Exploring a Major or Intended Career

Integrated Reading and Writing Project

Introduction

Download the Google Docs version of this assignment.

This project is designed to help you explore different careers and learn more about your chosen career or field of work. In this unit you will explore your proposed career and a few other related careers. You will have an opportunity to examine your own interests and abilities and make a decision about which career is a great choice for you in the light of your personality traits and interests. You will read about the American economy and will look at projections of job growth and other data related to employment.

You will continue to expand your reading and writing skills as you embark on one of the most important decisions of your life: which career or profession should you pursue? Many people spend more time planning their vacations or holidays than making plans for their future. In this unit, you will have the opportunity to explore your career interests and make some specific plans for reaching your academic and career goals.

After reading two resources, you will be asked to create a report. The goal of this report is to share what you have learned about your intended career field. You will be asked to share your report with your classmates so that they can learn about other career fields. You will be asked to develop ideas for a report with the following sections:

• Introduction – Introduce your chosen career and describe your purpose for writing. Introduce the main things you learned by reading this project’s resources.
• Body Paragraphs – Your body paragraphs should share the three to five most important things you learned about your career field. Develop three to five headings to organize the information you learned. With each section, share one thing you learned. Develop strong paragraphs that focus on a topic and include interesting details about your career choice. (Make sure to correctly summarize, paraphrase, and/or quote information from the resources so that you avoid plagiarism.) When using information from other sources, explain where the information was originally written (example: According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook…”). Explain how this information will help you with your short-term and long-term goals. Also, describe what else you might do to learn more information.
• Conclusion – Create a conclusion to give your report a sense of completion.

To receive credit for this project, you will need to turn in evidence of using reading/writing strategies and to develop a report that includes headings for each section and meets the minimum length requirement of 400 words. You will also need to meet the requirements on the assignment rubric.

Skills you will learn and use:

• Interpret charts and visual displays of data
• Take notes using the Cornell note-taking system
• Summarize and paraphrase information
• Plan, conduct, and write a career exploration report

Learning Outcomes:

The chart below describes six student learning outcomes and the associated activities for each outcome:

Assignment 1: Pre-reading Journal

Read about accessing your previous knowledge. Then complete this pre-reading journal. Write a journal entry that answers the following questions:

1. Where have you worked or where do you currently work? (Include volunteer work and work you have done for family, if appropriate.)
2. Have you enjoyed your previous work experience? Why or why not? 
3. Which major(s) and career(s) interest you? Why?
4. What do you already know about the major(s) and career(s) interest you?
5. What do you want to learn about the major(s) and career(s) interest you? What are at least 3-5 questions you have about the major(s) and career(s) interest you?

Assignment 2: Career Assessment

Go to the Career Coach website and click on the “Take career assessment” button at the top of the site.  Complete the 60-question assessment. Print your results.

Write about your assessment results. Your assessment results should include your top three traits, as determined by the assessment questions (realistic, social, enterprising, etc.). Your results should also list your top career matches. Describe these results in paragraph format. Develop a topic sentence and supporting sentences that present your results. Type your paragraph in MLA format.

Finally, describe your reaction to your assessment results. Do the results surprise you? Do you agree or disagree with the results? Why or why not? What might you do next to learn more or to get more information about careers you could pursue?

Assignment 3: Cornell Notes

Print the webpages for a career that is described on The Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Read about active reading and the Cornell note taking strategy. Then complete Cornell notes for the career that interests you from The Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Assignment 4: Evaluation

Read about reading critically. Then evaluate the webpage on the Occupational Outlook Handbook that you used for this project by answering the following questions:

1. Was the information in this resource interesting, confusing, difficult to read, or surprising? Why?
2. Do you think the resource might help college students who are interested in this field? What in particular in this resource could be helpful for students?
3. Did the author(s) present quality information? Why or why not?
4. What seems to be missing from this resource? What else do you think the author(s) should have included? Why? What additional research might you have to do to learn more about this career field? Who could you talk to in order to learn more about this career field?

Assignment 5: Prewriting Activities

Read about the writing process, prewriting strategies, and outlining. Then create an outline and develop ideas using free writing for the following sections. Avoid plagiarism by citing your sources, writing the ideas in your own words, and using quotations when necessary.

Outline:

• Introduction – What will you include in your introduction?
• Body Paragraphs – What are the three to five most important things you learned about your career field? What headings will you use? What main points will you make about the three to five most important things you learned?
• Conclusion – What will you create as a conclusion to give your report a sense of completion?
• Use your outline and freewrite about each section. 

Assignment 6: Purpose and Focus

Read about purpose, audience, and tone. Then answer the following questions:

1. What will be your main idea for your report?
2. What will be your purpose (or reason) for writing?
3. Who will be your intended audience?
4. What will be your intended tone?

Assignment 7: Develop a Draft

Read about writing a draft. Then develop a draft of your report, using Microsoft Word. Use the ideas you developed through prewriting and add more details and examples to support your ideas. Avoid plagiarism by giving credit to any sources you use, writing the ideas in your own words, and using quotations when necessary.

Assignment 8: Revision and Correcting Errors

Read about revising and editing. Then revise your assignment. Did you include the required sections? Should you add more examples? Read your assignment aloud to look for major errors.

Meet with a partner. Ask your partner to read your report and to complete a peer review form. Review your partner’s suggestions and make changes if needed.

This project was developed by Judith Tomasson and Pamela Herrington-Moriarty.