Week 7 Reflection

 This week we were focusing on writing a summary on the documentary that we chose to watch. At first, I was very unmotivated to get started because writing in general is not that exciting to me, however, when I first started writing my summary on the three key scenes, everything was easy. The words were flowing and I was having no problem getting a good 6 sentences down to describe each scene with solid details. Once I finished working on my Film Summary Worksheet, I began to face some trouble.

One struggle that I found when writing my actual film summary was adding more complex details. In my original summaries, I just scraped the surface of the of the key scenes so adding more details was hard. To do so this required me to rewatch the film and take notes on important details that occurred. As I said earlier, I was very unmotivated so the idea of rewatching the documentary, taking notes, and then applying those notes in my summary was difficult to start. This process took me a lot longer than I wanted, and I did struggle to keep myself motivated, however, I finished my the bulk of my summary draft.

The other struggle that I encountered when writing my summary was my introduction paragraph which went basically was just the overview of the documentary. The first few sentences in my introduction were easy as I was just stating the films name, director, main characters, and opening scenes. In Dinosaur 13, finding Sue was one of the beginning scenes and almost perfect for the start to an introduction paragraph, however, I chose that this would be one of my key scenes. This made it hard at first to describe this scene, while also leaving plenty of detail for my paragraph for that key scene. The introduction still needs some work, but overall it is a decent draft that I could fix up after reviewing.

Week 6 Reflection

I chose the documentary film, Dinosaur 13, directed by Todd Douglass Miller. The overview of the film, is about the discovery of the largest T. Rex fossil ever found, Sue, and all the events that happened after. The documentary focuses on using pathos to help create a shocking, but mournful perspective on the events of what happened to the fossil and the crew that helped discover and piece it together.

1). There were multiple scenes that made me question why certain events were happening. However. one specific scene that shocked me, but also made me upset was when FBI, U.S. Coast Guard, and more government officials (around 30 in total) took control of all operations and seized all the Black Hills Institute possession's including Sue. It took them three days to search through all of the offices, desks, drawers, mail, and much more in which all were confiscated and taken. This scene made me shocked and angry because the government just came out of nowhere one random day and took everything that they have worked so hard for. It also made me sad since the town was small and anything related to Sue could be huge for the town. Everyone in the town all gathered up to protest the seizure of the remains of Sue by the government.

2). One scene that caught me off guard was when the those involved in lawsuits by the federal government were being faced with around 150 counts and over 350 years in jail. One of the main discovers, Larson, said that when adding all the time served for the counts charge it would be larger than that given to Jeffrey Dahmer would kill and ate 13 people. I thought that this was a ridiculous amount of time and crimes against the workers of Black Hills Institute. Later on, most of the charges were dropped by the Jury, but Neal Larson would still face 2 years in federal prison.

3). After watching the film, I questioned if there was a way that this whole situation could have been avoided or if this had to be as big of a deal as it turned out to be. I wondered how the government could have so much control as they just took everything that belonged to Black Hills Institute, but then also claimed that they owned the land in which Sue was found on. In addition, I still felt angry and shocked that this even happened in the first place. I'm annoyed of how the whole Sue situation was handled by, Black Hills Institute, the government, and the Indian Reservations. Thankfully, I know that the fossil ended up in a museum where it belongs.

4). There are a couple reason why avoiding research in our summaries would be best. The first reason is that other sources may not fully align with what was presented within the documentary leading to a possibility of misinformation. Another reason is that including research could create some type of bias. Although it may be accidental, bias can lead to a not accurate representation of the documentary. 

Week 5 Reflection

Microtheme Draft:

    Every time that I try to focus on getting school work done, I get caught up on some form of social media scrolling through and wasting my time. No matter how hard I try to manage my time efficiently, I find myself on my phone. I imagine others have experienced similar situations where they lose track of time spent scrolling through social media. Does social media affect time management? 

    Although we might be aware that social media affects our time management skills, we continue to use it to communicate and keep up with our friends' lives. We might try to show them that we are good friends when we see their notification pop up and answer it right away. We may use social media because our assignment is not due until later, so we might think using social media for a little will not be harmful. However, the little short time spent on social media turns into an hour and soon the assignment is due. We may also use social media to keep up with current events because it may seem “quick” and “easy” to check, but that may turn into hours following up with it. 

    If we could begin to think more seriously about the effects social media has on time management, we might find that putting time limits on social media usage could lead to more productive behavior. School work could be completed long before it is due, allowing for students to have more time in their day to be productive. Perhaps addressing this concern could end the high rate in which social media is used throughout the day.

My Thoughts:

After reading over my microtheme, I thought I did a good job keeping a neutral position and not creating a bias towards my topic. However, I do believe that some of my wording in each paragraph could be improved upon as it doesn't seem to flow naturally. Overall, this draft is a solid base that contains potential to be something meaningful.

                                                    

Microtheme

When I first began writing the microtheme paper, I realized that it was completely different than any other piece of writing I've done before. The structure of the paper made me think twice as hard as usual because instead of answering the question, you hover around it. This part makes it increasingly difficult since you are not able to answer the question like any other paper. I had trouble formulating a question that I could remain unbiased on and formulate the three paragraph structure without seeming too direct. The hardest part about creating the rough draft to my microtheme was the introduction and conclusion. 

At first I struggled to come up with a way to start my whole paper as I do with all of my writing. However, once I got going I couldn't stop and soon I made it all the way to the conclusion. The conclusion gave me the hardest time because you aren't suppose to be answering the question presented, but almost giving suggestions. I had trouble offering open ended suggestions and staying neutral as every essay I've wrote asked the opposite of that. 

After going over and picking apart examples in class, I realized I have a lot more work that still needs to be done. Looking over it, there are many minor details that could be edited such as some of my terminology. I have a few absolute statements that lead the paper to be partly bias. However, I did create a good base to be improved throughout this next week. Hopefully we continue to look over examples of microthemes, so I can use similar ideas in mine.