Psychology Reading Assignment

Reading Assignment #1
DUE on or before:______________________

Instructions:
Write a full page letter to me about the book you have chosen to read (and have begun reading!) for psychology this semester. The focus of this assignment is on the higher levels of thinking (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) rather than the lower levels of thinking (knowledge, comprehension, application).

Content:

	Identify the book you have selected by title and author. (knowledge) AND (in the same paragraph): explain briefly (1 or 2 short paragraphs) what the book is about-specifically, the psychological issue on which the book focuses (knowledge/comprehension
	Explain as specifically as possible why you selected this book (analysis/evaluation)
	Explain what you have learned from this book in reading it so far, and how you feel/what you think about that information (HINT: the more you have read, the easier this will be). (analysis/evaluation)

Some technicalities:

	use complete sentences throughout
	word process in 10 or 12 point font
	single-space
	spell-check AND read aloud to proofread
	save to disk/USB drive and I-drive
	turn in a print copy to me

Psychology Reading Assignment #1 Evaluation Sheet

_____(2) You identified the book you have selected by title and author using complete sentences. (knowledge)

_____(5)You explained briefly (1 or 2 short paragraphs) what the book is about-specifically, the psychological issue on which the book focuses (knowledge/ comprehension). It is clear that you have begun reading the book and understand its content.

_____(3) You explained as specifically as possible why you selected this book (analysis/evaluation)

_____(5) You explained what you have learned from this book in reading it so far, and how you feel/what you think about that information . You use specific examples to illustrate your main ideas.

_____(5) You paid attention to technical correctness: use of complete sentences, correct spelling, punctuation and grammar, word-processing, etc.

_____(20) TOTAL POSSIBLE _________Letter Grade

Comments:

Psychology Reading Assignment #1
Letter to the Teacher

EXAMPLE

Dear Ms. Belben,

The book I have chosen to read for my psychology assignment is called The Myth of Repressed Memory by Elizabeth Loftus. It is about people who claim to have recovered memories from their childhood that were previously repressed, or temporarily forgotten. The author is a researcher at the UW who thinks that people don’t really recover memories, but that they are led to believe that they have “recovered” memories that are really stories planted in their heads by therapists or that they never really forgot the information at all.

I chose to read this book because I have always been interested in memory, and have heard stories about people who recalled details from their childhood that were unusual or even bizarre, and I wonder whether or not it’s possible for memories to be repressed for years. I wonder whether or not people can have had experiences that they currently know nothing about. Could an accident or a traumatic event be forgotten? I also read that the author is an expert in eyewitness testimony, and that she has found in her research that people can be led into testifying that events happened when those events did not happen. I’ve always been really interested in courtroom situations (I like books like John Grisham’s novels and To Kill a Mockingbird), so I like to learn more about eyewitnesses and their testimony.

So far, I have read about 70 pages of this book, and it’s interesting. The author does a good job of explaining the science (the experiments and brain research) behind her theories, and of telling stories about real people and situations to illustrate her ideas. The most interesting story she tells is a true story about a woman, Eileen Franklin, who called the police as an adult to report that many years earlier, when she was a child, her father had killed her friend one morning when he was supposed to be driving them to school. Her claim was that she had blocked the memory for years, but had recalled the details after therapy. Her father was charged, tried, and convicted of the murder on the basis of his daughter’s testimony. The author believes that Eileen Franklin’s memories of the events were distorted over time and that she was misled into believing events had happened that had not happened as she claimed they did.

So far, reading this book has made me think more carefully about memory and how it is subject to change over time. She says that we form original memories, but that over the years, they are altered by the stories others tell us about the same events, and that this information distorts the information that was recorded in our minds at the time of the original event. She writes, “Hundreds of experiments involving tens of thousands of individuals have shown that post-event information can become incorporated into memory and contaminate, supplement, or distort the original memory.” That’s a lot of research, and it makes me believe that she knows what she is talking about. She describes some of the experiments she has done that show how memories can be manipulated, so her claim is convincing. Reading what she has written so far makes me curious about the subject, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book.

Sincerely,

Susie Student