Follow A Student: Paper Two

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For the second paper, the student was aksed to write about "knowledge" in the knowledge societies of both Pollan and Drucker. Here's the introduction:

   In Peter Drucker's essay, "The Age of Social Transformation," he outlines his ideal working "knowledge society." The structures and inner workings of this society are based on his predictions of all future free market economies. The central trend he bases this prediction on is that knowledge, in the limited sense of the industrially applicable research and technology, will outweigh land, labor, and capital as a central economic resource. In Michael Pollan's essay, 'Playing God in the Garden," he investigates the operation of a genetic engineering corporation named Monsanto who claim that their genetically altered seeds are their "intellectual property." In observing Monsanto's interaction with the farming industry, the government, and the public, Pollan notices many of the same barriers to a working society that Drucker seeks to resolve in his knowledge society. Both Drucker and Pollan articulate the potential for industrial use of knowledge to be destructive towards cultural and traditional knowledge and threatening to social cohesion, governmental effectiveness, and the quality of education.

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This was again a passing paper, and one that did even better than the first. Here's what the instructor had to say in her or his end comments:

A strong essay—much-improved over the first draft; I know you struggled a bit with it initially, but this proves that given time to think things out and make successful corrections, positives result. There are areas where you seem to wander a bit—areas that could use more support by discussing P's + D's knowledge societies. Overall, I'm very pleased with this, and it shows a high level of analytical sophistication and thought.

The comments again mention the student's success with the drafting process, but what's also highlighted is the student's use of "successful connections." Rather than simply being "in conversation," the student is now able to develop that conversational model to include another essay, Drucker.

Third papers, since they ask students to work with three essays at once, can be tricky. Let's see how this student did.

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