Process of Understanding

Sometimes I ask myself: Who am I? I am just a normal guy. Why? For the start, if we had to look at super powers, the only one that I may have is having a bad eyesight and using glasses, if that count as one. When I was a child, people used to look at me and think of me as a very smart kid, only because I used glasses. That for me was just people’s stereotype because I didn't used to consider myself as one, and probably I still do. I mean, I do like to look at society and see what is wrong. Time passes and things change. How are this changes affecting us? Whenever I look at something that I believe it was different in the past, I ask myself the question. Why? Because by looking at how things have changed, we can have an understanding of how I have changed. After that, I try to share my opinion with others who may or not have the same question as me and try to get their perspectives. Looking at different points of view is essential because everyone is different. Therefore, I get a sense of which people are more aware of the problem I see. All of this I consider to be very small details or steps, but they are the core of the process of how I understand the world I live in and if necessary, define actions to change it. If I'm going to try and change it, my efforts will be in trying to understand how can I address to people and hope that I can make it. Still, does this make me a smart guy? I don’t think so.

Basketball Columnist Wanted

We are the Nuggets Basketball Journal which is a basketball journal run by the NBA team Denver Nuggets. Our journal is released once a week. Now we are looking for someone who is experienced in writing columns about basketball. It will be a bonus if you are a fan of Denver Nuggets. You also need to be familiar with other NBA teams.

Besides the requirement for your knowledge in basketball, you also need to be a good writer to be competitive for this job. We are looking forward to having our columns variable and appealing to the audience in all ages, which means we need a columnist who has good command of all genres so that you can write your column in different tones. Sometimes you may be expected to write something short and humorous, while sometimes your column need to be relatively formal and accurate. 

Once you get hired, we will be able to watch Denver Nuggets' games without charge. You will have the opportunity to interview NBA players from different teams so that you can have your unique sight of NBA players' life on the court and off the court.

If you are interested in this job, please contact us by emailing your resume to NuggetsJournal@yahoo.com. We are looking forward to having you join our team!

"The author" The screenplay

Fade to screen

An empty desk in the middle of a room, a man walks in and sits down at the desk. He looks in the distance, confused and puzzled.

-What am I supposed to write about?

He exclaims. Then something changes, he remembers something, everything seems to be going by so fast.

-Let’s get to meet my audience, I will come up with the best way to reach them!

Music starts playing in the background, the man sits taller, confidence just exuberating.

-Now that I chose the genre, I know how to begin my composition!

Minutes start to seem like seconds, time is no longer a constant, the only constant is the man’s focus.

-I can’t believe I finally finished it! Now, to read it again.

The man starts to pace back and forward, reading to himself and doing wild hand gestures as if he was giving a speech. The man, nodding his head, making corrections, eliminating out of place sentences and rewording; these are the man’s purpose.

Finally, when the man is confident enough with his work, enters the woman. The woman, standing at an incredible five feet and two inches tall.

-Let me see what you did!

The woman forces the man to hand her the composition.

-I will read this and be the judge of it.

The woman approaches the man and surprising, the woman is very pleased.

-I really enjoyed reading it! There are a few parts where you could’ve worded it differently and it will be more coherent.

-Thank you.

Exclaims the man.

-I will take these suggestions and change my composition. Thanks for the help woman, I shall forever treasure your input.

After the man finishes the composition, two revisions later. He is satisfied, hot of the printer the man turns to the woman to thank her again, when the woman vanishes. The man confused once again realized that all along the woman was the reflection of his work. It was his way of learning.

Fade to black

**Playing Rolling Stones’ Give me shelter**

Experience Column Writer Wanted Ad

Job Ad:

Experience Column Writer Wanted at Denver Post

Position: Experienced column writer.

We’re looking for someone who can write to a specific audience and is very knowledgeable about the Denver area. This candidate must be familiar with the reflection and revision process since all of our columns are reviewed by fellow employees multiple times before publishing. They also should have a strong resume that includes at least a years’ worth of work experience and multiple examples of past work attached. We want to see that this potential employee can write many different genres, is aware of their audience, can tell a story with a personal voice that is easy to relate to, and is able to sell an argument with persuasive techniques.

Please attach your resume to the link below. We look forward to getting in touch with you and possibly working with you in the future. 

Job wanted ad

Help Wanted

New York Times

We are looking for an experienced writer for our column and debate parts

This successful candidate will have a good understanding about rhetoric situation and genre, a year of related experience, publishing several columns on other newsletters, good connection with audience by considering them, making reflection and comments.

We offer a flexible time and friendly working atmosphere for our columnists.

Sending your resume to columnist@newyorktimes.com. We will pick the most suitable candidates to have a interview.

The UnVeiling of a Writer

Throughout the past quarter, you have been discussing the process of writing and your identity as a writer. For this last blog post, I want you to discuss who you believe you are as a writer. You have to do this in a non-traditional post way in that you are not merely responding to questions nor are you just adding images/reflection.

Think about how you could represent the characteristics that define you as a writer that you have developed and honed this quarter (and those that you came in with). 

 Some suggestions for ways to create this:

*A job wanted ad or a personal

*A  poem

*an obit (an obituary) 

*a short short (short fiction piece)

*a song
*etc., etc.

The possibilities are very open. 

This should be as long as it needs to be to get your point across. I should see elements of you----so I should be able to get a sense of who wrote what without even looking at the author's name. Please feel free to create a new post in order to help you do this. 

DUE by class time on Friday, July 11, 2014. You do NOT need to respond to two peers' post.

(Your) Transfer of Knowledge

After reading two pretty different pieces on transfer, you are going to apply your understanding of transfer to yourself as a writer and learner. According to Bergmann and Zepernick, students tend to *not* transfer knowledge from a first-year writing course because they don't see the relevance outside of the classroom. Why do they believe this? What are some ways to help students transfer from first-year writing to other writing contexts? What is the importance of transfer? 

Pulling on what you did in class on Monday, please continue to project forward: what can you *specifically* take from this class and apply to other writing situations? Continue to theorize about writing, writing practices, and your identity as a writer this post as well making sure to pull from the reading to ground your thinking. 

DUE: by class time on Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Please don't forget to respond back to at least two peers. 

Theory of Writing: Take 2

At several different points in the last three weeks, you've theorized about writing (your own writing practices and writing more generally). As we begin to conclude this quarter, I want you to again revisit your theory of writing from Week 1. To do this, I want you to look at the map of key terms you created as well as the drawing of your writing process(es): what connections and overlap do you see? How can you use the map, the drawing, and your first iteration of your TOW to revise your thinking so that you can move forward. In other words, as you read for homework, how can you create a theory of writing that might transfer forward with you? 

To help you revise, please use some of these questions to springboard your thinking: 

(1) Key Terms for Writing

What are your key terms for writing? How does it expand your writing practices to understand these key terms? Feel free to look back over Week 1's blog post. How are you building on your set of key terms?

(2) Writerly Identity

Who are you as a writer? How does considering key terms contribute to the development of your writerly identity?

(3) Prior Knowledge and Experiences

How is writing this quarter similar or different to what you've done in the past? What are you learning that you might carry forward to future assignments, in this class or in others? Will understanding the key terms help you in future?

(4) Theory of Writing

Dr. Seuss' is known for his witty and oddly inspiring quotes will set the tone for your conclusion of this post. In one-two sentences, write your theory of writing in Dr. Seuss style. 

DUE: In-class Activity for Monday, July 7, 2014. 

My moments

I‘ve always considered writing as the best way to communicate. Some say that written words don’t have the same impact as spoken words, but I disagree with that. Why? Because, writing gives us the chance to have a better preparation which result in higher chances of having a more solid and concise idea or opinion. I consider that when the readers can interpret, understand and feel exactly your emotions, as a writer you have reached a level where you can achieve greater objectives.  Before knowing about the concepts learned in class, I used to write in a way considering that the audience would know more than I, not depending on the topic. That would always result sometimes in others not being able to understand my ideas completely. I lost the count of how many times I’ve been asked to rewrite an essay, or paper. It was frustrating, but the truth is that most of times I was just not paying attention to the key aspects learned in this class. Now, as a writer, I always try to remember myself of the importance of defining a rhetorical situation, a target audience, defining what genre to use and lastly, do my best and hope that I was successful in expressing myself and making the readers take in consideration my words.

I always start by doing the basic questions: what am I going to write and to who. Why am I writing? Where is it going to be received and when I consider not to be important questions but during the process they will end up being made at some point. This is my easy way of remembering about rhetoric, rhetorical situation and audience.

The next step, I consider to be the most difficult because it involves doing another question: how am I going to write? By doing this question I am forcing myself to pay attention to the genre and to the type of appeal to use. What type of genre is best suited for my purpose and how am I going to appeal to my audience. Before starting this class, the types of appeal was not that important to me because my writing process was more like a formula 1 race car: once it starts, only stops when the race is finished. Now, I see a certain beauty in how successful you are going to appeal to the audience because it can make readers know a little about yourself. Imagine, if people see trust in what you write just because they know who you are, it definitely shows how much consideration they have for you. This is how I see Ethos. I see pathos as a way of explaining your reasons by making the reader get “inside of my head” by making they feel the same emotions as me and logos as a way to convince them by using logic. However, I see logic as not a very good argument because of how easy it can be twisted.

The last step, is joining the responses from the questions that I made to myself before and see the results, and finally write. The writing part is usually supported with a lot of sugar and sodas to keep me awakened and focused, but depending on the subject it can be the funniest part. There is no reason to do something that you don’t like so if I am going to write, at least I need to make some part of the writing process fun, so that succeeding or failing, I won’t have regrets about it.

Three moments

The first moment was surely when we first talked about genre and audience in class. I could realize how important both are in writing and I also realized that sometimes I used to write just thinking about myself without considering the audience that I am writing to, and I didn't had a concept of genre. We looked at different kinds of genre and how each genre will have a specific format depending on the audience that it is directed to, the audience will affect the way that we will transmit the message. The image that I chose is very well known for most of we and it represents the audience which I agree now that is one of the most important things to keep in mind while we are writing something.

 

 

The second moment was the scavenger hunt project, and I chose it because it was a really good experience to work with Noah and Alicia. We went out from a world of word and abstractions to connect most of the concepts that we have learned during the class time, and connect with real life situations. And I liked it because as a students I have some problems with theory classes exactly because of that some times is very hard to take the abstraction of certain concepts and this project helped me to clarify some doubts that I had about rhetorical situation. I thought it was good because we found all the concepts in situations that we lived in our daily lives.


The third moment surely is the selling an argument project, and I say this because we had a lot of aspects to consider for the post, and we had a large scale of audience to convince. Starting with the idea that our target audience were American teenagers and we also had to appeal an older generation with 50s and 60s years old, if I am not wrong. And I believe that it was a greater challenge because of the fact that my group was composed by three elements in which two don't know very much about the American culture. It was very pleasurable to work on it, because we had to consider different aspects and agree in the kind of book that we would be selling. At the end we decided to talk about another series of 24 which would be the first totally recorded outside the U.S. so that instead of using another picture I decided to use a short video of 24.

Lets take a moment indeed

Let's have a moment

Writing has always been very important to me. I've always found that writing my thoughts helps me better express myself because I feel more confident on what I am about to say. Recently I had a very important moment; I was told by two professors on the same day that I needed to “not be so direct in my writing”. To in other words, stop being too concise, which I've found is no good for composing. I was raised by my grandfather, a man that was a product of being brought up during World War II, a man’s man, a man that taught me that “I can say more with less” as its roughly translated. When I decided to get my degree, my biggest fear wasn't the Biology courses or the higher math classes that I will have to take, it was a simple writing class that I was most afraid of. Not only was I taught from a young age to “use less words”, I just finished a seven year journey through a workforce that loved to use “less words”. The military makes everything into acronyms, which forces us to have to be able to communicate with the less amount of words possible. Both of these experiences helped define who I am, somebody proud, confident and very sure of himself. Writing though, it scares me.  

 If while I’m talking I say something that doesn't quite sound right I can usually tell by people’s reaction so I am able to instantly find another set of words to help me approach my audience and get my point across. In writing, my words are saved there for “eternity”, for people to read without me being able to provide instant feedback. Which is a good connection between my first moment, realizing I have to be able to abound in my writing with realizing I am just beginning this new chapter, which requires nothing but for me to be an excellent composer. This second moment was around my second blog post, I realized I need to learn how to crawl before I can walk. Of course I am going to make mistakes, I may not even make sense sometimes. But that is why we have reflection, I will learn from my mistakes and hopefully catch them during my own reflection-in-action next time I write. 

A third moment was when I realized that no one was harsher with my writing that I was with it. Dr. Taczak said during one of her lectures ‘You are your own worst critic’. Sure, I've heard that expression before, but I don’t think that it resonated with me as much as it did at that point. She knew her audience, I was just complaining about how I hated to reflect on my own writing and then it made all the sense in the world. Nothing bad can come from writing and exposing yourself to constructive reflection, I will only keep getting better as I keep writing. With the help of my peers and professors, I will keep being my own harshest critic, I will take all criticism constructively and it will only make me a better writer.  

My moments -Chao

I am sure that I learn a lot of new things in last two weeks which also confused me for a long time. There are three moments that I won't forget which make me feel clear in the rhetorical situation, genre, etc. 

The first moment happened in class when we were discussing the reading material that we read last day: "Crowle and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics." I almost kept silence in that discussing because I was so confused about the meaning of rhetoric. I read the material and I knew what the ancient rhetoric was and what the modern American rhetoric was. However, it is so upset to me that my dictionary shows the rhetoric means the way to make something more easy to understand in Chinese. In the discussion, I listened a lot of descriptions and definitions about rhetoric and made a decide that I must understand and accept the meaning of rhetoric which we are talking about. and delete the transfer meaning of rhetoric from dictionary. It makes me feel better to think with the new meaning of rhetoric when I am writing.  

The second moment happened in the mini project day that we needed to make a simple book and published it. I worked with Danielle and Angel. We firstly discussed the basic elements about the book. In fact, I knew nothing about what are the favorite things for mid age people in America but I did know that we must design the topic that would attract these audiences. In that moment, I think I refer to the audience, genre, and reflection in this discussion because we need to know what our audiences like. Then we can move to next step to find which genre or situation will attract them most. At that time, I ensured that genre is the situation or environment like in Chinese which set up to make content more clear and acceptable for audience. And finally, we discussed what our audience would reflect to our topic and showed them in the poster which would attract them also. This experience conflicted me in the understanding of genre, audience, and reflection a lot. As a writer, I think some moments will make me understand better like the mini project day.

The third moment that helps me to understand the rhetoric that it is not easy for foreigners to understand some new concepts in literature because of the culture diversities.

In Wednesday afternoon, I talked with Professor Kara. I talked about the understanding of rhetorical situation. It is really hard sometimes for foreigner if their cultures don’t have the same meaning with the conceptions in another culture. Even we do have the same word of rhetoric, but the meaning is different in some ways which confused me for a long time. In this meeting, I understand that the way to accept new meaning is to delete the old or not suitable meaning of the conceptions.

All these moments help me to understand better on the conception of rhetoric, genre, etc. Learning to be a good writer is a process, especially for international students.

My Three Moments

When I initially signed up for this course I was not expecting to learn so much in such a short period of time. To think that we only have three class periods left in the four week course is amazing. I would never have expected it fly by as fast as it has. Although it’s flown by I’ve learned many new things about writing I didn’t know before and I’ve experienced three very distinct moments in this class that have helped me to improve my writing skills and realize the potential I have as a writer.

The first moment was when I realized how little I knew about the incredible importance genre and audience have in writing. I never understood how valuable the aspects of genre and audience can be in writing until this course opened my eyes to they’re importance. We learned the many different types of genre and how each type is directed to a specific targeted audience. I think one of the most valuable things I’ve learned about writing thus far is that successful writing is always effective in engaging the projected audience and most of the time is successful in eliciting a reaction, change, or a response to the particular piece of writing. I’ve learned that it’s vitally important to pick the correct genre and analyze the audience I am writing to before I start the writing process so I make sure to address the appropriate readers and address them in the most efficient and effective way possible. The image I’ve chosen to demonstrate this moment is a flow map that connects genre, audience, and purpose together. When I start my writing process, I now think about all three of these terms before I start writing so I make sure I achieve my goal of presenting my ideas to the correct audience.

The second moment was when I learned about rhetorical situation. Before taking this class I had never heard of this very important term, but now I’ve come to realize that this term is present in all writing, no matter what genre. Learning that all writing is based on a past situation or experience made perfect sense to me and really made me think about everything I’ve written before and how it’s all based on different rhetorical situations. The situations, experiences, and events that are encountered every day, I’ve learned, are what inspire writing and rhetoric. Throughout this course I’ve learned that a rhetorical situation is comprised of a target audience, the urgency or exigence that compels the rhetor to write, the writers goals or purpose, and the constraints that limit the audiences perspective. By examining these elements in depth before I begin to write will help me become a successful writer and will also help me build a solid persuasive argument. The image that I chose to represent this moment is a map of the elements of a rhetorical situation and it includes some important questions that I ask myself before I begin to write.

The third moment was when I discovered the importance of reflection. The discussions we had with regards to reflection, really struck a chord with me and made me realize that I don’t reflect enough on my writing. The discussions helped me appreciate the significance of reflecting throughout my writing process. It was helpful for me to realize that I shouldn’t only reflect on my writing after I’ve finished it and turned it in, but more importantly I should reflect while I’m writing so I can improve on my thoughts and ideas. Also I might realize through the reflection process that I want to add or take out some ideas to enhance my writing. Not only is it important to reflect on my writing, but it’s important to reflect on yourself and your actions daily, so you can improve as a person. The image I’ve chosen to represent this impactful moment is a football player seeing his reflection in his opponent’s visor. This course has taught to look at my writing in another person’s point of view to reflect on what I can improve upon. I’ve learned that I can always change something in my writing to make it better and more persuasive.

These three moments were very impactful and important realizations that I made during this course that have really helped me grow as a writer and will help me continue to grow in the future. I can only hope that in the next three classes I can have more “moments” like these that will support my writing going forward. 

Moments as a Writer

I think that it is interesting to learn about rhetoric, because a lot of what we do in our lives is rhetoric whether we realize it or not. Even those who are not aware of rhetoric participate in rhetoric to some degree, whether they realize it or not is the interesting question. I think that graffiti represents a form of rhetoric in the sense that anyone who is out in that public space sees it, but how they interpret it depends on a lot of factors, which makes the situation rhetorical. An example would be this graffiti of Russian President Putin cutting the R from evolution, which could be symbolic for many reasons. Because rhetoric is happening constantly, you can become a more effective student as well as have a better interpretation of society through its use. Using rhetoric you are more likely to weigh every part of a decision thoroughly, and you will have a better grasp on what is going on in your life as well as externally globally. Through the use of effective rhetoric you can determine what is actually important to you, things that maybe you did or did not see as vital may become more or less so through rhetorical discourse.

From an intellectual standpoint, you can see that rhetoric allows for discourse. The most effective use of this discourse, however, is constructive educational discourse. This style of discourse creates an effective learning community as well as prepares you as a writer and speaker for handling conflict in the future, where the consequences of merely getting poor feedback change to more drastic life changing scenarios. A good example of using a knowledge community effectively and creating effective discourse with rhetoric would be this blog. We use this as a means for discussion and to give feedback and reflect on our work and others ideas which we maybe did not think of. To this extent, writing and rhetoric is often called a prerequisite skill  because many other disciplines require a level of rhetorical analysis at some level. Consequently even if as a rhetor you are no longer in a writing class, you environment will still call for some level of rhetorical input. Being a good student involves rhetoric, yet it is something that a student is involved in from the beginning of their education at any level without knowing explicitly what rhetoric is.

Becoming an effective writer involves not only rhetorical discourse, but the use of arguments that will appeal directly to the ethical state, emotional state, or reason of a person’s thinking. Sometimes using just a sound argument that makes sense is not enough, even if they see why its morally wrong, they need to feel the story in order to understand what is happening. A good example would be how the Vietnam War was sensationalized by journalists, and created a horrible picture of both the soldiers fighting the war and the militants involved in the conflict. The atrocities were horrible, yet the same level of media exposure did not exist during World War II during a time when there were millions of casualties killed in equally as nightmarish ways. The difference in the way the veterans of each war were treated is astounding. Rhetoric should not be underplayed, it is very powerful situationally and those using it should know what is enough, and what is too little. Using it effectively will allow you to be an effective student, writer, and member of society.