Blog Post #3: Working In Small Groups

Blog Post #3: How did your understanding of the short stories change during the process of drafting, revising, and working in small groups?

     When working in small groups, we are able to focus on eachother's essays and what each group member is trying to incoorporate into his paper. This proves very useful since this cannot beachomplished in a large class discussion, where more broad and general ideas are discussed. Having two or three other group members critique my work in depth is a great method of strengthening my paper because I am able to see a subject from another person's view point, which, in turn, will lead to new ideas and a stronger, more supported paper.

     For example, when discussing "The Chrysanthemums" in groups, I noticed one of my group members had a very similar point of view on the story as mine. After discussing both of our similiar views, we began stating important supporting facts that could back up our colaborative view point. However, once we began listing our supporting details from the text, we realized that our views on the short story were not as similiar as we first thought. My view point did cover the general idea of my group member, but both views were actually quite different and could be argued in diverse ways with contrasting evidence from the text.

     These small groupings helped clearify my own view points as well as my supporting arguement backing up my supportive evidence. Furthermore, the groups allowed me to build up my paper's defense against other people's views and ideas that may prove my arguement false.