Vietnam Project Reflection
It all began with a trip to Ignacio. There we met with Rod Grove and listened to him tell us about his experiences. He answered our questions and we got our first real introduction to what we were studying for this project. Next we reviewed the different roles we could have for the interview and chose our jobs for this project. The next step for me was to communicate with our veteran and set up a time to meet and at time to interview him. For the other half of the project we were busy reading the different articles and completing the study packet on the different historical writing skills.
My job was communicator in our veteran interview groups, so it was my job to do all of the communicating with our veteran. I am very good at talking to people, and I feel like I am easily able to make them comfortable. I do not feel embarrassed ending up on tape, which was what happened. As the communicator, I not only was the main speaker to our veteran, I was also the interviewer in the tape. I am usually a very organized person, but there were some times where I forgot or misplaced something necessary. I could have improved in the way that I could have kept my required supplies more organized. Everything turned out in the end, but I could have been a better partner. I feel like I succeeded in the end because at the exhibition, my veteran came up to me and we were comfortably talking about my project. One of the most memorable parts of this project was when at the exhibition we were talking and he casually threw in a comment about the couple days after the interview. He had issues and he had struggled through those days but he did say he was able to fight through it. One of the most important things to me about this project was how much we impacted the veterans. Dominic was very impressed and thankful that high school students were taking such and interest in war and the soldier’s perspective.
During the writing process, I struggled most with contextualizing. For some of the articles, they didn’t give a date and there were no events on the timeline to help me figure out what was going on at about the same time. This was especially difficult for me to get through because it was not only an error on my part; it was a flaw in the evidence I was looking at. I would say I am pretty good at inferring details in writing, so close reading was the easiest for me. I haven’t really worked often with limited sources in depth, and close reading really helped my analysis in the actual in-class writing assignment. I have gone into articles in depth before, but this time going this deep into articles really sharpened this skill to a higher proficiency.
Before the revisions, my paper was extremely confusing. I had a lot of good ideas, but they were all jumbled up into the paragraphs in a very confusing manner. When the first people were reading my paper that was one of their strong initial opinions. I needed to change that immediately. The suggestion was made that I completely outline my paper and then build off of the bare bones with my already existing evidence and analysis. Now when people read my paper, they come away with a very clear idea of my opinion. They understand what I was saying and claiming, and it finally made sense to them. There will always be extra revisions I can make, but I am satisfied having this as my final draft to present.
To represent the challenge extension in my paper, I have a quote that shows multiple historical writing skills used in one paragraph, “In the inspection of this document I discovered that he avoided the topic entirely until the end and even then hesitated to blatantly say what his perspective was. This is understandable in the situation, considering it was a television interview.” In this piece of analysis I used both close reading and sourcing, mentioning how he avoided the topic, and mentioning how it is a TV interview. The challenge extension adds to my analysis because it helps me compare the different skills within a paragraph, helping the reader understand the process I went through to come the conclusions I resulted at. With additional research, my writing would have improved because I would have more perspectives to look through for my analysis. I know from experience with TTTC that more background helped my understanding of the different themes I found embedded in the story. I focused on what most interested me about this matter, which was the political side to the argument and what the government was dealing with. If I had more speeches to look off of or more conversations among the authorities, I feel like I would have had a greater understanding of the matter. It would have been easier to convey my opinion to my readers with more evidence.
My job was communicator in our veteran interview groups, so it was my job to do all of the communicating with our veteran. I am very good at talking to people, and I feel like I am easily able to make them comfortable. I do not feel embarrassed ending up on tape, which was what happened. As the communicator, I not only was the main speaker to our veteran, I was also the interviewer in the tape. I am usually a very organized person, but there were some times where I forgot or misplaced something necessary. I could have improved in the way that I could have kept my required supplies more organized. Everything turned out in the end, but I could have been a better partner. I feel like I succeeded in the end because at the exhibition, my veteran came up to me and we were comfortably talking about my project. One of the most memorable parts of this project was when at the exhibition we were talking and he casually threw in a comment about the couple days after the interview. He had issues and he had struggled through those days but he did say he was able to fight through it. One of the most important things to me about this project was how much we impacted the veterans. Dominic was very impressed and thankful that high school students were taking such and interest in war and the soldier’s perspective.
During the writing process, I struggled most with contextualizing. For some of the articles, they didn’t give a date and there were no events on the timeline to help me figure out what was going on at about the same time. This was especially difficult for me to get through because it was not only an error on my part; it was a flaw in the evidence I was looking at. I would say I am pretty good at inferring details in writing, so close reading was the easiest for me. I haven’t really worked often with limited sources in depth, and close reading really helped my analysis in the actual in-class writing assignment. I have gone into articles in depth before, but this time going this deep into articles really sharpened this skill to a higher proficiency.
Before the revisions, my paper was extremely confusing. I had a lot of good ideas, but they were all jumbled up into the paragraphs in a very confusing manner. When the first people were reading my paper that was one of their strong initial opinions. I needed to change that immediately. The suggestion was made that I completely outline my paper and then build off of the bare bones with my already existing evidence and analysis. Now when people read my paper, they come away with a very clear idea of my opinion. They understand what I was saying and claiming, and it finally made sense to them. There will always be extra revisions I can make, but I am satisfied having this as my final draft to present.
To represent the challenge extension in my paper, I have a quote that shows multiple historical writing skills used in one paragraph, “In the inspection of this document I discovered that he avoided the topic entirely until the end and even then hesitated to blatantly say what his perspective was. This is understandable in the situation, considering it was a television interview.” In this piece of analysis I used both close reading and sourcing, mentioning how he avoided the topic, and mentioning how it is a TV interview. The challenge extension adds to my analysis because it helps me compare the different skills within a paragraph, helping the reader understand the process I went through to come the conclusions I resulted at. With additional research, my writing would have improved because I would have more perspectives to look through for my analysis. I know from experience with TTTC that more background helped my understanding of the different themes I found embedded in the story. I focused on what most interested me about this matter, which was the political side to the argument and what the government was dealing with. If I had more speeches to look off of or more conversations among the authorities, I feel like I would have had a greater understanding of the matter. It would have been easier to convey my opinion to my readers with more evidence.