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.

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.

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."

 QD 1:

  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.

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.