Situational Reactions

Read the following three situations. Describe what you would do in EACH situation. Integrate the elements of reasoning and intellectual standards in your writing to show an understanding of the material behind your personal example

Your essay should be 500-750 words in length and include the use of at least two (2) elements of reasoning and two (2) intellectual standards for EACH of the three (3) scenarios you will be discussing.

Do not worry about your answers being right or wrong – your work will be evaluated on its connection to the material – not the behavior you would engage in if you found yourself in these situations.

Scenario A: You are a soldier in the U.S. Military and are deployed in a foreign country during a war. A raid on a suspected military target went wrong, and your squad opened fire on several innocent people. Your commander asks you and the rest of the squad to make it look like they opened fire up on you first.

• How would you respond?
• How might your response change (or would it change) if the rest of your squad didn’t agree with you?

Scenario B: As a new police officer, you pull someone over for speeding. You note some suspicious behavior and feel it is justified for you to search the offender’s vehicle. After searching the vehicle, you confiscate several ounces of marijuana, which is still illegal in the state you serve.

You realize that the computer system is down, so you cannot chronicle this bust until you return to the station. After learning this, your partner, who is a decorated officer with more than 15 years on the force, pulls you aside and tells you that his wife is sick and he could really use that marijuana at home for medicinal purposes to help her with her pain.

• How would you respond to your partner?
• Does it make a difference that he is a much more experienced officer?

Scenario C: Your child, Johnny, is a senior in high school, and has, up until this year, earned very good grades in his coursework. Because of his academic achievement, he has been awarded a full academic scholarship to a good university.

Now, Johnny has a first-year teacher who assigns work that seems inappropriately difficult, and Johnny is struggling. Though his grades in his other classes are exceptional, he will need to earn a C or better for this class if he hopes to keep his scholarship, and it all hinges on his score on the last assignment in this difficult class.

The assignment is on a topic that your professor did her graduate work on, so you know there’s no way a high schooler should be expected to do well in this assignment. Still, if Johnny doesn’t ace this assignment, he will not earn a good enough course grade to keep his scholarship.

• Do you actively help him complete the assignment, or do you let him do it himself, knowing that without your help he will fail the assignment, not because he isn’t smart enough or dedicated enough, but because the assignment is inappropriately difficult?

Your completed assignment should be written primarily in first person and should be 500-750 words in length. If you use sources in your writing, be sure to identify them. If you use any direct language from a source, be sure to place those words in quotation marks.

 

 

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