Journal #1

When I think of writing, I think of a simple way of expressing myself. It’s a way to get all emotions out without having to verbally express them. Writing is a way of saying things you would never say. Writing can be personal, in a handwritten letter or essay, or it can be mechanical, on a computer. Writing with a pen and paper has mistakes that cannot be erased, it’s messy if the handwriting is like mine, and it shows a change in thought process much choppier than with a computer. When writing with pen and paper, you seem to pause less, not realizing that you’re going off of topic, thinking less about grammar, since there isn’t a program telling you that you’ve misspelled. When just jotting down ideas, and writing rough drafts, pen and paper are preferred, but when you have to have a perfect paper to be turned into someone important, you want a computer to do so. There is a higher chance of receiving a higher grade when something is typed because there is a lower chance for error. Spelling has had a great downfall since writing really no longer exists. It only exists in forms of texting or emailing, both things really don’t require you to know how to spell. With spell check and autocorrect, writing has become a simple and not often done task. Now a days you can get to know someone without ever speaking to them, due to writing. Not necessarily writing as much as texting or emailing, but nevertheless writing. People don’t realize that by simply thinking about what they are going to send to someone in a text, they are composing what they are going to write.

In my opinion, if you’re going to compose something, pen and paper are ideal. You’re constantly going to want to cross things out, rewrite them, and place them in different order, which would take much longer on a computer program, than on paper. Composing isn’t even close to writing. Writing is expressing, you want to tell the world an emotion, you want to follow a strict prompt you were given, you want to keep an audiences’ attention. Composing is merely thinking and planning what you’re going to write. Composing is what you do before you write. It’s adding up ideas and putting them in order. You can compose more than just something you’re necessarily going to write. You can compose music, choreography, parts of a puzzle, anything. Writing is simple, its one subject, writing. Composing has to do with writing, but also music and more.

Journal #2

Audience and genre are extremely important when writing. When you know who you’re writing to, you know what things will relate to the readers, what they’re interested in, and what they would not want to read about. Writing to a professor versus a student changes basically an entire essay. Just like writing to a science major, and writing to a literature major. A science major, you would take the genre of experimenting, or genetic testing, or anatomy of a human body. Any literature major, probably wouldn’t understand any of that talk, and would become disinterested by sentence 3. Genre and audience matter.

In Dirk’s text, he starts off with relating to country music. Any hardcore heavy metal listener, would have immediately tuned out, not caring about how country music tells a story. He shows without even explaining how important genre is to an essay. He also points out that the genre of a story is based on the audience. Like I previously explained, you need to base your genre off of who you’re writing to, and vice-versa. Dirk explains that there are many different types of genre - “By this point you might realize that you have been participating in many different genres—whether you are telling a joke, writing an email, or uploading a witty status on Facebook.” If you’re telling a joke, you want it to be funny and appeal to who you’re telling it too, if you’re writing an email to a place you’d like to work, you want to sound mature, responsible, smart and interested.

In Anzaldua, the genre doesn’t keep my interest at all. It seems as if she is purposely writing to a specifically spanish audience. I cannot relate to most things she writes about. Her genre and audience are easily well known from reading even the first paragraph. Her essay is much more focused on one topic rather than Dirk who more explains genre and audience.

The two pieces are entirely different, showing a type of genre compared to how many types there actually are. Dirks piece was much more interesting and valuable for me because it taught about different genres and audiences rather than just focusing on one genre and one audience that did not relate to me whatsoever.

Genre is what you choose to write about depending on your audience. If your audience is adults, you’re going to want your genre to be about things that relate to people who are older than who you associate with.

Journal #3

A rhetorical situation depends on the context of a situation. The context includes audience and genre, but also purpose. In Andalzua’s writing, she touches on being caught speaking spanish at recess. Most kids reading this essay aren’t going to say “ahh, me too” most kids are going to say something more like, “what? can you even get in trouble for that?” I remember getting in trouble for saying a bad word secretly with my friends, or being mean to other kids, but speaking spanish? I would have been applauded for speaking spanish. I had a hard time relating. Andalzua’s rhetorical situation is composed of an audience likely to be spanish-speaking, that grew up in a non-spanish speaking area. Her genre is a serious, emotional, and evident problem in her life that is likely to be a problem in the specific people she has planned to read this writing. Her purpose is to inform of what a horrible experience it was for her, and how she found ways around speaking english, and how she was mistreated by even her mother who told her only to speak english. She makes remarks on how she had to go to class specifically to get rid of her spanish accent. Although her main audience would be spanish speaking people who were put into the same situation, she is also trying to reach the attention of those who have put her through this to make them realize how wrong it is.

She continuously explains what a horrible effect these numerous events of speech classes and being told not to speak spanish had on her, “Repeated attacks on our native tongue diminish our sense of self. The attacks continue throughout our lives.” She claims how in a society where they cannot speak their own language surrounded by people who naturally speak english, it was inevitable that their own middle language was made. Andalzua has learned several different types of spanish, each coming from a different region. She has certain versions of spanish that she uses with certain people.

She begins to teach the different ways to pronounce things in spanish, how her native language does this differently than this spanish that she’s learned, and how some of these words are different in each different version. Her audience is other spanish speaking people, once again, who she believes to be interested in learning how her language may be different from theirs. I have nothing to compare it to. Even more so, she’s relating to people extraordinarily interested in learning all different types of spanish. She also goes into how other spanish cultures can look down upon the way other spanish cultures speak, “Chicanas feel uncomfortable talking in spanish to Latinas...” Most americans speak english exactly the same. When talking to someone from Massachusetts, for example, I am fascinated in how they pronounce different words, and once I even tried to speak in it for long enough that I would adapt that accent. Its the exact opposite. No one in america holds how you speak as a representation of yourself. Unless you’re an extremely educated and grammar fanatic english professor. It just isn’t a big deal if you pronounce some letters different, and say “wicked” rather that “very”.

“So, if you want to really hurt me, talk bad about my language.” Here she is speaking to any audience. I now know that I should not ever speak down about a spanish speakers language. However, if you tell me english is the worst language and that its been made into “ghetto” and “txt tlk” I would just agree, or say thanks for your opinion. Why would I care what someone else thinks about english?

Unless I was born and raised in my young years in a spanish speaking area, I strongly believe I would have no reason and no relativity to this piece of writing. Her audience is clear to be people who would understand where she is coming from. However, when her writing shifts to a more educational and informative approach, she would have to be writing to an audience who is interested in learning about the spanish language and its many versions. Anyone who isn’t interested in spanish, wouldn’t want this genre. The purpose may be to open the eyes of how the downgrading of spanish is hurtful to many, which is an important thing for people to know, but it isn’t something that I personally think would relate to first year college students, especially ones who don’t see spanish as a bad thing, like myself.

Journal #4

To me, knowledge is a collaboration of facts, thoughts, and things learned that have been gathered over the years. When you’re older, I feel as if you have more knowledge. Knowledge is more of something you earn - “older and wiser”. Knowledge isn’t just what you learn in school, in my opinion, it’s mostly what you don’t learn in school. It’s what you learn in life, all different ways on how to survive, socialize, cook, give advice, raise kids, take care of pets, almost anything.In Spoiling survivor, Jenkins quotes someone saying, “…it is not impossible for a single human being, or even a group of people, to master all knowledge…” which in part agrees with what I define as knowledge. We both agree that knowledge is something collected, or earned, and that no one can ever be “full” of knowledge. Knowledge is something you gain your entire life, and you can gain knowledge of different things at all different times.My idea of remix is when you mix together two or more different things to create one better thing. It can be a song, which would be most common, but it can be anything else too. You can remix a story, by adding new ideas or plot twists, made up on your own or coming from another story. You can remix an outfit, by wearing the same outfit with different color accessories or shoes. You can remix anything. A lot of people remake movies from the past, in color, better quality, with new actors and actresses, but really, if the directors add in new information, and new scenes, it’s more of a remix than a remake.Knowledge is just a bunch of things learned that you add up together to make each part make sense. You remix prior things you’ve learned with new things you learn in order for them to be complete. In school, you start with pre algebra, and move up to calculus, each class remember prior things you learned, and applying them to the new things you learned in order to do it correctly. In life, you learn how to read people, how to know how to please people of authority and how to act in certain situations, and apply them and remix them with different lessons in order to use them throughout your whole life.

Journal #5

The Wikipedia entry phrases circulation as “the way texts and discourses move through time and space.” Meaning, to me, the way information of any kind changes and morphs over time in order to adapt with the new world. In The Documented Life, Sherry Turkle explains how we are now entirely used to constantly being on our cellphones. When we have a minute to pause, a commercial, a car ride, a red light, it is habit to pick up your cellphone and check your messages, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We are used to now all being on our cellphones when even at a dinner table, or small gathering; barely talking to each other, and giving 50% attention to whomever is speaking. All communication is done through text, barely even through a phone call, making everything less personal. In the TED talk, at approximately 4:20, she goes into how teenagers are addicted to their phones. She says that although we use phones for an alarm clock, we need our phones near us at all times. I sleep with my phone right next to me, and I m uncomfortable if I cannot check it when I wake up in the night. She claims that we can’t be away from them for a minute, and if we are, we feel that we are receiving texts and that we need to respond. At 14:22, she explains that, “we close down conversations and get into performance mode on social networks, in personal and professional life.” I agree that cellphones and social networks especially control teenagers. We feel lost, and out of the loop if we don’t check our media to see what’s going on in the world. All information is found out by someone’s tweet, status, or picture upload. There is no such thing as waiting to talk about something face to face, when everything is done over the phone, or better yet, over text. All personal connections are lost, no amount of words has real meaning, and nothing can “wait” until later. When sitting at a table with friends, no one really talks to each other, everyone just sits and texts, tweets about where they are, and upload pictures of what they’re eating. This new age of technology has ruined all personal connection, and enjoyment of right here, right now.

Journal #6

My change from draft 1 to draft 2 wasn't that significant, however, draft 3 was. Draft 1 had a few mistakes and unclear subjects, and those were easy to fix. Which also showed me what mistakes not to make in writing the rest of my paper. However, when we did peer review in class it showed me new things to watch out for in finishing my essay, because my first draft was only about half of what my final will be. Also, it gave me a chance to see what other peoples papers looked like, and what their genre was, gave me even more ideas for what I wanted my paper to look like. Peer review helped show me not only what the thoughts were coming from ms workman, but also from students my age, who is generally who I'm writing to. Because so many different people reviewed my paper, I feel as if every mistake was pointed out. Things I was unclear on, things I needed to elaborate on, and even things I didn't need in my paper. At first I wasn't even able to think up a question for my research paper, and I ended up with a 2-part question and an 8 page paper. peer review helped a lot. It showed me things I could do better, it showed me different ideas although I did not do all of them, and it showed me 5 different opinions on my paper. Being able to contact ms. workman by email was also very helpful. I had a lot of ideas for my paper, and being that with only the first 2 I created 8 pages, I was not able to elaborate fully, like we discussed in my conference, I had too much information. I feel a little as if I didn't explain in enough detail for other elementary education students because my paper had to be a certain length. However, The fact that we had leeway with what type of format, and pictures and videos, I feel like my paper is more interesting to read and therefore more people would want to read it. Most classes when writing a research paper don't provide this much reflection and this much help when drafting, so this showed me how in the future I can draft and revise my paper in different ways.

I thoroughly enjoyed the podcast, which I didn't think I would and was not looking forward to listening to. I can't imagine not knowing what language is. I actually got goosebumps when the man finally understood! (8:08) It's so cool that they in a way saved each other. I also can't imagine going from absolutely normal to not knowing anything. (33:49) I can't fathom what that would be like. When she said she liked the silence, that was astounding to me. She had found peace. (34:20) I wonder what it would be like to just not know anything? So interesting. The video really followed up by showing how many different things there are that we communicate, and how they have more meaning with language. The video was composed without language, showing that you can compose something without words at all, which was so cool to think about. Genre is entirely different to me, learning genre was like learning a new language in this class. I didn't even really know what it was before this class, and what it had to do with writing. To me, genre was hip-hop, rap, country, or pop, and that's it. Genre is one of the most important components of composing. You can't fully compose without knowing your genre! Media, to me, is composed of genre, just like writing is. People make the media to be appealing to a certain audience and have a certain type of genre. Take gossip magazines for example, they're appealing to whomever the fans of the stars they're gossiping about, and the genre is, obviously, gossip. And immediate gossip that will shock young minds. This video, was especially good for people who had heard the podcast, because it showed all of the things that have more meaning because of the language we use to describe them. This was really interesting to learn about and I thoroughly enjoyed getting a closer look into what life may be like without language.

Journal #7

Journal #8

I was very happy to see that paper has so many duties still in our lives. I remember in middle school how cool it was that we were getting laptops. Only some classrooms could get them and they were extremely strict about using them. You immediately learn writing as soon as you start school, but they don’t teach you typing and computer programs until 7th grade, at least for me. Everyone is predicting that soon people wont even know how to write! Everything is becoming computerized. It’s even going to affect jobs, I ordered from an “iPad” at a restaurant the other day! It’s crazy to think what the world will become. The SAT’s are still done with paper and pencil; standardized tests are quickly becoming computerized. I hated the class I had where all the tests were on computers. It didn’t help me learn from my mistakes in the least. Seeing that paper still plays such a big role is almost relieving. I like how the survey ties into the Lessig reading. I think people plagiarize every day, if what Lessig explains as plagiarizing is plagiarizing. I think that plagiarizing is definitely overlooked in song writing compared to plain writing, So many songs have so many different versions of them some people even forget what the original sounds like. I know I’ve previously heard of singers involving lawyers in new singers using their music, but not often. Whenever a song comes on nowadays my mom always says, “It’s a horrible remake. The original is better.” I don’t really think I would get mad if someone remixed or copied my work, especially if it was well known that it was my work. I think it’s more of a compliment, and its definitely not so bad that I would get a lawyer involved. I can see how if someone takes it as claiming someone else’s work as their own, but if it says the name of original and then (Remix by John Doe) then I wouldn’t mind. Or (New Ending by Jane Doe). That’s giving the name and idea credit, but not necessarily citing the original author/songwriter. It’s a gray area for sure. Most people probably would get mad, and unless you want to specifically claim something as your own, I don’t see why it would be a problem to ask for permission and cite. When we learned composing and materiality, we learned that everything is a remix. The YouTube video showed us how we build and build out knowledge using what other people have learned and so on. I think that other than getting mad about people using your ideas and work, we should think of it as learning and a compliment.

Journal #9

“Composing in context” in my opinion is “composing under the circumstances”. When the circumstances change, the way you write changes. When we did the in-class workshop, where the story was the same but our audience was different, the response was different when the circumstances changed. In a way the audience correlates with the context, because when the audience changes, so do the circumstances. Composing is the process of making something, whether it be an essay, a song, or a movie. So composing in context is the process of creating something under whatever circumstance will please your audience. In the Hooks interview, he explains that his audience keeps him going, and that without his audience he would never be where he is today. His composing depends on his audience, which means his context depends on what his audience wants. In the photo essay, the context is strictly based on the genre. Each photo in the essay shows a way of protesting in each culture, the context of the pictures changes in each environment because each environment needs different things to reach the same goal. At first I had a hard time understanding how the photo essay went well with the interview and the composing in context, but then after thinking about it for a while I understood that each picture was composed in a different context, which then also gave me a deeper understanding. Also, the interview gave me a better understanding of how audience incorporates with context and composing.

Journal #10

No one is born with knowledge. Everything that you know as an adult is learned through schooling, experience, parents, older siblings and more. Learning isn’t just going to school; although that’s what I would normally associate learning with. Transfer is kind of like remixing, you use what you learned and add it to something else for the new thing you’re learning to make sense. Take math for example, you have to take your classes in a certain order in order for it to make sense to you. You need to use the knowledge you learned in the previous class and transfer it to the next in order to fully understand. When you learn something, and actually learn it, you store it in order for transfer later on in life. Like when your mom or dad teaches you little life hacks, or when your teacher teaches you a trick on catching grammar, you transfer it to every day use later on in life. Everything you learn can be deepened and added to. When we reflect on things, we review what we learned, remember lessons, and explain what we learned and how we learned it. Reflecting is kind of a step in between transferring and learning. We learn information, then reflect on what we learned, then we transfer it and remix it to use on new lessons or remix on different types of lessons. When I came into this class, I didn’t just throw my prior knowledge out the window. I used it. I remixed what I knew, with what I learned and then I transferred that remix into a whole new concept of composing. Then every time we deepened our understanding, I transferred my prior knowledge into the new knowledge. Each new assignment would have been much harder to do without the prior knowledge from the previous assignment. The main thing I’ve learned in this class is that all of these terms are interconnected. Each term (genre, audience, transfer, composing, materiality) would be nothing without the others, which is really shown in the map.