TOK Title #4

[Cowpuna]

I had some questions on the TOK title #4 for May 2015, I finished the essay and then talked to other people who did the same title, and we all got confused. Now I'm worried whether I even did my essay the right way or not.

So the prompt for the title is: With reference to two areas of knowledge discuss the way in which shared knowledge can shape personal knowledge.

I hope you guys can help me out with these questions!

1) In the title, they say discuss "the way". I assumed they meant a WOK, but others said it doesn't have to mean a WOK. Also, if they meant WOK, does that mean I should only use one (since way is singular?) or if I am allowed to use other WOKs (especially for counterclaims?). I personally only used one WOK throughout my essay.

2) I was wondering on how to structure the counterclaims themselves. I personally thought that 'personal knowledge shaping shared knowledge' would be a counterclaim, and used it on my essay, but many others said the only counterclaim is just 'shared knowledge cannot shape shared knowledge'. really confused on this.

3) Since we talk a lot on personal knowledge, I use many personal examples, to convey how my personal knowledge was shaped by shared. I'm not sure whether this essay should have a lot of examples or not, i basically used examples to prove my arguments, but there were more examples than abstract thinking. not sure at all what to do about this.

I talked to my TOK teacher on my essay, he said it should be okay, but he also warned me that since this is a new curriculum/rubric, they don't have any essay to base mine off, so he's unsure. I'm really worried now, since I have no idea whether I should revise my essay completely, change it a little, or not touch it. Just for extra info, my two AOKs were History and Religion, my only WOK was language.

Thanks guys.