Theories or models such as Galinsky’s, Bronfenbrenner’s or Erikson’s are one link. The parts of their theories are not separate links.

You now have 2 more links to make in 2 more paragraphs. With this article, you could go many directions. Leading directly from paragraph 2, you could write a 3^rd paragraph on infant/toddler development, specifically Erikson’s Psychosocial Development dilemmas (Heath, pg 148). For this one-year-old, the stages of Trust vs Mistrust and Autonomy vs Shame or Doubt are profoundly impacted by homelessness. You would write about the context of homelessness and the experience you could assume the child has with a change in babysitters and a longer commute for mom resulting in a longer separation for mom and child each day. If you need to do brief researchfor more information about the theory, give credit to your source. Make sure you understand the concepts and are applying them accurately. Finally, you would explain how the experiences of the child could be expected to affect their resolution of Erikson’s trust and autonomy dilemmas.Support your link with references to the article, Heath’s textbook or additional research sources.

The 3^rd link you are discussing in this articlewould be presented in paragraph 4. The parenting pattern we are most likely to see is indifference, though these parents’ persistence in finding housing tells us that they are not really indifferent. They are facing tremendous stress and probably lack the energy or time to interact with their child in a way that would promote cognitive growth and social-emotional development. The sentence in the article, “Inside, where parents were slumped in chairs and children were sprawled on the floor waiting hours to be interviewed by caseworkers to determine if they are eligible for more permanent shelter, tensions have run high,” would support your conclusion that the parents are likely to appear indifferent. I would then explain how this lack of responsiveness to children, though understandable, affects their development, relationships and well-being. Always support your links with references.

There are a number of other concepts and theories that could be used to make links between the article and the course content. Stop at 3!

Your final paragraph quickly summarizes the complex issue of family homelessness and the difficulties organizations have supporting them. This is where you can offer your ideas on the changes that could be made to better serve homeless families.

You will repeat this process with 4 more articles.

Writing mechanics: The 5 short papers you have written should be combined into 1 document to submit in Dropbox. Do not submit 5 documents. Many students have asked how to combine the documents. Start with the document that has the first article. At the end of the first paper, insert a page break (Insert/pages/page break). Copy and paste article 2 onto the new page created by the page break. Repeat this process until all 5 articles are in a single document. You will end up with one document that has something similar to 5 chapters. Name and save the document. Sometimes you can end up with a blank page between 2 articles. If that happens and you are not familiar with how to remove it, leave it there but do not count it in your page count. You should have 10 pages of text with your analyses of 5 articles.

References: A list of references to your sources should be added as page 11. The article titles and hyper links should head up each chapter of your paper and do not need to be listed in your references.

Note:In order to successfully complete this assignment,select links to concepts and theories found throughout the Heath textbook and other sources. From chapters 5-8, select links relevant to the developmental level of the child in the article. From chapters 9-12, choose links that discuss relationships or dilemmas families may have. Finally, you may find relevant links in the overview chapters 1-4. When your paper is finished and all articles are combined into a single document, you will have a combined total of 15 links. Avoid or limit repetition of the links you are making, the family structures and circumstances in the articles, and children’s ages. Your goal is to present the range of knowledge you have gained in this course.

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