Group Project

I thought I would share my reflections on the group paper in a blog post.  I would have to say, that while the group experience was largely quite positive throughout this project, I still hate group papers.   They are a good exercise in working together and synthesizing ideas, but it is difficult to combine everyone's opinions and ideas in one, cohesive paper.  Our group combated these difficulties by meeting together to write the paper, and hashing out ideas and sentences while one person typed them out.   This way, we didn't have the difficulty of trying to piece together vastly different writing styles and opinions, but it was a very cumbersome, slow process.   Luckily, we had some grilled cheese bought from the cycling club to keep us going!   Overall, I think the group Putnam paper was interesting because it definitely got us talking together about modern-day ramifications of what we had been talking in class.  We had some really interesting discussions while writing the paper and trying to put together some vastly different opinions in the group!  But I am not sure if the same effect couldn't be achieved in small group discussions...I guess my jury continues to be out on the concept of group papers.