My earliest memory of learning to read was sitting on my uncle's lap and reciting the story of Cinderella, turning the pages as the words ended, but fooling him into believing that I was actually reading it when I had memorized it. He was in awe of my ability to read at the age of four and I was so proud. I began having my mom read to me the same stories over and over again so I could memorize them, to trick more people, to become the awesome child. As an adult I realize that this was a way to learn how to read because I was memorizing what the words looked like, too.
However, my next memory of big moments in reading was the series of Anne of Green Gables, in which the main character is highly dramatic and thus began my diva nature and performance tendencies in storytelling. Other influences were my mother always reading romance novels that I was not allowed to see the pages of because once I'd asked what "quivering loins" were, and auto mechanic books because that's all my father read and in order to be close to him wanted an understanding of his vocabulary to have dialogue with him.
So when I began writing poems in high school about how sex was like engines, that oils are checked and filters are necessary, revving the engine in park is like foreplay, and going too fast is dangerous, no one else understood that the romance and mechanic books had led to my detentions. I was just making accurate metaphors that no one appreciated. Until now.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Malcolm X IWA
"Learning to Read"
Summary:
In Malcolm X's "Learning to Read," he writes about being in prison and learning how to read and understand text. He began by writing out the dictionary, section by section, and studying the words. Once he knew enough words to begin reading text, he read everything empowering to his race that he could find. He was like a sponge and could not stop the thirst for knowledge about his people's history and theories about oppression. While Malcolm became powerful in his knowledge and beliefs, he also influenced others to take hold of their own power and education.
Before You Read:
Start a conversation with friends, roommates, family or classmates about whether and how "knowledge is power."
I started a conversation with friends from Southern Ohio about the concept that knowledge is power and we all agreed that it is powerful in three different ways in our personal culture: one, it has supplied me and my friends with the understanding of why our area is poor, two, we know we have the ability to leave the area to survive, and three, we understand the want to stay to empower others. Knowledge, in our conversation, equals a lot of life-changing power.
QDJ:
Who seems to be Malcolm X's intended audience? How do you know?
His intended audience is two-fold: I believe it to be those who question Malcolm's education and young black people who he wishes to inspire to by telling them of their past and how to change things.
I know this because of his comments about how his education was better than any college (to build credibility) and then the subject matter is enticing to those who do not know what he speaks of.
AEI:
I would tell a person learning to read to use a Kindle. You can choose electronic books that you are interested in based on a subject, a lot of books are now free, and it has a dictionary feature that lets you highlight any word for an instant definition.
MM:
I think my professor would say that the most important part of the text is to acknowledge the different sponsors people have for literacy and that Malcolm X had an open literacy as far as choice of what he read, but a limited based on what influenced him to read what text. He was limited by hatred and influenced by history. I would agree.
Summary:
In Malcolm X's "Learning to Read," he writes about being in prison and learning how to read and understand text. He began by writing out the dictionary, section by section, and studying the words. Once he knew enough words to begin reading text, he read everything empowering to his race that he could find. He was like a sponge and could not stop the thirst for knowledge about his people's history and theories about oppression. While Malcolm became powerful in his knowledge and beliefs, he also influenced others to take hold of their own power and education.
Before You Read:
Start a conversation with friends, roommates, family or classmates about whether and how "knowledge is power."
I started a conversation with friends from Southern Ohio about the concept that knowledge is power and we all agreed that it is powerful in three different ways in our personal culture: one, it has supplied me and my friends with the understanding of why our area is poor, two, we know we have the ability to leave the area to survive, and three, we understand the want to stay to empower others. Knowledge, in our conversation, equals a lot of life-changing power.
QDJ:
Who seems to be Malcolm X's intended audience? How do you know?
His intended audience is two-fold: I believe it to be those who question Malcolm's education and young black people who he wishes to inspire to by telling them of their past and how to change things.
I know this because of his comments about how his education was better than any college (to build credibility) and then the subject matter is enticing to those who do not know what he speaks of.
AEI:
I would tell a person learning to read to use a Kindle. You can choose electronic books that you are interested in based on a subject, a lot of books are now free, and it has a dictionary feature that lets you highlight any word for an instant definition.
MM:
I think my professor would say that the most important part of the text is to acknowledge the different sponsors people have for literacy and that Malcolm X had an open literacy as far as choice of what he read, but a limited based on what influenced him to read what text. He was limited by hatred and influenced by history. I would agree.
hooks IWA
"Writing Autobiography"
Summary:
In "Writing Autobiography," bell hooks grapples with the trying to write her autobiography in order to "kill" her former self. She wanted to get past the child she was and become a new person, leaving behind the memories of a terrible childhood. However, through her discovery that memories can not always be factual, and are forever tainted by the feelings of the person experiencing it, she comes to an understanding that her memories and account of events are different from her family members'. She also realizes that the memories will always be present and triggered at some of the most inopportune times, opposite of her original thought that she would lose the essence of the memory all together. bell hooks soon come to a level place in negotiation with herself that the childhood she was trying to kill needed to be rescued and by writing the memories it was healing her traumatic feelings and tension between who she used to be and the woman she is now.
Before You Read:
I actually am already writing my autobiography and it starts at the moment when I realized that my childhood was not at all normal and that there really is no "normal" at all. My mother was mentally ill and had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so a lot of big events in my childhood correspond to mental breakdowns of her own. While PTSD patients live life in a series of memories, flashbacks, and determining what is real and what is not, I tell my stories corresponding with these milestone memories. It is choppy, jumpy, and mimics the disease she suffered.
As you Read:
I can most definitely understand wanting to kill off one's childhood. However, I am who I am because of that childhood.
QJD:
1.
What does hooks mean when she writes that she
wanted to “kill” her self through her writing?
I think hook's means that she wanted to kill herself through her writing because often once you write out a memory, you feel that you do not have to return to it. Once it's explored and out, you feel that you can move on and rewrite who you are by coming to terms with the memory and becoming someone new.
AEI:
1.
Have you ever had to change your identity for
something that you needed to write? How does this relate to McCloud’s mask?
I
I have changed my identity to write something. In fact, the first writing contest I ever won was under a fictitious name because I feared if anyone knew who I was, they would put me and my brother and sister in foster care because of what was happening. So I wrote the piece in high school, won the prize, and then never claimed it.
Teaching journal 9/24-9/28
For Monday my class had read Dawkins and Bryson and completed an IWA and a Dialectical Notebook. I have noticed that their Dialectical Notebook entries consist of a lot of unknown words and definitions for them. While I appreciate them looking into the word definitions, I'm wondering how long it takes them to do their homework if they have to look up so many before they can read and understand the argument. Their vocabulary bank is far less than what I expected. However, many of them were excited about the reading because it fits with their constructs and made great sources for their papers. They found Bryson entertaining and one student compared Bryson to being the "Stephen Colbert" of composition theory. I'd not thought of it that way, but I see my student's point. Bryson does make fun of silly rules and critiques the way in which the rules came into place.
For their in-class example, I had each one of them bring in one page of an essay of their own having removed all punctuation. We traded with partners, including me, and did punctuation work on the other student's paper. They had a lot of fun with the exercise, realizing the tone changed tremendously with different authors and punctuation. After doing this for 15 minutes, I then applied this to when they peer review. I explained, surface level punctuation on first drafts is not to be mentioned, but we should examine the use in which the author intends for such punctuation before wanting to correct. So on Wednesday, when we peer reviewed the sample essay in class, could tell that they had applied the ideas well. there was actually a debate in which two students grappled with the use of a question mark and how it changes the whole paper. Interesting stuff, this composition teaching.
Brandt Dialectical Notebook
|
I
think this is an idea that many people need to evaluate, since literacy feels
to be declining.
|
Literacy
looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage of the
20th century… (333).
|
|
This
is such an interesting point, that we are influenced daily by it, just not
recognizing literacy for what it is: a means of furthering and advancing.
|
When
economic forces are addressed in our work, they appear primarily as
generalities: contexts, determinants, motivators, barriers, touchstones. But
rarely are they systematically related to the local conditions and embodied
moments of literacy learning that occupy so many of us on a daily basis (334).
|
|
I
love this idea. I’d love to write a nonfiction piece about my influences. My
grandmother couldn’t read or write at all. She signed her name by making an
X. I think I’ll also do this to learn more about my students’ experiences.
|
In
the interviews, people explored in great detail their memories of
learning to read and write across
their lifetimes, focusing especially on the people, institutions, materials,
and motivations involved in the process (334).
|
|
I
would love to do a study and series of interview with people n Scioto County.
My assumptions would be that cultural influences their literacy greatly.
|
Patterns
of sponsorship became an illuminating site through which to track the
different cultural attitudes people developed toward writings. reading as
well as the ideological congestion
faced by late-century literacy learners as their sponsors proliferated and
diversified (334).
|
|
Agreed.
Now how do we address students who come from very limited sponsorship opportunities?
|
In
whatever form, sponsors deliver the ideological freight that must be borne
for access to what they have (335).
|
|
People
make impressions on our literacy, like cookie presses.
|
The
concept of sponsors helps to explain, then, a range of human relationships
and ideological pressures that turn up at the scenes of literacy learning
(335).
|
|
“The
literacy crisis” exists. People struggle everyday where I am from to meet the
standards. The gap is sometimes visible to others, and sometimes not.
|
The
three key issues on bottom of 336.
|
|
Twelve
years old is still the average age in Scioto County of getting the first home
computer. This is more than 40 years later than the period Raymond was born
in.
|
Raymond
[born in 1969] received his first personal computer as a Christmas present from
his parents when he was twelve years old (337).
|
|
So
peripherals for every student is different based on what the parents do for a
living. Interesting.
|
Lopez
was being sponsored by what her parents could pull from the peripheral
service systems of the university (338).
|
|
Ordinary
is what?
|
As
I have been attempting to argue, literacy as a resource becomes available to
ordinary people largely through the mediations of more powerful sponsors
(339).
|
|
I
love this quote. My husband is still part of the workforce that involves
physical work and not a lot of challenging intellectual circumstance. He is
eagerly awaiting his turn to go to school.
|
This
move brought dramatic changes in the writing practices of union reps, and, in
Lowery’s estimation, a simultaneous waning of the power of workers and the
power of his own literacy (341).
|
|
The
use of the word “arena” is great here. It shows the competition she alludes
to so much.
|
These
transformations become the arenas in which new standards of literacy develop
(342).
|
|
This
is confusing to me. I though the gap was the literacy crisis.
|
It
is actually this gap or lag in sponsoring forms that we call the rising
standard of literacy (344).
|
|
I
would love to have a source for this.
|
Clerical
work was the largest and fastest-growing for women in the 20th
century (345).
|
|
So
many things in our intellectual environment shapes us. It’s almost a
percentage game to see how much we truly direct ourselves.
|
Just
as multiple identities contribute to the ideological hybrid character of
these literacy formations, so do institutional and material conditions (347).
|
|
This
is so powerful. And people still question whether or not the American Dream
happens. It does in forms, and it mattered to her.
|
Her
efforts to move her family up in the middle class involved not merely
contributing a second income but also, from her desk as a bookkeeper, reading
her way into an understanding of middle-class economic power (348).
|
|
This
is still a tremendous amount!
|
I
am sure that sponsors play even more influential roles at the scenes of
literacy learning and use than this essay has explored (348).
|
|
How
true this is. I didn’t realize how interesting it is until now.
|
The
history of literacy is a catalogue of obligatory relations (348).
|
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Teaching Journal 9/17-9/21
I had an interesting week with my class, to say the least. I'm going to back track in the week for organizational purposes. On Friday, my class turned in their Intro and Synthesis. I have spent ALL weekend commenting on them and helping them formulate more fluid thoughts. For the most part, they are well informed and are understanding well. I do have several students that continue to only strive to kiss mediocrity on the cheek, but I have two that barely meet the requirements and relish n the idea of being a tad under what I expected for first drafts of thoughts. I'm getting random quotes pulled from articles with no context or summary. It's just being used as a space filler and a citation to cross off the list of barely acceptable. I will be explaining more to them on Monday.
Backtracking in sequence, Wednesday my class met Porter and Bernhardt. They liked their ideas and merged the two together with a PowerPoint demonstrating Porter's intertextuality as well as providing visual aids to flow into Bernhardt. The reason I had to merge the two readings though are because of the unique and hopefully isolated event of Monday. Monday is the day I wish to focus on.
I met Monday with excitement, not knowing that my students were already broken-hearted due to other events. Because a student at the university had died and I had no idea, the student's room mate informed me at the beginning of class. He explained that he didn't do his homework because he couldn't and apologized. I was taken back by the fact that he felt the need to apologize for something that was obviously out of his control, but that he also said it with tear-filled words and felt that he couldn't stop for a moment to understand it was okay. I had to take a moment to collect myself. I was stunned. My student, this sturdy young man was on the edge of tears and I was trying to decide whether to continue with Porter. As he tried to not cry, friends of the deceased student began talking and then several were crying. It was a chain reaction that I could not stop, nor did I think I should. It was important to them, this breaking point, that one student described as "The world keeps moving and no one is stopping to say someone is dead. I don't understand."
For a moment I feared that I would be Murray and describe death to young people having the most innapropriate or awkward things to say. Thankfully, I did not. Instead, I let them cry. I told them that I hoped that if any of them ever needed someone to talk to that they could talk to me and that Psychological Services was actually an excellent place to talk as well. I told them that I was thankful it wasn't any of them and sad that it was anyone at all. And then we journaled. We journaled for twenty minutes about things we could and could not change. We shared and then I dismissed. And now I'm thankful that even though my class was a little behind, I don't have to think about what I could have changed about that moment in which, they were homesick and weary about the real world that had just slapped them in the face and just needed someone to say "It's okay to cry."
Backtracking in sequence, Wednesday my class met Porter and Bernhardt. They liked their ideas and merged the two together with a PowerPoint demonstrating Porter's intertextuality as well as providing visual aids to flow into Bernhardt. The reason I had to merge the two readings though are because of the unique and hopefully isolated event of Monday. Monday is the day I wish to focus on.
I met Monday with excitement, not knowing that my students were already broken-hearted due to other events. Because a student at the university had died and I had no idea, the student's room mate informed me at the beginning of class. He explained that he didn't do his homework because he couldn't and apologized. I was taken back by the fact that he felt the need to apologize for something that was obviously out of his control, but that he also said it with tear-filled words and felt that he couldn't stop for a moment to understand it was okay. I had to take a moment to collect myself. I was stunned. My student, this sturdy young man was on the edge of tears and I was trying to decide whether to continue with Porter. As he tried to not cry, friends of the deceased student began talking and then several were crying. It was a chain reaction that I could not stop, nor did I think I should. It was important to them, this breaking point, that one student described as "The world keeps moving and no one is stopping to say someone is dead. I don't understand."
For a moment I feared that I would be Murray and describe death to young people having the most innapropriate or awkward things to say. Thankfully, I did not. Instead, I let them cry. I told them that I hoped that if any of them ever needed someone to talk to that they could talk to me and that Psychological Services was actually an excellent place to talk as well. I told them that I was thankful it wasn't any of them and sad that it was anyone at all. And then we journaled. We journaled for twenty minutes about things we could and could not change. We shared and then I dismissed. And now I'm thankful that even though my class was a little behind, I don't have to think about what I could have changed about that moment in which, they were homesick and weary about the real world that had just slapped them in the face and just needed someone to say "It's okay to cry."
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Bryson IWA
"Good English and Bad"
Summary:
Bryson attacks the idea of what good and bad English consists of by saying those in charge of the rules are prejudice and conditioned. The situation of debate seems ironic and amusing when Bryson tells us that the English language is a mixture of several other languages and many of the rules for English come from Latin (also not English). So why, then, would there be problems with English being fluid and evolving when the very beginning of the language began that way? Throughout history "higher-ups"have called for constraint to purify and keep regulated our language, while they changed the rules for their own purposes. As life is fluid, so is language, and there is no way to stop its evolution, nor is there a reason to judge one construction of it better than another.
Before You Read:
I am very different in my opinion on what is good and bad English. I consider good English to capture a real voice, relay a complete thought, but be unique in the process. I consider bad English to be a jumbling and confusing thought or a plain, dull, and boring regurgitated thought constructed to means of approval. I think both are mockeries of the beauty our language can be.
QJD:
Bryson is questioning the construct of what constitutes good and bad use of English language. He quotes writers as using the language incorrectly, but deeming it as acceptable because of their namesake, while requesting constraint on the very language they misuse, according to their own rules.
AEI:
Bryson says language changes overtime by the way words are used and those that adapt it. I think Bryson would condone a lot of the changes of our day. I think he believes language lives and breathes just as we do.
MM:
Noun, verb, indirect object, direct object, adjective, adverb, prepostion, prepositional phrase, conjunction.
I did learn these in school, and actually I'm pretty proud that I listed them in a sentence without all of the pieces making sense, especially since I used a period at the end. the grammarian in me is appalled, yet proud. I do think it inhibits my writing sometimes because I'm constantly aware of it and wondering what will be the main point when someone looks at my writings: the correct use of grammar or my earth-shattering ideas. (hehe). <-------Not a complete sentence.
Summary:
Bryson attacks the idea of what good and bad English consists of by saying those in charge of the rules are prejudice and conditioned. The situation of debate seems ironic and amusing when Bryson tells us that the English language is a mixture of several other languages and many of the rules for English come from Latin (also not English). So why, then, would there be problems with English being fluid and evolving when the very beginning of the language began that way? Throughout history "higher-ups"have called for constraint to purify and keep regulated our language, while they changed the rules for their own purposes. As life is fluid, so is language, and there is no way to stop its evolution, nor is there a reason to judge one construction of it better than another.
Before You Read:
I am very different in my opinion on what is good and bad English. I consider good English to capture a real voice, relay a complete thought, but be unique in the process. I consider bad English to be a jumbling and confusing thought or a plain, dull, and boring regurgitated thought constructed to means of approval. I think both are mockeries of the beauty our language can be.
QJD:
Bryson is questioning the construct of what constitutes good and bad use of English language. He quotes writers as using the language incorrectly, but deeming it as acceptable because of their namesake, while requesting constraint on the very language they misuse, according to their own rules.
AEI:
Bryson says language changes overtime by the way words are used and those that adapt it. I think Bryson would condone a lot of the changes of our day. I think he believes language lives and breathes just as we do.
MM:
Noun, verb, indirect object, direct object, adjective, adverb, prepostion, prepositional phrase, conjunction.
I did learn these in school, and actually I'm pretty proud that I listed them in a sentence without all of the pieces making sense, especially since I used a period at the end. the grammarian in me is appalled, yet proud. I do think it inhibits my writing sometimes because I'm constantly aware of it and wondering what will be the main point when someone looks at my writings: the correct use of grammar or my earth-shattering ideas. (hehe). <-------Not a complete sentence.
Dawkins IWA
"Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool"
Summary:
John Dawkins approaches conversation of punctuation and teaching it as a rhetorical method: that is, as if punctuation is a choice how to use by the author. He deems that in the past "rules" have been established so that writers will learn the proper use before they misuse it for different purposes. He questions how many of us have heard the phrase "You have to know the rules before you can break them." Most of us have heard this before and Dawkins questions whether or not this phrase is true. He gives MANY examples of cases in which grammar handbooks create strict rules, and then compares grammatical uses in essays to show more realistic applications that involve flexibility and author's choice. In conclusion, Dawkins sums up his point with the idea that the reason manuals are faulty are because there is more than one or two ways to write something. Therefore, rules cannot be set in stone, so to speak, because the opportunities of grammatical use are not as strict as the rule itself.
Before You Read:
My sister's treehouse (made of wood scraps and cardboard) made a great place to play with her friends.
The wood scrap and cardboard treehouse made a great place to for my sister to play with her friends.
A great place to play with my sisters friend was in the treehouse made of wood scraps and cardboard.
The rules in which I have used are basically the same for all three sentences: to keep the verb the same in each sentence but to switch the position of subject and object, allowing identifiers to stay with what they identified.
As you read...
We should conclude that, in Dawkin's view, writing that does not follow one set of rules is the more natural, realistic way in which we approach language and writing everyday. He would think it's the most accurate.
QDJ:
I know more about punctuation now than before I read, by far. I agree with Dawkins that handbooks have it wrong with they force strict policies because it intimidates students and writers. What if something brilliant is written but never put into the word because the author is afraid it's grammatically incorrect? Good writing can be grammatically incorrect and grammatically incorrect works can also be boring and a waste of time to read.
AEI:
Reading the obituary of a 93 year-old woman, I realize that the sentences are shorter than her life by far. The most complex sentence in the whole piece is the combination of her surviving relatives. It's grammatically correct, yet merely factual and a tad boring. No stories with complex ideas and tales. The most interesting thing about it is her name, which was Alexandra Johnstein.
MM:
I think I gain from this article a sense that not all authority believe the same strict grammatical rules, that someone's opinion that matters has been heard and is on the side of creativity and reality.
Summary:
John Dawkins approaches conversation of punctuation and teaching it as a rhetorical method: that is, as if punctuation is a choice how to use by the author. He deems that in the past "rules" have been established so that writers will learn the proper use before they misuse it for different purposes. He questions how many of us have heard the phrase "You have to know the rules before you can break them." Most of us have heard this before and Dawkins questions whether or not this phrase is true. He gives MANY examples of cases in which grammar handbooks create strict rules, and then compares grammatical uses in essays to show more realistic applications that involve flexibility and author's choice. In conclusion, Dawkins sums up his point with the idea that the reason manuals are faulty are because there is more than one or two ways to write something. Therefore, rules cannot be set in stone, so to speak, because the opportunities of grammatical use are not as strict as the rule itself.
Before You Read:
My sister's treehouse (made of wood scraps and cardboard) made a great place to play with her friends.
The wood scrap and cardboard treehouse made a great place to for my sister to play with her friends.
A great place to play with my sisters friend was in the treehouse made of wood scraps and cardboard.
The rules in which I have used are basically the same for all three sentences: to keep the verb the same in each sentence but to switch the position of subject and object, allowing identifiers to stay with what they identified.
As you read...
We should conclude that, in Dawkin's view, writing that does not follow one set of rules is the more natural, realistic way in which we approach language and writing everyday. He would think it's the most accurate.
QDJ:
I know more about punctuation now than before I read, by far. I agree with Dawkins that handbooks have it wrong with they force strict policies because it intimidates students and writers. What if something brilliant is written but never put into the word because the author is afraid it's grammatically incorrect? Good writing can be grammatically incorrect and grammatically incorrect works can also be boring and a waste of time to read.
AEI:
Reading the obituary of a 93 year-old woman, I realize that the sentences are shorter than her life by far. The most complex sentence in the whole piece is the combination of her surviving relatives. It's grammatically correct, yet merely factual and a tad boring. No stories with complex ideas and tales. The most interesting thing about it is her name, which was Alexandra Johnstein.
MM:
I think I gain from this article a sense that not all authority believe the same strict grammatical rules, that someone's opinion that matters has been heard and is on the side of creativity and reality.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Lanham Dialectical Notebook
|
I know many people that think that Kindle is death to the physical
book and holding the spine of it while reading. Perhaps they need to read
this.
|
So books are not going to die, and neither is the literature
contained in them (16).
|
|
Indeed! I keep telling my poet friends that refuse to release their
chapbooks on e-format that they are taking away readers by doing so.
|
Writers who decide not to compete in this new market place but to dedicate
their text to fixed print only have become the
clerks of a historical
Mode (17).
|
|
I find it ironic that the creator of a work cannot reproduce it for
example because of the new format.
|
I can’t really show them to you, only flat snapshots of a process
that occurs in dynamic three-dimensional space (18).
|
|
And what would MCloud or Elbow say about the voice of the piece that
is newly projected? Does it take away from author intent?
|
We notice, too, that Professor Minsky is wearing a sport shirt. He
talks with a certain accent (19).
|
|
This is true. Imagine literature favorites of old in new ways. It
could be interesting!
|
We may respond to the marginal animation in ways text would never elicit
(19).
|
|
Does this go with trying to make the reader lose their own
interpretation, though? Writers don’t want to do that. However, it could be
used as framing, too.
|
Gesture, and the presentation of self of which it forms a central
part, constitute an enormous band of our expressive spectrum (20).
|
|
Text is the hungry- for-attention middle child at this point. If it’s
not classic and not visually vamped, anyway.
|
Text, I said earlier, seeks to monopolize our attention (21).
|
|
It’s not going to work. You can’t close the door that’s already open
and exciting for the next generation.
|
Fixed print designers have recently been trying to map this three dimensional
world back onto the two-dimensional page (23).
|
|
That’s true. There are word puzzles and reading tricks that prove we
are numb to letters and there combinations. But when you change the letters,
it becomes a new challenging task just to read. Is this good, though?
|
The alphabet in digital three-dimensional space returns us to the
world Havelock dismissed. It makes us think (27).
|
|
See above.
|
Take a flat letter and revolve it 360 degrees.
But why would one want to do this? The very lack of motivation, the
playfulness, of the exercise
carries a whiff of something in the air (28).
|
|
This is just a beautiful and enticing thought meant to be poetry.
|
As far back as we care to look, letters have always wanted to move
(30).
|
|
McCloud would love this!
|
A textual cartoon? (30).
|
|
Love the idea that it is the
combination of both that keeps us excited.
|
We cannot exist, after all, only by breathing out abstraction,
alphabets which do not think; nor only by breathing in animation, alphabets
which do; but only by respiration, the life-giving oscillation of the two.
|
Bernhardt IWA
Since I was on Apparatus Group One, I helped write the summary and "Framing the Reading" for this assignment and am using that same information for this assignment as well:
When we sit
down and think about what makes a text visually appealing, do we think of the
smooth left margin with the occasional indentation, the way the lines are
perfectly spaced down the page, or whether the font is serif or sans serif?
Probably not. But we may forget that texts can be more than words. They can be
advertisements, data sheets, technical reports, résumés, web
pages, or letters home. They can include graphics, tables, and charts and
changes in font and text size. Now think for a minute about the beginnings of
written communication. Did ancient Egyptians develop a phonetic alphabet before
they began chiseling history on walls? Were the first recordings of life on
cave walls done with words?
Images
worked then in a similar way to how they work now, as effective visual
communication, especially to a writing illiterate population. As we moved
forward over the centuries, still most of the population was writing illiterate
and communication was either verbal or through images. Not until the advent of
the printing press was there a way to distribute written information to the
masses. Today, we use a mixture of written, verbal, and visual communications,
sometimes all at once.
In “Seeing
the Text,” Bernhardt looks at the way written and visual communications can
work together, and he tries to open our eyes so that we can truly see how
visuals and text augment each other.
The questions I will have my students complete are:
●
Look at (but don’t read) a piece of writing
printed in a newspaper, magazine, news website, or blog. Take notes about the
visual aspect of how the writing is presented. Do any images accompany the
article? Do you see any charts or tables? Are there any headings or lists?
I am reading an advertisement that promotes healthy body images by Dove. The text is written in the pattern of a woman's body, following an hourglass figure. My eyes are automatically lured to the figure and shape. It shows how the hourglass has changed over time as to what is expected of a woman's body shape and the white space in between the waist line. It is significantly smaller now compared to what it was 50 years ago. The writing is presented as the years and time. The chart and heading promote "bringing back space and freedom."
Bernhardt
characterizes the typical classroom essay as consisting of “full, declarative
sentences, arranged in paragraphs with low visual identity” (36). Do you
struggle with generating or reading this conventional, low-visual type of
writing? Why or why not?
I do struggle with reading long pieces that have typical indention and small print. It feels much more dense and dreadful than something with visual explanation or varied chunks of points with outright headings. I enjoy reading, I just also enjoy visual stimulant and variation in text.
AE 2:
Take
a word document that you have created for this class. Change the font to a font
you have never heard of or are not familiar with. How does it change the way you
understand or interpret the text?
I have chosen to take a Teaching Journal assignment and change the font to Helvetica. It makes the document much more personal and journal-like and even intimate, as if it is part of the lost art of handwritten letters. It created newness and an explorative aspect.
After You Read:
How would Scott McCloud have represented Bernhardt’s
argument?
I think Scott McCloud would have incorporated visual examples of his argument, such as varying texts and pictures and maybe even had a narrator following the text in comic form.
MM:
Bernhardt writes, “By studying actual texts as they
function in particular contexts, we can gain an improved understanding of what
constitute appropriate, effective strategies of rhetorical organization” (44).
In what particular contexts do you consider visually thinking about text to be
most appropriate? Of all the formal writing assignments in this course, which
one calls for the most visual thinking about presentation of text?
I think that visual representations should exist for all texts, whether it be n form of outlines in the beginning or interesting framing devices with subheadings that incorporate thoughts. I think our multi-media essay will promote the most visualization.
Teaching Journal 9/10-9/14
Week three of teaching has for me solidified why I have chosen this as a career. I had three students approach me after class Monday (after teaching McCloud and Berger) to tell me that they really enjoy being able to question our what we believe to be true and how we are persuaded through text, media, etc. These three particular are students that I have been wondering about in class. They have limited participation n discussion and do their homework but without any excitement about the subject matter. But I watched their eyes brighten on Monday and I knew that I had reached them and connected and it was an amazing moment for me as a teacher. I think we were all waiting for "that" moment.
I enjoyed teaching McCloud and Berger a lot on Monday, I also enjoyed teaching Allen, but my students also really enjoyed Lammott, King and Diaz. They shared that they were refreshed to know that everyone struggles in writing, not just them. Debunking the "inspired writer" might have been the best thing so far for my class. Peter Elbow proved to be the hardest to help them understand. They grasped the idea of contraries and not everything has to be either/or but can be both/and. Howeer, they were confused when talking about voice. I had to bring Lammott, King, and Diaz back for reference of voice.
I'm interested to see how they connect to Porter this coming Monday. I have prepared a Power Point to show them how things influence other things and then a voting system to measure Porter and intertextuality with. I think they'll enjoy it, but we'll have to wait and see.
I enjoyed teaching McCloud and Berger a lot on Monday, I also enjoyed teaching Allen, but my students also really enjoyed Lammott, King and Diaz. They shared that they were refreshed to know that everyone struggles in writing, not just them. Debunking the "inspired writer" might have been the best thing so far for my class. Peter Elbow proved to be the hardest to help them understand. They grasped the idea of contraries and not everything has to be either/or but can be both/and. Howeer, they were confused when talking about voice. I had to bring Lammott, King, and Diaz back for reference of voice.
I'm interested to see how they connect to Porter this coming Monday. I have prepared a Power Point to show them how things influence other things and then a voting system to measure Porter and intertextuality with. I think they'll enjoy it, but we'll have to wait and see.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Howard Dialectical Notebook
|
There’s no solution to stopping plagiarism. It seems that
we are in prevention and consequence mode.
|
Yet the more I study student plagiarism, the more I
identify problems not susceptible to pedagogical solution (219).
|
|
Does it? I think that intentional plagiarism if an issue
out of the classroom, however, accidental is definitely something for us to
deal with.
|
Whether it is in teaching moral codes or citation rules,
an assumption that runs throughout the discourse of plagiarism is that the
“solution” to it lies in the classroom (220).
|
|
The causes are not pedagogy and the prevention is not
pedagogy.
|
I wish to explore a contrary perspective: that the causes
of plagiarism exceed pedagogy (220).
|
|
Ouch. Agreeable, but still, there is a separation in this
statement that I’m not sure is projected well. Yes, we are in different systems but do we
want it to be apparent and intimidating? I prefer it not to be.
|
Pedagogy can’t fix plagiarism, because students and
faculty are too much working from different economic systems (220).
|
|
How do the students get to complete it without taking the
invitation? Is this something to be evaluated in the class expectations?
|
These instructors design their classes to invite students
into that intellectual enterprise, and they are annoyed by those who complete
the course without ever accepting the invitation (221).
|
|
They have to want to write it. Throw in Murray’s
autobiographical text conversation and encourage tem to make it their own.
|
“Many students write poorly and with deplorable styles
simply because they do not care; their failures are less the result of
incapacity than the lack of will” (224).
|
|
Geez. I don’t
believe the statement, let alone want to answer it.
|
And why, in fact, should we care about students who are so
much our intellectual inferiors? (225).
|
|
This is true. Is he from Portsmouth? (haha) They do come to college to flee the lower
end and, in some cases, for a means of income. We can only encourage those
students to understand their motivation and want to be a leader to change it
for others.
|
Keith Rhodes, for example, asserts that students come to
college today not to become leaders but to “flee the drying lower end of our
national economy” (226).
|
|
That’s why the subjects need to be
interesting to them. The combination of the economic
system difference between student and teacher allows for a gap of
miscommunication of what each student truly wants to write about and is
interested in. Everyone has done something because they had to, as quickly as
possible, and I guarantee it’s because they weren’t interested. Make it
interesting.
|
A student’s purpose, as she begins to compose an assigned
college text, may not be original thought; it may be the completion of the
task at hand by the most expeditious means possible (228).
|
|
It is about degrees for economic gain but this is where
counseling for picking the right degree comes in.
|
Students may, in short, see college writing assignments as
a means of acquiring the institutionalized variety of cultural capital of
academic degrees (228).
|
Porter IWA
"Intertexuality and the Discourse Community"
Before Your Read:
I get help from peers in workshops and in class. Sometimes I go to a Writing Center when I feel that there is an organizational issue in my paper or short story and I've stared at it too long and just can't see what's wrong. Sometimes I will read things aloud and often times the problem lies in order of processing so when you read it aloud it will stick at the point of the problem.
I get ideas from people-watching. Flannery O'Connor said that everyone days at least one absurd thing a day, whether it's absurd for them or the rest of the world. I watch for the absurdities. I also word jumble. Often times putting two words that have no connection together leads to an amazing connection. For formal papers, I pick subjects that I have strong reactions to. Either way, good or bad, or for Peter Elbow--maybe both.
Summary:
Porter focuses on the idea of thoughts and ideas being borrowed and shared between texts in the term "intertexuality". The problem, ofcourse, arising in what is original and creative when built upon other things? The summation of the conclusion becomes the distinct differences between collaborative notions becoming one's individual creative work and definitions of plagiarism in the discourse community. The link that I believe my students will be making is between Porter's idea of intertexuality and Allen's argument of collusion. Which influence on one's work is acceptable? Does it really come down to the physical aspect of peers writing or correcting work? I don't believe that it does, for many different reasons, however, it will be hard for my students to understand building ideas and having ownership. I think the best way to begin that conversation will be discussing giving credit where it is due.
QD
4: I imagined the argument of acceptability would be based on the discussion the paper enters into. For instance, if the student writes a paper for a class based on an assignment, the acceptability is based on whether it meets the requirement and the goal of the paper. However, Porter evaluates the work based on other's surrounding that student and whether it meets their approval. This is an odd notion, if I'm understanding it correctly, because what if someone in the reading community questions the originality of the writer, or the goal of the assignment, it doesn't mean that the paper doesn't exist because of non- approval, it simply means further evaluation is needed. When I think about how my own writing has been workshopped, I understand that this is the way writing works in a reading community, however, whether or not the group approves of my fiction piece does not mean I will not continue writing it.
5. I believe that Porter does have a strong argument that individuality is greatly affected by intertextuality and that creative voice is sometimes hard to find. I'm sure Porter is neither the first to write about this, nor going to be the last. This is the intertextuality in process with his writing and then again with me writing about his writing. I think the key to demonstrate to our students is that rhetoric is a ladder that we all build upon with ideas but to give credit to the previous stair. This is the determination between originality and plagiarism.
AE
2. For this course you will be asked to build upon others' ideas to continue a conversation in writing discourse. While many of you will need help learning how to incorporate another's thoughts with your own, note that I will accept drafts that need help and work as a learning opportunity. However, take excellent class notes when we discuss how to cite and avoid claiming another's work as your own. Accidents happen but when you have been taught the difference it becomes intentional. Intentional plagiarism and theft of another's works and thoughts will result in failure of the course and possible judiciary proceedings.
MM
Porter hasn't really changed my ideas of writers working alone. I still know that writers work physically alone while writing but have ideas from other things in their minds during incubation. I can see how the idea of it being somewhat a group process, but I still see writing as an act done alone.
Before Your Read:
I get help from peers in workshops and in class. Sometimes I go to a Writing Center when I feel that there is an organizational issue in my paper or short story and I've stared at it too long and just can't see what's wrong. Sometimes I will read things aloud and often times the problem lies in order of processing so when you read it aloud it will stick at the point of the problem.
I get ideas from people-watching. Flannery O'Connor said that everyone days at least one absurd thing a day, whether it's absurd for them or the rest of the world. I watch for the absurdities. I also word jumble. Often times putting two words that have no connection together leads to an amazing connection. For formal papers, I pick subjects that I have strong reactions to. Either way, good or bad, or for Peter Elbow--maybe both.
Summary:
Porter focuses on the idea of thoughts and ideas being borrowed and shared between texts in the term "intertexuality". The problem, ofcourse, arising in what is original and creative when built upon other things? The summation of the conclusion becomes the distinct differences between collaborative notions becoming one's individual creative work and definitions of plagiarism in the discourse community. The link that I believe my students will be making is between Porter's idea of intertexuality and Allen's argument of collusion. Which influence on one's work is acceptable? Does it really come down to the physical aspect of peers writing or correcting work? I don't believe that it does, for many different reasons, however, it will be hard for my students to understand building ideas and having ownership. I think the best way to begin that conversation will be discussing giving credit where it is due.
QD
4: I imagined the argument of acceptability would be based on the discussion the paper enters into. For instance, if the student writes a paper for a class based on an assignment, the acceptability is based on whether it meets the requirement and the goal of the paper. However, Porter evaluates the work based on other's surrounding that student and whether it meets their approval. This is an odd notion, if I'm understanding it correctly, because what if someone in the reading community questions the originality of the writer, or the goal of the assignment, it doesn't mean that the paper doesn't exist because of non- approval, it simply means further evaluation is needed. When I think about how my own writing has been workshopped, I understand that this is the way writing works in a reading community, however, whether or not the group approves of my fiction piece does not mean I will not continue writing it.
5. I believe that Porter does have a strong argument that individuality is greatly affected by intertextuality and that creative voice is sometimes hard to find. I'm sure Porter is neither the first to write about this, nor going to be the last. This is the intertextuality in process with his writing and then again with me writing about his writing. I think the key to demonstrate to our students is that rhetoric is a ladder that we all build upon with ideas but to give credit to the previous stair. This is the determination between originality and plagiarism.
AE
2. For this course you will be asked to build upon others' ideas to continue a conversation in writing discourse. While many of you will need help learning how to incorporate another's thoughts with your own, note that I will accept drafts that need help and work as a learning opportunity. However, take excellent class notes when we discuss how to cite and avoid claiming another's work as your own. Accidents happen but when you have been taught the difference it becomes intentional. Intentional plagiarism and theft of another's works and thoughts will result in failure of the course and possible judiciary proceedings.
MM
Porter hasn't really changed my ideas of writers working alone. I still know that writers work physically alone while writing but have ideas from other things in their minds during incubation. I can see how the idea of it being somewhat a group process, but I still see writing as an act done alone.
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