Unit 2 Reflection

This short unit ends with you writing an 800-1,000 word reflective essay, answering some questions about yourself, the content (that is, the lenses for seeing post-truth), and the annotation methods we used (marginal, holistic, social). It’s a pretty straightforward assignment that will give me a sense of your understanding and abilities as we move into the second unit.

This is due by the end of the day on Thursday, Feb. 14 and is worth 50 points (half of your grade in this unit).

Here’s how you should approach it:

  1. Create a new Google Doc in your WRT folder. Save it and title it as “Unit 2 Reflection.” Put your name at the top of the document. Choose a 11- or 12-point font that is easy to read. Single space this document.
  2. Paste the questions into the document and italicize each. Enter one line of space between each question and its response. Format your responses as single-spaced plain text (that is, do not italicize your responses). Put two lines of spacing after each response.
  3. As you formulate your responses, quote and cite our content. You might paste in something from our readings, the daily plans, and/or our one student/one question documents. The more specific these reflections are the better. I am not interested in reading fluff that gets you to the minimum word count.
  4. Since there are multiple questions, aim to balance your responses evenly. To obtain a word count for the entire document, go to the Tools menu and select Word Count (or command + shift +C). To get obtain a word count on a specific section of text, highlight that section and do the same thing. Remember that your word count should exclude the words in the questions themselves (214 words).
  5. When you’re done do not share the document with me; however, please make sure it is inside your WRT folder. Otherwise I cannot access it.

Question 1: How have your experiences and background affected your understanding of the concepts we discussed in this first unit? You could take this to mean several different things, and you certainly cannot talk about them all: your familiarity with computers, the internet, social media, or reading online; your politics or relationship with political content; your core truths, beliefs, or spirituality; your understanding of the relationship between facts, sources, and truth; the role of persuasion in your community, etc.

Question 2. In this first unit we approached post-truth from several lenses and keywords: politics/demagoguery, economics/clickbait, American culture/conspiracies, psychology/confirmation bias, and technology/algorithms. How do you see these concepts working separately and together to form this moment many are calling “post-truth”?

Question 3. Discuss one or two concepts from this first unit that you would like to know more about and tell me why.

Question 4: We explored three annotation methods in this unit: marginal, holistic, and social. How would you describe the affordances and limitations of these? How will you use them moving forward?

Question 5: What recommendations do you have for this unit when I teach this class again? Are there aspects of it that you think I should keep? Are there aspects I should consider removing or adjusting?