Write a character analysis based on ONE of the following six films:
· Philadelphia (1993)
· Barbershop (2002)
· The Village (2004)
· The Color Purple (1985)
· Amélie (2001)
· My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Answer the following questions about the characters in your narrative. Please concentrate on analyzing the character(s), rather than reiterating the plot line.
1. Describe the specific assumptions or beliefs the characters have in the beginning of the film. Why do they hold these assumptions/beliefs?
2. What do they learn about other people or about the world that challenges their long held beliefs? Describe an incident (or series of incidents) that causes a revelation to the character(s).
3. How do the goals or desires of the characters change by the end of the film?
4. In your view, describe the learning/reflective concept from the course readings that best represents the developmental process of a major character.
5. Which character in the film did you most identify with (in terms of how his/her attitude or assumptions changed)? Why?
ORGL 3050. Korthagen & Vasalos. Self-Transformation through Core Qualities
Putting the feedback loop together with your own Degree Plan and larger goals in the onion model,
we can use Korthagen and Vasalos’ conceptual framework to reflect on specific “core qualities” that
you would like to develop within yourself. This idea of self-transformation and cultivating new qualities
and new knowledge for yourself is going to be a key aspect of the last Reflective Seminar you will do,
ORGL 4000, and the Capstone course, ORGL 4690.
From: Korthagen, Fred A.J., & Vasalos, Angelo (2010). Going to the core: Deepening reflection by
connecting the person to the profession (Chapter 27, in Nona Lyons (Ed.) Handbook of Reflection
and Reflective Inquiry. New York: Springer.)
Don’t worry if you don’t feel like you have a full understanding of all of these conceptual models at this
time, the idea is to give you a sense of the big picture. As you progress through the Discussions and
Assignment Tools, you will gain a deeper understanding of the various models. You will find there are
specific models that actually work better for the different Reflective Seminars, and for the Capstone.
Photo of Fred A.J. Korthagen taken from:
http://www.aera.net/About-AERA/Fellows/2015-AERA-Fellows
Photo of Angelo Vasalos taken from: http://absolutewakefulness.com/about-angelo
ORGL 3050. Korthagen & Vasalos. The Onion Model: Reflection on your own Goals and
Degree Program
Korthagen and Vasalos also provide a useful way to ask yourself a series of questions that will help
you to analyze and understand your own big picture, yourself, your understanding of your
experiences and your abilities, and the context in which you must work to achieve your goals.
The kinds of questions you see here will also be a part of the Discussions and Assignments during
the ORGL seminars.
From: Korthagen, Fred A.J., & Vasalos, Angelo (2010). Going to the core: Deepening reflection by
connecting the person to the profession (Chapter 27, in Nona Lyons (Ed.) Handbook of Reflection
and Reflective Inquiry. New York: Springer.)
Photo of Fred A.J. Korthagen taken from:
http://www.aera.net/About-AERA/Fellows/2015-AERA-Fellows
Photo of Angelo Vasalos taken from: http://absolutewakefulness.com/about-angelo
ORGL 3050. Korthagen & Vasalos. The Feedback Loop between Reflection and Action
Two other education theorists, Korthagen and Vasalos, describe the process of self-transformation
through learning experiences and reflection on those experiences as a feedback loop. Note the
phases one can go through in analyzing, describing and reflecting on previous experiences. We have
some action that we undertake, we look back on it, we become aware of essential aspects of it
(aspects that we might not have been fully aware of when we were “in the moment” of the action
itself), and we create and think up new alternative modes of action. The idea here is that reflective
learning is a developmental process, a process in which we see what works and what doesn’t work,
and we modify what we do based on how it is working, over and over again, perhaps all the time:
From: Korthagen, Fred A.J., & Vasalos, Angelo (2010). Going to the core: Deepening reflection by
connecting the person to the profession (Chapter 27, in Nona Lyons (Ed.) Handbook of Reflection
and Reflective Inquiry. New York: Springer.)
Photo of Fred A.J. Korthagen taken from:
http://www.aera.net/About-AERA/Fellows/2015-AERA-Fellows
Photo of Angelo Vasalos taken from: http://absolutewakefulness.com/about-angelo