Spring 2020
Information Synthesis Level 2-4
Information Synthesis Level 2-4
During the spring semester of 2020, I took HONR 401: Performance and Social Justice. This class helped me learn more about racial injustice in the United States through research, reflection, and performance. A few assignments we completed in this class included journal entries, a difficult moment essay, a case study on a racial issue in Minnesota, and a final performance video. We also participated in classroom discussions that helped me gain new perspectives and opened my eyes to various issues I had never thought of before. I’m thankful I took this course because it taught me a lot about the intersectionality of race, class, education, and so much more.
For our project, we learned from various sources about different perspectives concerning racial relations in the United States in order to synthesize our research (Research, Information Synthesis Level 2). In this class, through my case study and our performance, I was able to practice evaluating and synthesizing diverse perspectives concerning this project. When I was gathering material for my case study, I gathered information from a variety of sources and different types of media. In order to help me understand my topic more, it was helpful to analyze photos from the events, maps to help visualize the area, interviews of people who were affected, news stories during and after the event, and other such materials. A strategy that was helpful for me to evaluate and synthesize this information was trying to make connections between the various pieces and sources of information that I gathered. Once I found an old map, I compared it to a photo of the neighborhood, and then to an article describing that area. By making those connections, I was able to gain a better and broader understanding of our topic. When concerning racial issues, there are many different perspectives, opinions, and points of intersectionality that are important to examine and take into account. Aiming to understand all of the diverse perspectives on a topic will help to find genuine and accurate research findings. This part of the research process was especially challenging for me because there was a lot of overwhelming information that I was just learning about. While it would be impossible to include every piece of information about racial issues in the United States, we had to work to figure out what pieces were most important to include and what parts we didn’t need to focus on. I will be able to apply the knowledge of synthesizing information and perspectives when I conduct research in my future career. This experience helped me to understand that it is important to pay attention to a variety of information and ideas in order to be able to make conclusions.
By combining various materials and information, we were able to communicate our research objective (Information Synthesis Level 3). Near the end of the semester, after we had finished researching our case studies and had gone through the majority of our learning from the journal prompts, our class came together to figure out the best way we could create a performance that promoted social change and increased awareness about racial injustice in Minnesota by disrupting the typical narrative. In order to do this, our class broke down the story we wanted to tell in five parts and then individually used a variety of sources and methods to present our thesis. Our research object was to create a video performance that would increase audience awareness of racial violence in Minnesota by disrupting historical narratives, and ultimately motivating viewers to participate in social change action. In my video, I layered audio from our current time with documents and pictures from the founding of our government. I also layered text showcasing keywords from my audio clips as well as showing maps or charts of the information I was presenting. Our performances aimed to synthesis sources in an intertextual format that would layer images, text, videos, and audio in order to make a stronger impact on our audience. I learned that by putting together your research in a way that it can easily be communicated and explained to others not only helps other learn from your work, but it also helps to more cohesively allow you to understand and summarize your findings. When conducting research in the future, I will be cognizant of creating a hypothesis that is drawn from multiple sources. I will continue to practice this skill because I know that I still struggle to create specific goals or hypothesis’ whenever I start a project, which can impact the effectiveness of how my projected is communicated.
By using an intertextual format to present our project, we were able to combine information to form realizations and provide new perspectives about race in the United States (Information Synthesis Level 4). Reflecting on my performance video, I can easily see how synthesizing and using an intertextual format can help to not only learn more about a topic but can also present new knowledge or understandings about a topic. If we wouldn’t have synthesized our information, we wouldn’t have been able to make new realizations or point out things that were hidden before. Combing information together in a new way helps to make different realizations and can provide different perspectives. In my performance video, I combined an audio clip of Barack Obama reading the Declaration of Independence with a photo of the original document. Right after that, I added an audio clip from a podcast helping to introduce the flaw of the start of our nation and how our founders stated that “all men are created equal,” yet still owned slaves themselves. By integrating the varied material, I was able to create a different story that would not have been understood by just listening or looking at one of the individual materials. By synthesizing materials and ideas, I was able to create a more cohesive understanding of the various viewpoints of my topic and provided insights to new understandings, and I hopefully helped my audience do so as well. Before conducting research, I didn’t understand how valuable combing sources and information was in order to gain new knowledge. In the future, I will aim to synthesize information in order to gain new perspectives when I work on projects in my career.
By combining various materials and information, we were able to communicate our research objective (Information Synthesis Level 3). Near the end of the semester, after we had finished researching our case studies and had gone through the majority of our learning from the journal prompts, our class came together to figure out the best way we could create a performance that promoted social change and increased awareness about racial injustice in Minnesota by disrupting the typical narrative. In order to do this, our class broke down the story we wanted to tell in five parts and then individually used a variety of sources and methods to present our thesis. Our research object was to create a video performance that would increase audience awareness of racial violence in Minnesota by disrupting historical narratives, and ultimately motivating viewers to participate in social change action. In my video, I layered audio from our current time with documents and pictures from the founding of our government. I also layered text showcasing keywords from my audio clips as well as showing maps or charts of the information I was presenting. Our performances aimed to synthesis sources in an intertextual format that would layer images, text, videos, and audio in order to make a stronger impact on our audience. I learned that by putting together your research in a way that it can easily be communicated and explained to others not only helps other learn from your work, but it also helps to more cohesively allow you to understand and summarize your findings. When conducting research in the future, I will be cognizant of creating a hypothesis that is drawn from multiple sources. I will continue to practice this skill because I know that I still struggle to create specific goals or hypothesis’ whenever I start a project, which can impact the effectiveness of how my projected is communicated.
By using an intertextual format to present our project, we were able to combine information to form realizations and provide new perspectives about race in the United States (Information Synthesis Level 4). Reflecting on my performance video, I can easily see how synthesizing and using an intertextual format can help to not only learn more about a topic but can also present new knowledge or understandings about a topic. If we wouldn’t have synthesized our information, we wouldn’t have been able to make new realizations or point out things that were hidden before. Combing information together in a new way helps to make different realizations and can provide different perspectives. In my performance video, I combined an audio clip of Barack Obama reading the Declaration of Independence with a photo of the original document. Right after that, I added an audio clip from a podcast helping to introduce the flaw of the start of our nation and how our founders stated that “all men are created equal,” yet still owned slaves themselves. By integrating the varied material, I was able to create a different story that would not have been understood by just listening or looking at one of the individual materials. By synthesizing materials and ideas, I was able to create a more cohesive understanding of the various viewpoints of my topic and provided insights to new understandings, and I hopefully helped my audience do so as well. Before conducting research, I didn’t understand how valuable combing sources and information was in order to gain new knowledge. In the future, I will aim to synthesize information in order to gain new perspectives when I work on projects in my career.
Research Artifact #2, 2019-2020
This is my final video that I created for my class. The goal was to disrupt the narrative about race in America and increase awareness.