Cluster of My Controversy
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| Sergio L.A. {148/365} breakfast for champions.... 4/28/09 via flickr. Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic License. |
In this blog post, I am going to explain what I did in my cluster in further explore my healthy lunch program controversy. The link to my cluster is embedded into the title above. On a much lighter note, I chose to insert a picture is of a man holding a box of Honey Bunches of Oats because there are many honey CLUSTERS in the cereal :)
In my cluster, I started with the main people and speakers involved, and I added the specific issues in the controversies. After finding connections between the issues and multiple speakers, I was able to assess the effects these issues had on a more widespread view. Single issues, such as, obesity, were related to other issues like food waste. Due to my controversies involvement of many people that are intertwined, I realized that the issues are caused by more than one situation; if resolved, the controversy will no longer be as widespread as it is now.
Reflection
Austin See's blog post was similar to mine because we both used powerful words for our cluster maps as opposed to writing full detailed sentences. This method is good because it allows you to brainstorm more, and you are not limited what is in the cluster. This step is meaningful because it is a great way to plan all of your ideas and connect them. Without cluster maps, the connections between my articles would only be jumbled in my head, but now they are written on paper.
Lia Ossanna's blog post had some similarities and differences compared to my own cluster map. Lia's illustrated more details in her controversy and some statistics. All I had said was that something increased or decreased. I trust that we both wrote these differently because that is just the differences in our writing styles. My method is useful because I can refer back to my texts and look for a broader idea and take it in a different direction. Lia's tended to look more structured because of the greater amount of detail, but she will not have to look back as much to her sources as I do due to the info all being on the cluster map.
Your cluster has a lot of information in it - a lot more bubbles than mine, too. It's pretty informative, and there are a huge amount of connections. Google Draw was a pretty smart choice to crank it out, but it is a bit complex.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to read through your cluster chart, Stef. It was done much differently than I did mine so it was cool to see how different ways of creating a cluster chart work for different people. I usually need more information to be written down in order to remember each part but maybe I should try your approach and see if it works better for me. The different connections you could make are really important I think because often it's easiest to just release two things to one another but nothing beyond that. By making a bunch of different connections it will probably be easier for you to do your writing. One question is how do you keep track of the main groups and then how they are differentiated?
ReplyDeleteI tried separating the main groups into different bubbles. However, there are many connections between the groups so it was hard for me to completely separate them. There are not two concrete opposing sides. There are basically just a bunch of people (parents, nutritionists, schools) opposing Michelle Obama's National School Lunch Program. Overtime, everyone gets used to it through the exposure of the healthy food, and the controversy is not as strictly defined anymore. Children start enjoying the healthy food, throwing out less, and there was a decrease in childhood obesity. In the end, the controversy is not 100% resolved because because there is still food waste, there is still childhood obesity, and children are still not totally happy with healthier food options. It has only improved. With this improvement, I feel like it is hard for me to back track and make super distinct differences between them. Personally, looking back at my cluster map helps me remember everything that has occurred, and I just go about it from there. Most of the articles repeated information that I looked at so it is pretty drilled into my head.
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