Sponsors of Literacy

WAW: Ch.3 Intro, Brandt (328-352) Sponsors of Literacy, Deborah Brandt

SUMMARY:

In Deborah Brandt’s article Sponsors of Literacy, she attempts to show how people don’t become literate on their own. She is saying that literacy is sponsored by the things around you, like people, institutions, and circumstances. Brandt also says how there are cases where people “misappropriate” a literacy sponsor’s intentions by using a particular literacy for their own ends rather than for the sponsor’s. Also that literacy sponsors can disempower and prevent people from becoming literate. She believes that we should assist and study individuals in pursuit of literacy, and also recognize how literacy is in pursuit of them.

CONVERSATION:

Deborah Brandt’s article somewhat reminds me of James Porter’s “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” I am aware that Porter’s was about text, and Brandt’s is about reading. The both seem more informative to me. They both seemed to be more based on information and a learning tool, where as some of the other articles are strictly just an argument. 

QD:

1. Literacy sponsors are figures who have turned up most typically in people’s memories of literacy learning. We normally think of sponsors as powerful figures.  They are usually richer, more knowledgeable, and more entrenched than the sponsored. 

AE:

2. I have not had literacy sponsors who have withheld certain kinds of literacies from me. I am unaware of my school banning any books, I have never been interested in reading. Sponsors have however forced certain kinds of literacies on me. All through out school I was forced to read books for class. Most of the time they were boring, but I had to read them in order to pass the class. My teachers always told us what we had to read, there was never an option. Except for summer reading we normally got to choose between 2 books. 

BEFORE YOU READ:

U.S. culture encourages and emphasizes reading. Through out your entire schooling from grades K-12, you are required to take some sort of English Class. You don’t always have to take a math, science or history. However English is always required. That’s how the U.S. emphasizes reading. There are always books being published, causing people to buy them and read them. In the community it is the same way, English is always stressed. We’re always having to read books and articles in our everyday lives. Normally people are good readers and writers because they read all of the time. Reading expands your vocabulary, as I have always been told by my mother. The more you practice something the better you will get, so the more you read, the better reader you will become.

OPINIONS:

I thought that this article was kind of interesting. I think that it could, however be shortened. I feel as if some of the information seemed repetitive and unnecessary. It could be helpful to me because I learned what literacy sponsors are. The ideas compare to my own experiences because I’ve had teachers that have taught me everything about literacy, so those would be my literacy sponsors. I agree with literacy sponsors because, my teachers have affected how I have learned literacy. 

Dawkins and Bryson

Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool, John Dawkins (WAW:139-155)

Good English and Bad, Bill Bryson (ROW: 61-67)

SUMMARIES:

DAWKINS: In his article ‘ Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical tool, John Dawkins attempts to explain the problems with how people understand punctuation rules. Dawkins gears this towards ‘people’ in general, anyone who is involved with grammar and punctuation. He also wants us to think about grammar as rhetorical. He is saying that grammar involves choices, whereas when we learned about grammar we learned of it as a set of inflexible rules that had to be memorized and never violated.

BRYSON: In his article ‘ Good English and Bad’ Bill Bryson attempts to explain why the rules your teacher gave you about grammar seem arbitrary. He also goes on to talk about how complex and confusing English grammar is. Bryson also talks about the history of proper English and what was considered good, or bad English back in the 18th century, and today. I don’t think there is a specified audience, I think it is just a very general article. 

CONVERSATION: Both of the articles talk about grammar obviously. The Bryson article goes into more of the history and a comparison of how English used to be and how it is now. Where Dawson talked more about understanding grammar and the English Language.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

DAWKINS: 6. I don’t normally think about punctuation. I just write how I normally do, without thinking about it. When I learned about grammar in High School I had a really hard time with it. I could never remember all of the clauses, and all of the rules for grammar and punctuation. Reading about it kind of just made me confused because I don’t know the differences between everything and all of the rules.

BRYSON: Prescriptive is they should prescribe how language should be used. Descriptive is to describe how it is used without taking a position. In the past I have encountered the prescriptive grammar instruction. In my language arts class sophomore year I remember my teacher, teaching us grammar. She would just show us the ‘correct’ ways of grammar. She would just tell us how it worked and how it had to be done, and that was what we had to do.

OPINIONS:

DAWKINS: I feel like this reading was different, because it wasn’t just reading an article. There were examples through out it, so it made you stay more focused and interested. However I didn’t like the topic of the article. Grammar is one of my weak spots, and it just frustrates me.

BRYSON: I thought that this reading was kind of boring. I didn’t really find it to be that helpful. Some of it kind of stated the obvious. We all know that our English language is complex and confusing, and that it doesn’t really make sense.

‘Seeing the Text’ Stephan A. Bernhardt

SUMMARY:

In his article ‘Seeing the Text’ Stephan Bernhardt attempts to show us how written and visual communications can work together, and how they go together. He provides a couple visuals to interpret the text differently. He has information organized on a chart. The audience he gears this towards is students and teachers. It’s geared towards teachers because he wants them to encourage students to become creative composers. He argues that writing, when visually informative helps to make the writer more organized, because it encourages the writer to be exact about grouping related ideas, and delineating beginnings and endings.

CONVERSATION:

In a way this writing reminds me of the McCloud and Berger articles. They are all more informative and less of an argument. They also include information about visual text. They differ in the way they show the visual components, but they are on the same path of making text more visual.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. The advantages of using these visual cues is that it achieves rhetorical control. They are highly informative and share features. Headings might be most appropriate when you have a lot of different types of information you are trying to put out. It helps to organize your writing.
2. Yes, sometimes I feel like I am writing the same paper over and over again. I feel like a lot of my assignments have the same pattern and I do them the same way. I could add different styles of writing into my writing. I could make it more visual, by adding pictures, or charts and graphs. I could group the information better and put it into categories to make it more understanding for the reader. Bernhardt would recommend to make it organized through branching and recursion.

OPINIONS:

I thought it was very informative. However I didn’t think it was interesting at all. I didn’t like the whole concept of the sample text of the wetlands, it was just boring to me. I don’t think I will really take anything out of this reading.

Intertextuality and the Discourse Community, James Porter

SUMMARY:

In his article ‘Intertextuality and the Discourse Community’ James Porter talks about how our writing must be original, and if a writer borrows ideas without acknowledgement it’s defined as plagiarizing. The principle Porter explores is intertextuality. Intertextuality is the idea that there can be no text that does not draw on some ideas from other texts. It is the idea that all texts contain traces of other texts. He also goes into the two types of intertextuality: iterability and presupposition. He also talks about how the Declaration of Independence was made up of several texts. I don’t think this is really geared towards a specific audience, other than college students, which all of the articles are.

CONVERSATION:

I kind of made a connection with this reading and ‘Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively’. They both talk about text. ‘Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively’ talks about how to better understand text, how to use it,and how to identify it. In ‘Intertextuality and the Discourse Community’ Porter is talking about text and how original writers can be in constructing text. Personally I think there is a connection because they both talk about text.

BEFORE YOU READ: My little sister, Teagan loves to write. She’s always making up stories, poems, or songs. She always writes for people for their birthday or holiday. My sister said that “I see my family contributing to my writing, because all of my poems, songs and writings are about or for them and they really support me when I do it.” Teagan also said “I hope to see writing in my future. When I’m older I might want to work for a newspaper, but I will always write my own and always create different things.”

QD:

4. I didn’t know that writing had to have the expected social science sections. I didn’t even know what the expected social science sections were. It must use the journal’s version of APA documentation, which that I could’ve guessed because it is a main type of formatting. I’m not really sure how I thought writing should be evaluated. My writing has just been evaluated by my peers or my teachers, it’s never really gone through a process.

AE:

1. I recently saw a commercial for Wendy’s. It was about the Baconator. The commercial has intertextuality in it because it is like all of the other fast food commercials. They say the same things about their food to get you to try them. The cultural intertextuality is that it resembles other fast food commercials. They all have the same idea.

MM:

Porter didn’t really change the way I imagine writers and writing. It would probably change the way I write, because I would have to put more time into my writing.

OPINIONS:

I wasn’t really that interested in this piece of writing. It just seemed kind of boring to me. I don’t think it will be that helpful to me. I didn’t really get that much out of it, besides learning what intertextuality means. It doesn’t really compare to my own experiences. However once I learned what intertextuality means, I realized that it’s everywhere. I started thinking about movies, novels and other forms of writing and I realized that everything has part of something else in it. There’s always a correlation that you can make between writings. 

Elbow Article

ELBOW ARTICLE

SUMMARY: 

In his article ‘Voice In Writing Again: Embracing Contraries’ Peter elbow attemps to show the argument between using voice, and not using voice in writing. In the beginning he says the good things people were saying about using voice, like “everyone has a real voice and can write with power. Then he goes on to say the bad things people were saying, like “voice is a misleading metaphor”, or “we don’t write with a voice that is ours.”  He wants us to learn to adopt contrary stances towards voice. He also wants us to learn to be wiser in our scholarly thinking and writing. The audience he gears this to is any student. He makes the point that “students at all levels instinctively talk and think about voice.”

CONNECTIONS:

I see a connection between this article and Stuart Greene’s ‘Argument as Conversation.’ Both writers are explaining differences. In Argument as Conversation he is explaining the different types of arguments, and different ways to use them. In Voice in Writing Again he is showing both sides, of using voice, and not using voice. In both of the writings they are talking about more than one thing. 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. When you listen to a passage, you can make a better connection to the writer. It makes it easier to realize the mood of the passage, or to better understand the sarcasm the writer is using. By listening you get a more straight forward view on the writing. There shouldn’t be any confusion between the writer and the listener. With “ear training” you will see voice that is true in itself, fitting the writer or speaker. I think it makes it easier to read a passage if you know the tone of the writer. I think you should use the tool “ear training” because it will help you to better understand the writer, and what they are writing. You should always try to figure out the mood the writer is trying to set, from the start of your reading.
2. I think that Elbow is playing his “doubting and believing game.” By giving a full airing to each side of the debate you can learn so much more. You will end up seeing more things that you would “remain blind to” if you just stick to looking at things one way. You don’t want to completely resolve the tension because you want to be both the doubter and believer at the same time.

PERSONAL OPINIONS ON ELBOW:

I thought the Elbow article was actually interesting. I was thinking about using voice as the topic for my paper, so it was interesting and gave a lot of information. I like how it showed both sides, using voice and not using voice. It helped to show the differences and provide more helpful information.

PERSONAL OPINIONS ON WAW:

I liked Anne Lammot’s article ‘Shitty First Drafts.’ The first thing that caught my eye was the title. I liked how it didn’t sound so proper. I felt as if she was writing casually and I liked it that way. It was easier to read and easier to make a connection with the writer. She also made it clear that no one is a perfect writer. That it’s okay to mess up. She says that “you need to start somewhere.” The first draft you write shouldn’t be perfect, it’s just a base. I liked her attitude through out the article. She seemed real, as if you were listening to her talk in a casual conversation. It wasn’t proper and boring.

Berkenkotter, Murray, Allen

ROW:

SUMMARY:

In Sarah Allen’s article The Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer she attempts to give advice to a student. The student reaches out for help, and Sarah gives the student advice. She talks about how you have to be driven to write. There has to be inspiration and it will come easily. She also says that you have to write to practice, your writing will get better over time.

WAW:

SUMMARY:

In her article Decisions and Revisions she uses information from Donald M. Murray. She observes him and applies what he does to her article. She attempts to go over the strategies of writing and the editing process. She gears this towards anyone who is writing a paper and needs tips on revising. 

CONVERSATION: This writing kind of reminds me of the one about a research paper. She is observing someone and then providing steps on how to revise. In the research one it tells you what you need to do to do good research. They both gave some helpful tips.

BEFORE YOU READ:

Explaining death to an 11 year old:

You know that no one can live forever, right? At some point everyone leaves earth, where we live. There are many different reasons for death. Sometimes people just die of old age. Eventually their body just shuts down and they can’t live anymore. Sometimes people die unexpectedly. People can become very ill and their body can’t fight off the sickness anymore, so they go away. Sometimes people die because of freak accidents, like a car accident or getting injured badly. No one really knows what happens when you die. Death is when your body completely shuts down and you can’t do anything anymore. It’s like you are going to sleep, but for a very long time, and you never wake up. You are supposed to go to heaven after you die, but I don’t know what heavens like. Your body gets buried in the ground, or cremated into ashes, which means it gets burned into ashes that you can keep in a vase or something in your house. People then can go to your grave, where you are buried and visit you, even though you aren’t there, people still feel like they can talk to people when they are dead. Death is basically when something goes away forever, and you never get to see them again.

I think it was kind of hard to write this. Death is kind of hard to explain, because no one truly knows what happens when you die, at east I don’t. It’s also hard to describe heaven and what happens to you after you die. While I was writing this I was thinking about all of the people that I know that died. I was thinking about my friends that I lost the night before commencement in a car accident. I was wondering where they are now and what they’re doing. It makes me wonder what heaven is like. It also makes me wonder why some people have to die, especially so young.

QD:

1. I thought that he seemed very efficient. It was good how he uses so many different drafts and editing tools. On the one article he was working on, he used 8 drafts before he sent it off. Berkenkotter said that Murray would have his wife edit his articles. I can relate to that because sometimes I will have someone else read my assignments before I turn them in.

3.Berkenkotter had to develop a separate code category for the evaluation of text or content. She says that  he had to make the concept of the other self still more concrete for his audience. Berkenkotter realized that you have to include your audience more.

AE:

1. I spend my writing time alone. I can’t write well unless I’m by myself somewhere silent. I don’t have that high of a level of writing experience, but it’s not that low either. I was in the journalism class at my school senior year, so I had to write an article every week. I don’t really spend that much time on the various parts of the writing process.

MM

I learned that it can be very beneficial to have multiple drafts of your writing and to have people edit it. I could reread my writings more and try to make corrections and not just turn in the first draft.

OPINIONS:

I didn’t think it was that interesting, it seemed kind of boring to read. It might be kind of helpful, but it talked about things that I already knew. I didn’t really learn that much. It compares to my own experiences because I have people double check my work for me sometimes. I agree with the editing process, because you could use as much help as you can get.

McCloud and Berger

READING RESPONSE

McCloud and Berger

SUMMARIES:

In his article ‘The Vocabulary of Comics’ Scott McCloud attempts to get his point across in an informal way. He uses the comics to make it seem less serious, and less boring.  He uses funny pictures and says what they mean, or what they don’t mean. He keeps it interesting with all of the pictures. The audience he gears this too is probably college students because that’s what these books are for, but I think this could be helpful for anyone.

I his article ‘Ways of Seeing’ John Berger attempts to show how women and men used to be viewed and how they were viewed through paintings. He uses the pictures to give people a better understanding of what he’s talking about. The audience he gears this too is college students.

CONNECTIONS:

These readings are both done in a completely different format, but they have some of the same characteristics. Their styles of writing are different, Berger was more formal where as McCloud was more informal. They both used pictures to help describe their writing.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. He uses the comic book because he uses the pictures to explain what he’s trying to say. His points would have suffered because he is explaining what pictures in comic books mean. He has to give examples of the pictures to give people a better understanding of what he’s talking about.

2. Berger’s article seems almost degrading towards women. He makes it seem like men are more powerful. I think the gender roles are different now. People have more respect for women now. Women have more powerful roles now, and the times have changed.

3. The articles showed different examples of writings that are different from what we have been reading. The writings were more vivid, and easier to follow since there were pictures that went with them.

OPINIONS: I personally liked the writing from Scott McCloud. I liked looking at all of the pictures and reading about them. I found reading them humorous. I liked it because it was a break from reading articles straight from a book. I thought McCloud’s writing was interesting. It wasn’t really helpful to me because I never read comics, but I liked it. I didn’t like the Berger article that much. It wasn’t that interesting to me, the pictures were weird.

Library Research

I haven’t been to the library yet. On the website I found it helpful that there’s a live chat where you can talk to a librarian. I learned what a library database is. It is helpful because it gives you good quality information, unlike some websites, like Wikipedia. I learned about the CRAP test. It’s used to evaluate sources based on currency, reliability, authority and purpose / point of view. I learned how to use OhioLINK to order books from other schools if our library doesn’t have it. The book will arrive in approximately 3 business days. I found where I can look up citations, which can be helpful. I feel like I need to tour the library in person to get the feel of it and where everything is. 

TOPIC PROPOSAL

PROPOSAL FOR TOPIC

I would like my topic to be on showing your personality. I think that it is important to be yourself when you’re writing. Sometimes you can put too much thought into your writing. I think a way to avoid doing that is to just be yourself. If you try to sound like something you’re not it will just make the writing process harder and longer. Personally, I think it is way easier to write when I act like myself when I’m typing. I think it relieves some stress off of a big paper or project that’s due. I think it would be beneficial for students to be themselves in their writings. 

‘Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively’

SUMMARY: In her article ‘Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively’, Margaret Kantz attempts to help students to better understand text, how to use it and how to identify it. She argues that facts aren’t so much true statements, but they are claims because facts are established when most of the audience agrees on something. 

CONVERSATION:

All of the readings have a common topic. They all deal with communication in a way. They all deal with people, using people as examples. They all are also geared towards high school to college students. They all give advice to students to help them with their writing.

BEFORE YOU READ:

I define the word fact as something that has been proven to be true. To me claim means that there is an overall agreement. Opinion is something that someone believes in, or how they feel about something. Everyone has different opinions. Argument can have more than one meaning. When I think of argument I think of a fight or disagreement on something. Argument can also be you stating your opinion backing it up with factual information.

QD:

1. Kantz says that facts are actually claims. By that she means that a fact is established when majority of the audience agrees on statements that are true. In a way that means that facts can be based off of opinions.

2. Misunderstandings on how text works:

-textbooks and other factual texts aren’t inherently true but instead simply represent a consensus of opinion.

-misunderstand sources because they read them as stories

-the expect their sources to tell the truth, the equate persuasive writing in this context with making things up

-many do not understand that facts are a kind of claim and are often used persuasively 

-commonly misread texts as narratives 

-expect factual texts to tell them the truth

I think she’s correct because normally I believe most things a book says because you expect it to be true. I feel like I mostly understand most of them now.

AE:

2. I don’t see a relationship between creativity and research. I feel like creativity is being yourself and using your imaginaton to create things. Research is using what other people have said or done to help you create something. Kantz talks about it from a different view. She says creativity is what research should be about. If she writes a creative paper it can be used to share as a solution to a problem. Our ideas overlap because I feel like there can be things you find researching that are creative. After reading her views, it made me understand where she is coming from and it makes sense that there is a correlation between the two. I just didn’t think of it as that before. 

MM: Kantz is trying to help students use textual sources persuasively. She is teaching the importance of claims. She analyzes what it means for something to be a fact. A fact is more of an agreement of a lot of people that decide what something is. It’s good to understand what factual information actually is. It’s also good to learn creativity and to put it into your research.

OPINIONS: The reading was kind of interesting. The way that she described facts was new to me. I liked how she used someones personal experiences to explain the point she was trying to get across. It might be helpful to me because I can use her advice and what not to do to make my papers better. I think they compare to my own experiences because she is providing examples of kids around my age, doing the same types of things I’m doing. However, one thing I didn’t like about this article is that it was kind of hard to follow in parts. It wasn’t really divided into sections, it was just ongoing paragraphs and words.