Set at Borders cafe in Westwood, CA, Robert Samuels
observes how technology has taken down the borders between the public
and the private sectors and between work and play. Samuels argues that
these "commercial public squares," such as the cafe, have become neither
public nor private but more of a blurred domain of our social and
personal lives. In conclusion, Samuels states that the way technology
has transformed our culture is not necessarily a bad thing but allows us
to shift and switch between the boundaries in society.
Reflection: Collaborative Writing
For the Collaborative writing assignment, I teamed up with Sirui, Ruiman, and Jian. After reading the selected article together in class, we broke it down into four sections – a beginning thesis and three supporting points. Each person took a section. We then wrote summaries for each section on our own. In class on Friday, we combined these summaries into one succinct paragraph that summarized the article.
Reflection: Collaborative Writing
For the Collaborative writing assignment, I teamed up with Sirui, Ruiman, and Jian. After reading the selected article together in class, we broke it down into four sections – a beginning thesis and three supporting points. Each person took a section. We then wrote summaries for each section on our own. In class on Friday, we combined these summaries into one succinct paragraph that summarized the article.
We chose to divide the labor as stated above because it would give everyone an equal opportunity to reflect on the material, have practice writing a summary, and give everyone a chance to communicate what they thought about the article. Since we had discussed it some in class, our opinions were quite similar. Thus, the succinct final paragraph that we submitted was much easier to write.
Despite working on this summary, I still have a lot to work on. For me, the writing of a summary is not easy. I am either two lengthy in my summary and pay way too much attention to the details or I miss the main point entirely. Therefore, I am thankful for the practice this assignment provided, but I am also looking forward to the upcoming assignments where I can build my skills in the area of writing summaries.
Breaking Down Borders
ReplyDeleteGroup: Benjamin, Sirui, Ruiman, and Jian
This summary is rightly succinct. It's a short article after all, but it may be missing some key elements. What's the title of the article? "In his article, "Breaking Down Borders…", Robert Samuels…." or something like, seems to work as a construction to include all the pertinent information readers or listeners seeking a quick summary will require up front. I think you've rightly stayed broad here, and yes, I sort of gave the "thumbs up" on a version of this, but the key will be that individual versions of this stick to the same broadness and generality seen here.
I'm also not noting the same precision in Ben's version that I see, for example in Sirui's, Ruiman's, and Jianyu's version of this, she corrected the spelling of boarders to borders. This is minor, but as you proceed, you want versions of the collaborative work to remain identical. What if this was a much more substantive issue? It doesn't speak well to group cohesion or to people's sense of freedom in contributing, if smaller changes are made on individual versions when the group splits up. Yes, I know, a small issue here, but the point, of course, is that in professional domains, when each person submits something separate (or even together) there should be as much agreement as possible on what that final deliverable should look like.
As to your reflection, indeed, this can be difficult to see the forest despite the trees, or even more particularly how certain trees work together to make the forest as a whole. Forgive the metaphor. This is a skill, and much like an ecology of sorts, or perhaps for you, the way parts fit to make the whole (such as in complex human biological systems). So in sum, the ability to summarize is much more intellectually transferable than some students may realize. There is certainly growth happening when you get this skill down.
ReplyDeleteAnother comment: what is probably missing from this summary is the way (method) Samuel's makes his point? i.e., the observations he makes in the book store cafe. You say that he "observes," but while still trying to steer way from too much detail, you can certainly say "what" he "observes."
ReplyDelete