Writing a Summary

 

When it comes to a summary, I would normally think of the act of writing an overview of the film I just watched. I would explain the film in a very vague way, just giving the overall plot and main characters. When looking into this assignment there were a few things that I have done before, this would be the intro and chronological order of events. Things I have not really done before in a summary would be, adding notable details for each event that took place. Along with that the signal phrases were also new to me. 

It was easy for me to be able to explain the film in summary terms. Explaining how the fossil was found, when the film was made and who found it. I flew through the initial column of adding the bullet points to show specific scenes that took place. The struggle came when I had to add more details to these basis points. I started with something like; “The main paleontologist is Named Peter Larson, along with the paleontologist who found the Dinosaur Sue, Susan Hendrickson.” After working with it and adding more details it came out to this; “Peter Larson is a paleontologist who helped found Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. He also was the leader of the team that found Sue, one of the largest known T-rex specimens ever found. The documentary also shows another paleontologist, her name is Susan Hendrickson. Susan is responsible for the T-rex being named Sue, this is because she is the one that found Sue.” This is just one example of experimenting with the new format we used. 

Another thing I struggled with was making sure I got all the important parts. The struggle I experienced was I had the main points written down, but not the little points that are important to setting the story up. This was a crucial mistake because it was hard for me to make a good and continuous summary that made sense. I needed these smaller parts of the film to help tie it all together. Along with that the extra descriptions and information explaining the points made the summary better overall. This format has made my summaries improve drastically, not only in story telling but also in the detail within the points.

Dinosaur 13

 

            Dinosaur 13 is a documentary on finding the T-rex Sue. Sue is a T-rex that was found and is the most complete T-rex fossil found. One scene that really stood out to me was when the protests broke out, it made me feel happy in a way. Now I was sad in regards to the fossil being taken away from the people who were working on it, and the community. But the protests showed the community get together, the kids, the families, all brought together because of a dinosaur. It put a smile on my face to see all the kids with posters and chanting for something they believe in. It really showed the heart and morals of the town of Hill City. But it also made me mad in a way because all these people were being brought together, but they were not able to stop the government. This made me feel mad and hopeless for the community, because they can't stop the government from taking their fossils. 

One thing that really surprised me was the fact that the government and the FBI took almost all the fossils from them. The fact that they went there, brought the national guard, and then took their life's work away was crazy to me. They took letters, fossils and went through desks of the building, it seemed ridiculous. The major thing that surprised me though was the criminal cases brought upon them. I don't understand how it is possible to have that many felonies brought upon them while working with fossils. They were charged with Fossil theft, Transportation of stolen property, selling to other museums making it wire fraud, and then keeping the money from museums as money laundering. These make zero sense on why this happened to me, so it really caught me off guard when they said that in the documentary. I didn't think this was a criminal offense, so that's probably why it caught me so off guard. 

The question that kept popping up after is why did the government get so involved. It's a huge thing for mankind to find a T-rex of this size and to be able to preserve it. Why take it away so it can’t be researched or looked at? Why charge these innocent unknowing paleontologists with crimes that are not necessary? I don't get why the government did what they did, and it makes me angry. I didn’t think I would care as much as I did but it irritated me, it was very unnecessary and it didn't need to happen. Finally, If we put research in the summaries it takes away from the documentary. The summary is on the documentary not on outside information, so doing so takes away from the documentary we give the summary on. The Documentary was overall really interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.

Micro Theme

My Micro theme is in regards to the act of littering.

I have caught myself littering by throwing small pieces of trash out my car window or on the ground. I can assume others have done something similar or even the same things I have. For me personally I have caught myself committing the act of littering because I was simply just trying to throw away the piece of trash I had. I didn’t want it in my car and I rolled down my window and threw it out. Other times I have caught myself leaving stuff in my car causing it to pile up. But what causes us to go and throw trash out on the ground and litter?

    When we think of trash and throw it away, there needs to be a place for us to throw it away. Now I know people normally don't try to or have malicious intentions to litter wherever and whenever. But we need to see the causes of littering, where does it start/or happen. If someone is driving they may not think to stop and throw something away. This may be a reason that there is littering and why it's so common. Another reason may be that some people don’t care if they litter. It may not cross their mind, and may not affect them in any way.

If we could understand the question, what causes us to go and throw trash out on the ground and litter? We could find out why we do it as humans. It may be because we do it mindlessly or that we don't care when we do it. Most people don’t know much about the climate and the importance of keeping our earth clean. I know I can always learn more about the effects of littering, but I want to start to fix the problem from the causes of it. The mindless littering we see and do almost every day. 

Brainstorming and the Importance of Retaining Information

     When it comes to learning you think of retaining information for a test or class you are taking. This information you learn normally gets forgotten or pushed aside after the test or class is over. After reading chapter two I found out that there is a name for this action, called the “banking method”. This method was opposed by South American educator Paulo Freire, Paulo wanted his students to be problematizers instead of memorizers. He claimed that the students were just memorizing the information using the banking method, and then forgetting it after the test. This means in reality they didn't learn anything, they just spit out the information given. Now this was interesting to me because I have done the banking method before, mostly in classes that were not as important and ones that I was not interested in. Knowing this is a common thing that happens and it makes you think about what you are learning. Are you learning the information? Or are you just memorizing it? 

Moving throughout the chapter I also read about exploratory strategies to generate and deepen ideas. There were some ideas that I have done without even knowing I was doing them. The first one is Talking, this means you let your ideas sit in your mind/subconscious and go do something else. You can go for a walk, take a nap, stare out the window, or take time off for recreation or other tasks. This helps your mind think about the idea but not put all your focus and energy into it. Another one I have done is Dialect conversation, which is having conversations about the topics. Whether its discussion boards, or having a conversation with a friend, both help ideas flow and bounce back and forth between people. This helps see different perspectives and views that you may not have seen before. 

Now the big connection I made, freewriting. Freewriting has been a huge part of our class, every morning we write about a random topic. Freewriting is a great way to explore and think about a topic. It helps bring in new views and ideas, and it keeps your mind working constantly. Free writing is defined as nonstop writing or silent, sustained writing, asking you to record your thinking directly. Another part of freewriting is focused freewriting which is more towards a specific topic or point. It makes you stick onto a topic and become more focused in, while still doing the process of freewriting. We have done some of these in class, and they are a great way to see new views and ideas on a specific topic.