Refection on Christo's Valley Curtain

After turning in my final copy of a summary on Christo's Valley Curtain, I realized a couple things about my writing.  It was difficult at first to not put in my opinion and to not do outside research.  I kept wanting to add my thoughts in it and I had to keep going back and changing it trying to catch it as I went along.  I also noticed that I switch back and forth between past and present tense when I am trying to get an idea across.  For this paper I wrote it in present tense but saw myself switching to past and every time I read it I would notice another one that was in the wrong tense.  I am glad that I was able to catch it and watch out for it with my future papers that I will be writing.  Not using any information other that the film was a little difficult at first because I kept wanting to go and find other information instead of only using the information given to me.  However, I liked that we got to watch the film and write on that instead of reading something and having to summarize that.  Since I feel that I am more of a visual learner.  Peer review helped me to not only get feedback on my own paper but to also get different ideas from other papers that I read to help make my paper stronger.  On my own time, I watched the film again and saw different details that I did not notice the first time that I was watching it.  Being able to watch it as many times as I needed I thought was very helpful and made sure that I had all the information correct and I was not just going off my memory and saying I think this happened next or I think they said this.  

Rhetorical knowledge

Writing the summary in chronological order was helpful to do.  Even though it switches from Christo in his studio to the construction site, it is easy to follow along.  Especially when telling what is going on without using outside information and opinions. The paragraphs are separated by a new scene that is occurring in the film.  

Critical and creative thinking 

I realized in this paper more than others that I have written that it was a little more difficult to not add my own opinions in it.  I always want to add either my opinion or how I think a character is feeling at that moment.  Throughout this summary, I kept noticing that I wanted to tell how the characters were, however, I did not know those details unless they were told.  I did not know for sure if that is truly how they felt or not.  

Genre knowledge 

For this summary, we were not able to use information that was not given in the film.  I had to use only what I could see was happening and do my best to describe it.  This was difficult at times and really pushed me to pay closer attention to what the film was showing me.  Also to listen and watch the little details because some of them can make a big difference in the summary. 

Mechanical knowledge

The summary had to be double spaced and my Microsoft Word had different settings than it was supposed to be.  I never noticed it before it was pointed out in class that we had to make sure the settings were all correct and to not just go off of the default settings.  It might not seem like a big deal if the spacing is off, however, if it has to be in MLA the spacing is not considered correct.  My spacing was incorrect and was adding an extra space in between my lines and paragraphs that I was able to fix by it being brought up in class.