Initial Post Instructions
Part 1: By Tuesday Night, Share Your Writing as Your Initial Post
In writing workshops, you will be asked to share, as your first post, a specific piece of writing you are working on at the time, along with some comments or adjustments, depending on the assignment. This week, the piece of writing is your complete First Draft of the Argument Essay from Week 6.
Make an initial post with your first draft attached. In your initial post, please also explain areas you would like your reviewer to focus on.
*Copying from your classmates’ posts or replies in any way, on any item will be considered plagiarism and will be handled as such. Your instructor may, at any time, check anything you post in workshops for plagiarism by submitting it to Turnitin.
Peer Review Post Instructions
Part 2: By Saturday Night, Complete One Full Peer Review for a Classmate
Choose one classmate who has made their initial post and who does not already have a peer review. Read their explanation for choosing this body paragraph, then read their attached essay.
Download and complete the Peer Review Worksheet. Complete all tasks with substance (more than just “yes” or “no”).
Reply to your classmate’s initial post and attach the Peer Review Worksheet you completed over their writing.
Your peer review is worth 50% of your grade for this writing workshop; please do your best!
Continue the Conversation Post Instructions
Part 3: By Sunday Night, Continue the Conversation
In addition to making your own initial post and finishing a peer review for one classmate, you must also continue the conversation by making at least 1 additional post of at least 3 full sentences in length. This post may do any of the following:
Respond (kindly) to one of the peer reviews classmates have given you.
Respond (kindly) to any questions your classmate may have for you about the peer review you completed.
Respond to a classmate you did not previously review, with some brief comments about their writing.
Please see some sample Continue the Conversation posts
Links to an external site. here.
Writing Requirements
Minimum of 3 posts total:
1 Initial Post with Week 6 First Draft of the Argument Research Essay (Due Tuesday)
1 Peer Review Post with Completed Peer Review Worksheet (Due Saturday)
1 minimum Continue the Conversation post of at least 3 sentences (Due by Sunday)
How to “Continue the Conversation” after You’ve Posted Your Peer Reviews
You are required to make 3 total posts in each Writing Workshop:
Your main post, with your writing, according to instructions
Your one peer review for a classmate, using the Peer Review Sheet assigned
Your one “Continuing the Conversation” post, at least 3 sentences in length and following the instructions and examples below
It is important to continue the conversation after you have posted your two required peer reviews for many reasons:
To continue learning from your classmates
To offer more insight to your classmates
To explore in more depth some of the topics addressed
To ask questions
To answer questions
So, some examples of “Continue the Conversation” posts might be:
Hi Mary! I didn’t review your work, but I did read through it. I have to say that I had never considered the specific ways in which one might get a deadly infection doing simple activities at home. It really made me think about watching my own little cuts and about how, before antibiotics, the world was simply deadly.
Thank you! -Susan
Jeff, I noticed that you used details about roadblocks to getting basic jobs, and I don’t know if this will be helpful, but for women, there are additional issues. Some of those might include…. (then you would offer some examples to Jeff) …. I love your topic!
– Sally
Hey June! I hope you’re having a good day. So, although I didn’t do a formal peer review for you, I was captivated by your topic of the benefits of having possums around your yard. I just thought it was neat that you know so much that you don’t have to look up information to develop your whole essay. I understand; I know there are topics that we deal with in different places; I just can’t imagine growing up taking possums for granted.
Best, Mark
Fred, thank you so much for reviewing my prewriting! I’m glad you noticed that one of my main ideas has far fewer examples than the other two. I sort of felt that way, too, and I’m going to brainstorm more. Do you have a couple of ideas, or does anyone here- classmates, I’d love some help!
Cheers! -Bruce
Hello, Francis! You are very welcome; it was my pleasure to review your writing. You asked about why I thought your main ideas don’t quite match, and that’s a great question. This is just my perspective as a reader, but I expected, from a topic like “types of chocolate,” to see main ideas like milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and baker’s chocolate. I think that having three countries who make good chocolate is an excellent approach; maybe change your overall topic to match- like, “chocolate from different countries.” I’m happy to discuss more!
Have a great day, Melanie
Cultural Stigma on Mental Illness Causing Lack of Treatment
Cultural stigmas have caused a lack of proper education and treatment for the mentally ill in the US, thus causing mental illness to rise at an alarming rate. This lack of education and treatment has led to increased homelessness, crime, substance abuse and an increase in suicide rates. The strength of cultural diversity in the US has placed a profound negative impact on a growing population of individuals with mental illnesses. Due to different cultural norms amongst the population, individuals are less likely to seek treatment for their mental illness. Many fear that they will be thought of as “weak” or “different” among their friends and family, some feel ashamed because they were raised in a culture that believed mental illness was a bad thing, some will try to hide their mental illness because they feel it will not be accepted within their culture, and sadly some will attempt to treat themselves leading to drug abuse, alcohol abuse and even worse, suicide. More resources are needed to assist mentally ill individuals and the public with getting proper education on mental illness and the proper treatment. With good education and proper treatment, we can slow the rise of mental illness within the US.
Mental health stigmas may lead to discrimination, which can cause employers not to hire, landlords not to rent, and the community in which they live to believe that they are untrustworthy and dangerous. This can cause the mentally ill to try and hide or ignore the illness for fear of this discrimination. “In mental health settings, people are not only distressed by their illness, but they also experience stigma, which is an important factor in care-seeking behaviors and undermines the service system” (Uzar-Ozcetin & Tee, 2020, p. 150). The fear of discrimination then leads to a lack of seeking treatment by the individual, causing their mental illness to go uncontrolled. In the US alone, there are over 51 million individuals with mental health disorders, about half of them are untreated (Diouf et al., 2022, p. 924). Due to the lack of knowledge on how to handle mental illness, suicide has now become one of the leading causes of death. Sadly, suicide is highest among the ages of 10 to 34 (Gangi, 2021, p. 385). Providing more education in schools, colleges, to the public, and to individuals with mental illness, we can decrease the mental stigmas within in the US. “Education aims to change the stigmatizing attitudes of the society by replacing myths about psychiatric disorders with correct notions” (Cilek & Akkaya, 2022, p. 551). Education will provide the correct information about these disorders and help eliminate the fallacies that most people have been led to believe throughout their lives. “Education-based programs address knowledge gaps about mental health stigma and dispel rumors and stereotypes” (Diouf et al., 2022, p. 925).
There are many individuals that do not believe mental illness is a true disorder. Some have the belief that the person who is mentally ill can control it on their own, that they are making themselves appear to have a mental illness to get government assistance services, or that there is just no cure or that psychological treatments are ineffective. Due to many individuals hiding their mental illness, this has caused others to believe that the individual was able to treat themselves without proper mental health services and therefore were able to control the illness, rather than seeing that they are still suffering from the illness in silence. “People believe that the perceived controllability in psychiatric illness is high and therefore they believe that the individual is responsible for the symptoms” (Cilek & Akkaya, 2022, pp .546-547). Others, see the amount of mentally ill who receive government assistance such as welfare or rent assistance, even though they seem to live normal, not mentally challenged lives. They don’t see what the individual is hiding from public view, or they don’t realize that mental illness is not always something that is physically visible. Then there are others, who see patients go through treatments that did not work, or the patient didn’t follow proper medical advice by not taking medications correctly or failed to attend therapy sessions not realizing that sometimes mental health treatments vary from person to person and finding the right treatment takes trial and error. “With respect to mental disorders, only one in four people believe that mentally ill individuals can recover” (Fox et al., 2018, as cited in Gangi, 2021, p. 387).
“Research has confirmed that many people hold strong essentialist beliefs about mental illness” (Ahn et al. 2006., Haslam & Ernst, 2002, as cited in Gangi, 2021, p. 387). These beliefs have been the cultural norm for far too long. Changing how one thinks and sees the mentally ill is of great importance to put an end to these stigmas. Starting education in early childhood and continuing the education through high school, college and adulthood can end the false beliefs about mental illness. With proper education at an early age, children will learn that mental illness is not something to hide or be ashamed of. Continuing this education will allow them to have the knowledge needed to seek help or to assist others to seek help. The education can help to stop the stigma that those with mental illness are “not normal” and will help to end the discrimination caused by these stigmas. More mentally ill individuals will seek treatment and not be ashamed of their illness. With the increase in individuals seeking assistance and treatment, the rise in suicide will decrease, substance abuse will decrease, homelessness will decrease crime rates will decrease, and mental illness will be more controlled.
Ultimately, it would be ideal to live in a world free of mental illness. Although there is no cure, there are treatments and help. Cultural stigmas have placed a poor outlook on mental health, a false and incorrect outlook. A lack of proper education has caused these stigmas, which has led to individuals not seeking treatment when they desperately need it. If you had a mental illness, would you hide it and not seek help all because it wasn’t considered a cultural norm, or would you want others to see you as the individual that you are and seek treatment without being stigmatized for your mental illness and live a normal life? Adding education into the school systems, more mental health college courses, and more mental health education being provided by their primary physicians, employers, and community educational groups will provide more adequate knowledge and positive information to help stop the false stigmas on mental illness within cultures.
References
Çilek, N. Z., & Akkaya, C. (2022). A Review on Mental Illness and Stigma. [Ruhsal Hastalıklar ve Damgalama Üzerine Bir Gözden Geçirme] Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar-Current Approaches in Psychiatry, 14(4), 545-554. https://doi.org/10.18863/pgy.1069845
Gangi, C. (2021). On the Gravity of Mental Illness Stigma. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology : PPP, 28(4), 385-395. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2021.0059
Diouf, F., Lemley, B., Barth, C., Goldbarg, J., Helgenberger, S., Grimm, B., Wartella, E., Smyser, J., & Bonnevie, E. (2022). Mental Health Stigma Reduction in the Midwestern United States: Evidence from a Digital Campaign Using a Collective Impact Model. Journal of Community Health, 47(6), 924–931. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-022-01130-3
Üzar‐Özçetin, Y. S., & Tee, S. (2020). A PRISMA‐Drıven Systematıc Revıew for Determınıng Cross‐Cultural Mental Health Care. International Journal of Nursing Knowledge, 31(2), 150–159. https://doi.org/10.1111/2047-3095.12273
