Sherlock Peer Workshop

Overall: I would underline the vocabulary words. This is so that they stand out from
their definitions. By doing this, it would be, in my opinion, easier to read and actually
know where the vocab. words are.
The Relevant Background Information: It is very detailed and sets the stage for
the figured world. I like the way that you explain the shows jargon in order for the
reader to better understand. It was very nice the way you included the original work
in which the show was adapted from, it adds to the purpose of the show.
The Communities of Practice: Scotland Yard is hard for me to understand, as a
person who does not watch the show. Im sure its a group of people by the actors
listed, and it is defined as a community, but I would add a little more detail about
their relationship, intention, or formation as a group to be clear. Their relationship
with Sherlock has good detail and their form of communication is clearly defined.
The Observation: The last observation which is the one at 23 mins has a spelling
error. In the last sentence, when talking about the relationship, the word should not
be there, it should be their. Its because you are talking about two people's
relationship, while the there that you used is to talk about a place/ position.
Vocabulary Terms: The definitions of the vocabulary terms are very detailed and
give a great meaning to the words. From these definitions I learned a lot about what
the words actually mean instead of just the dictionary definitions, which are short
statements that give very broad descriptions of the words. These definitions are very
specific to the assignment instead of using the dictionary definition in the observation
notes. Some dictionary definitions are very vague and dont apply to the context of a
figured world, and you made sure to adapt the definitions to the assignment.
The Observation: In my opinion, the time of the observation should either be bolded
or underlined. Or anything else that will set it apart from the rest of the observation.
With everything else, the vocab. word or the beginning of the other notes, it is bolded
to set it apart from the definition/ example, so why not for the observations?

Abbys Comments:
On Jacobs Assignment
All Background Info: I like the way you set the stage for each individual observation.
It lets the reader know exactly what environment you were experiencing and lets the
reader speculate what activities might be occurring. The details presented is allowing
the reader to view your figured world from your point of view.
Observations: I like that you are very detailed in your observations and the
vocabulary that go along with it. Initially I thought that the Student Union would be a
very exciting place to observe but you couldnt take much content from it, but you did
a great job of identifying the different communities of practice and their surroundings.
It is evident the different activities that occur throughout the different time periods of
the day.
Observations: I noticed that two out of the three observations where observed in the
main lobby and one on the upper level. Have you thought about observing
somewhere else? The Crown Commons are also in the Student Union and I think it

would be interesting maybe to observe the students or faculty that take the elevator.
What kinds of people go to the art museum, if any?
Interview: Who did you interview? It may be beneficial to have a little background
information about the person you are interviewing. Are they a freshman?
Sophomore? To let the reader know what kind of prior knowledge the individual had.
Observations: It seems that most of your observations are of students because that
is what the main population that the Student Union is composed of, but what about
faculty and staff? Do you notice any shift changes or staff answering questions at the
Help Desk? What other people do you notice that are not students?
Observations: You could also take into account certain amenities that are available
at the Student Union and what kind of people are attracted to those amenities and
give your opinion about how they affect the amount of people that go to the Union.
For example, food. Often people go to the union just to eat. Chairs and study areas
can also be a factor that attract many students.

On Victorias Assignment
Relevant Background Information: I would suggest going into more detail about the
game. What do you mean when you say empire? Can you give an example of an
empire? How do you build cities and armies? As a reader with no previous
knowledge of the game, I think explaining the structure of the game can help the
transition into your observations.
Observation: I have noticed that you have used specific jargon pertaining to the
game. It might be beneficial to explain some of those terms. Who is your worker? Is
it an avatar that you have control of? What does 10 turns mean? What is a settler?
Observation Two: I would like to know more about the citizens. You explained that a
scientist was born in your city and you were able to use their expertise to build an
academy, What other abilities can you benefit from the population of your cities?
How big is the role of the citizens in the grand scheme of the game?
Appropriate Rules and Conventions: This portion is very detailed and shows your
extensive knowledge about your figured world. I like that you recognized that the
conventions change with each situation and may not be the same every time you
play the game. You also took into account the emotions of the other players and how
that might affect your decisions which was a great addition.
Vocabulary: It really seems that you understood the vocabulary words. I like that you
were able to pinpoint different emotions and communities within a video game. It
was very helpful that you explained elements from inside the game and elements
that affected the game in the real world.
On Emilys Assignment
Synopsis and Figured World: These two elements of your paper are very thorough
and leaves me with no questions on how the game is played. You did a great job
explaining the various motives of the players and the communities of practice. This
reflects your complex understanding of the game.
Observation: I would like to know more about the HOH room and the house in
general. Why is the HOH so special? Where is the game taking place and where is
the house located? I think this would add to the already well descriptive setting.
Literacy Practices: I think you could add more examples of literacy practices. Your
definition included verbal and nonverbal ways people interact, so what are some
nonverbal ways? It could body language or the way one alliance treats the other.

Practices of the Community: I wish you could have given me more examples. What
about when the alliances meet to plot their next move? That could be an extended
period of time in which they have to interact.
Domain: I wish you could have given more examples. Could each challenge be a
domain because depending on the results of challenge it could bring the group
closer? Do the participants do any other activities other than partaking the BOB
competition? For example, do they go out at night to a restaurant or club? This could
be a domain because it is an activity that brings them closer as a group.

Emilys Comments
On Jacobs Assignment:
Actors: The way you inferred the priorities of the DJs by their actions was really
insightful. I liked that I could picture what the two of them were doing and it was
evident that they were each in charge of specific tasks. Your description of the two
DJs made the hierarchy of the situation very clear and let the reader know how the
situation played out.
Domain: I would expand your domain topics a little more. You could add answers to
questions like, what is the goal of the domain? Why? How do they accomplish this
goal? How does this environment allow for learning or growth? Or you could expand
your domains by explaining how the audience shows excitement, what kind of music
gains a response or high level of excitement, or how people cut through or socialize.
Rules and Conventions/Observation 1: On what day did you observe this? I would
think loud music would be a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday event, or it could possibly
occur in the afternoon to evening on weekdays. If this is true, it could be added to
your Rules and Conventions in the beginning and then when it would reappear, your
reader could relate it back to what theyve read previously. It could also help in
establishing that loud music or shouting is not appropriate within specific time
frames.
Artifacts: Your artifacts in your second observation show great perception. Ear buds
and laptops are a great tool to show people that you do not want to socialize and
they block out all outstanding noise from the other students. Friendliness, and an
overall positive environment in general, is a good artifact to take notice of because it
attracts people to stop into the Student Union in the first place.
Literary Practices (Observation 3): The writing out signs about what youre
interested in left me a little confused because I have never witnessed this. I know
you addressed why they were doing this in your observation, but initially reading it, it
appeared very confusing. You could add what was on the board and the purpose in
the this section too so the reader can get a visual picture before, and while, the
observation is taking place.
On Victorias Assignment:
Artifacts: Your luxury goods are defined very well. The examples you used really
help to reiterate the setting of the game. I think if you add examples of ruins and

natural wonders, it will really help define why these artifacts are important and what
kind of setting you are in.
Observation: You mention a happiness level several times throughout your
observations and in one of your communities of practice, saying its at 4 and 15.
What level is a good level to reach and maintain? Do you obtain happiness through
artifacts, etc? I think you could expand this information in your Relevant Background
Information or in your individual observations so the reader has a clearer picture on
what a happiness level is and how it pertains to the game.
Practices of the Community: I think you should expand your practices of the
community to ensure people understand what is happening in the game. For
example, what resources allow communities to explore the land? How do
communities conquer the world? Do these activities require experience? What do
they gain you in the game? Explaining these topics will help the reader realize what
is valued in your game and what interactions are significant to the game and actors.
Interview: Some of the questions and answers in your interview really allow me to
understand the game a lot better. For example, the observed behaviors allowed me
to start thinking of empires that had these type of governments. In addition, the
approved and frowned upon behavior was really helpful; it matched up fairly well with
your Rules and Conventions.
Actors: Your actors are defined well. You designated their relationship with artifacts,
goals, and role within the game clearly. I like that you considered timing within the
game and the reward of using the actors. For example, you said the Barbarians take
longer to defeat, yet provide you with gold, while city-states provide you with luxury
good.

On Abbys Assignment:
Communities of Practice: John and Toby are not clearly defined in the Switched at
Birth Family. It says they are directly affected by the switch, so you could mention
their relationship to the Kennishs or Vasquezs in this section or their relationship to
a specific character in the actors section. I was intrigued to find out who John and
Toby were and think that by specifying their role/relationship in the show initially, it
would be extremely helpful in the observations and when mentioned in your other
examples (like, domain).
Interview: Your interview is extremely insightful. Having watched the show, I think
that you portrayed Daphne very well; her answers to specific questions were very
important and allowed for the reader to get to know her better. For example, when
asked how she deals with difficult communicative situations, the reader really gets to
see what a struggle it is to be hearing-impaired and how Daphne, and everyone
around her, must feel when faced with these challenges.
Artifact: I think expanding your Comfortableness artifact would be beneficial. For
example, you could start off by saying that the idea of being comfortable drives
decisions throughout the show and then mention what caused people to be so
focused on being comfortable. Is it because the switch is a sensitive topic? Or are
the families still adjusting to one another and dont want to step on each others toes?
I think this would lead into your examples at the end very well; the examples are very
helpful and support the idea of being comfortable so I would keep those in your
statement.

Practices of the Community: Your Investing the Switch is a great way of relating the
doctors and nurses; I also think that you could include the Kennishs and Vasquezs
relationship in this community of practice. By researching and investigating as a
family, what kind of relationships and interactions are formed? Does it change the
way they interact or view each other? Do they come together as a united front or
does the investigation prove to split the families apart even more? I think adding this
aspect of investigating the switch would really show how important this practice is to
the community.
Relevant Background Information & Figured World: Your background information
and rules and conventions for your figured world are extremely detailed. I like that
you included what the characters do instead of talking: video chatting, using flashing
lights, etc. You clearly defined what is inappropriate behavior, which is extremely
important to the show due to the sensitive topic, and the entire paragraph
demonstrates you have an interest in this topic and know the show well.

Victorias Comments:
On Jacobs Assignment:
Interview:
o The way you have your interview questions and answers a different color is
really good. By doing it like that, it is easy to distinguish between them. It also
made it easy to find in the assignment since it is the only thing that is like that.

Interview:
o While it is nice that the interview questions and answers are a different color,
it hurts to read. No because of the color change, but because of the actual
color you used. The red is a bit bright, and it hurts to look at for very long. If it
was any other color, even a duller red, it would work much better.

Summary of Rules and Conventions:

o I like the way you organized the summary of the rules and conventions. You
specifically pur conventions first, then rules. It is very easy to understand this
way and I knew exactly what you thought was what. It also made it easier for
me as the reader to understand a little bit, the differences between rules and
conventions.

Observation Two Background Info and Actors (as well as the other topics):
o I like the way you had background information and actors listed for every
observation. It did not occur to me that there would be much different with
different observations of the same figured world in these two areas. Now,
however, I see that there is. It also allows for me to understand better the
figured world and what goes on at different times.

Definitions of Terms (Artifacts):

o This is a pretty good definition. While it is short, it still conveys the meaning. It
is to the point and doesnt have a lot of fluff that can confuse somebody
reading it.

Definitions of Terms (Actors):

I feel that there is more said in this definition than there needs to be. I think
this especially because of the way the other definitions are, they are all to the
point and explain the word well. Yet, for the term actors, you felt the need to
expand and say about where you put the actors in the assignment and about
how some people might notice different actors than you. Overall, there is just
some info in that definition that I dont think is needed.

Interview:
o You chose really good questions to get across what the rules and
conventions of your figured world are. The questions themselves are simple,
which is always good, especially since it is then easy to understand. The
questions and answers together just further increases my understanding of
how things are in your figured world.

On Emilys Assignment:
Actors:
o This is a very good definition and explanation of actors. The definition
explains what actors are pretty well. Also, I like how you said that you only put
the actors that are actually important to the show and not the others. Itll be
much easier to understand what is going on in the observations now when a
name is mentioned that wasnt talked about before.
Observations:
o I like how you labeled the beginning of every episode with the number of the
episode. By doing this, its not confusing going from one observation to the
other. If you hadnt done that, I would most likely have been pretty confused
as to what was going on. As well as wondering where the people from
previous observations went.
Synopsis of the Game:
o I found the description a little confusing and hard to follow. The way
everything was worded was confusing and it seems like you were trying to
explain it in as few words as possible. I think that you should expand the
explanation a tad bit more and go into more detail for each part to make it
easier to understand.
Figured World (The Big Brother House):
o The description for the Big Brother House was extremely descriptive. Really,
really descriptive, which was awesome. It was well worded and had a lot of
information but not too much to where I, (as the reader), felt overwhelmed.
Thanks to the description, I was easily able to understand more about the
observation and know what was going on because I understood what the Big
Brother House actually was.
Actors (Frankie):
o While describing Frankie the term social game was used a few times. Could
you explain what social game is in that description? lso, how can social game
be too strong? Is it something that everyone has? Kind of like
competitiveness?
On Abbys Assignment:
Relevant Background Information:

I feel like there is not much information here. For something to be titled
Relevant Background Information, it should have a little bit more detail than
what you have. Theres just not much there, so we really have no idea what
you are talking about with it. Like, what the show is based on, what the main
plot is, not just the setting/ actors in it, but what is actually going on.
Figured World (ABC Family television show):
o In this paragraph, you mentioned that the actors are deaf and have to use
sign language. However, you did not say which actors. I understand that they
will all have to use sign language to communicate, but are they all actually
deaf? Or is it just one of the main actors? That information would be nice to
know.
Actors Definition:
o I really like this definition, while it is short, it clearly explains the word. Also, it
is good how you wrote in with the definition that you only listed the most
important actors. This way, nobody will get confused when a name is listed in
an observation that wasnt on the actor list.
Overall:
o Im not sure if this is just something that happened when you switched the
document over to the google doc, but this assignment is in very small font.
The small font makes it a bit hard to read and it is straining my eyes as a
reader. If I didnt have to do this, I would stop reading it due to the small font.
Artifact (The Switch):
o I understand how this artifact is important due to your explanation on how it is
the reason for most of the emotion going on throughout the observations,
however, what is the switch? It would be nice if you could go into more detail
about it. For someone who has never seen the show, the observation would
be much easier to understand if I knew what these artifacts actually were.
Communities of Practice (The Switched at Birth Family):
o Your explanation of this is very good. From the detail, I can really understand
how the people are connected. I also like how you said they communicated.
Most would have said that they speak to each other or something along those
lines, but you actually listed some emotions and feelings that they use to
communicate, this gives a clearer understanding of how the actors feel about
each other.
Jacobs Comments
On Emilys Assignment:
Synopsis of the Game:
o This paragraph gave me a very good understanding about what would take
place in the show. I think that this was necessary to understand what was
taking place later in the observations. Without this synopsis I feel like I
wouldve been confused about what was happening later on in the paper.
Actors:
o What makes the actors you chose important? I think that it would make more
sense to say why you thought they were important in the definition of actors.
It might confuse a reader as to why you chose those four actors over the
others.
Observations:
o Your observations are very detailed. They offer a very good explanation of
what went on in the episode. They show how the actors change over the

course of the season. They also give a very good understanding about how
the rules and conventions change.
Interview:
o I think that the interview could be better. I think that you could ask questions
that entice a longer, more thought out answer. You could also ask someone
who has very strong feelings about the show so they could go on and on
about it. The interview could give a lot of information about what people think
about the show.
Practices of the Community:
o I think that adding one or two more practices of the community to the paper
would make this paper even better. If you add more practices, you can give
more detail to how the communities work together. You can alsotalk about
how the different communities have different practices to get rid of the others.
On Abbys Assignment:
Literary Practices:
o I am sure that sign language is a very big part of the show, but I doubt that it
is the only important way to communicate. You mentioned in your description
of the figured world that deaf people would sometimes have to lip read and
that they had flashing lights instead of doorbells. Those are just two other
ways of communicating that I found in your paper. I am sure you can find
much more than just the one literary practice.
Observations:
o Your observations are a little too short. I think that you could add a lot more
detail in order to give a better description of what is going on in the show and
how the show relates to all of the terms. I also think that more detail about the
show would make the reader be more interested in the show and, in turn, be
more interested in the deaf community as a whole.
Relevant Background Information:
o I think that it would be better to have relevant background information before
each observation. I think this would be better because you could set the stage
for each individual observation. This would give you the chance to give even
more detail to your observations. The more detail, the better the paper, and
the better the paper, the better your grade will be.
Actors:
o The descriptions you gave for your actors were very detailed and gave a
great understanding about who they were and how they fit into the show.
They make it so that you understand how the two families fit together and
which daughter belongs to which family. The descriptions also show how both
of the families are so different and they give you an idea of how much the
families are going to have to change to adapt to the situation.
Figured World:
o Your description of the figured world was very detailed. I was able to learn a
lot about the show from it. I like that you described a lot of different ways that
living with a hearing impairment can be different from living with good
hearing. I also liked the rules and conventions that you stated in the
paragraph. I feel like these rules and conventions could be applied to how
you should act around hearing impaired people in real life.
On Victorias Assignment:
Definitions :

Your definitions are a little too short. If your definitions are too short the
reader will not gain enough information from them and they may be confused
and not be able to understand the paper. I would suggest adding a little bit
more detail to your definitions. However, if you have long definitions that go
into too much detail the reader will get bored reading them and will, in turn,
get bored reading the paper. Therefore, I suggest that the definitions go into a
little more detail than yours.
Domain:
o Since you have more than one communtiy of practice, it would make sense
that there would be more than one domain. I think that it would give the
reader a better understanding of what exactly a domain is if you could
connect both communities of practice to a specific domain. I am sure that the
city-states and rebels had different domains, so I think that you should add
another domain for the city-states.
Interview:
o Your interview questions brought together a lot of the rules and conventions
that you listed in your 250-word paragraph at the beginning of the paper.
They gave a way to back up the rules and conventions with another persons
descriptions of them. They also helped gain an understanding of how
important communication is in the game.
Appropriate Behavior/ Rules and Conventions:
o Your paragraph went into great detail about what the outcomes were of violating
the rules and conventions. I also thought it was good that you were able to
recognize that the rules and conventions changed when the situation changes. In
almost all figured worlds the rules and conventions change based on the
circumstances of the place and time. I also thought it was good that you included
how certain things could be considered good or bad and what might come of your
decisions.
Actors
o I like that you chose a lot of actors to describe that would stay constant
throughout all of the observations. Since you did choose constant actors, it would
be easy to connect the different observations. However, I feel that you could have
gone into more detail about how each of the actors will make a difference in how
you play the game. If they are your opponent, what kinds of things could they do
to combat you and how could you react to those actions? These kinds of things
would help to understand the game a little more before starting to read the paper.