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
(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.
Effective writing is not just one thing, but a culmination of many smaller pieces of a larger puzzle, your product. It is not expected that writing just happens spontaneously, it is provoked by the presence of a knowledge community, regardless of the gravity of the community, it could be a discussion group on icecream flavors and still possess the basis of a knowledge community. Therefore, because writing is so broad, it is important the we reflect, or revise and revisit, throughout the entire process. This applies to even basic conventions like your genre, reflect to understand how to format for your audience's expectations. Audience is another interesting part of the writing process, as it could be either a physical group, or a virtual one. A virtual group could even been fricticious, but still an audience expecting one form of content or another, like followers of a cartoon character on Twitter. These audiences, if encouraged to respond in any fashion, even just thought, are participating in what is called a rhetorical situation. A rhetorical situation is therefore formed in many everyday interactions with both the environment and other beings.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what you write, you have to at some point have an exigence, or underlying goal, to your writing. If you have a goal that then causes the audience to act, you have created discourse effectively. These goals can be reinforced through effective use of rhetorical appeals, specifically: ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos refers to the ethical appeal that you make to an audience, why something is right for moral reasons. Conversely logos is why something is logically, or through sound thinking, is correct. Finally, the most temperamental, pathos, appeals directly to the emotions of the audience. This is really more of a subjective appeal, because you need to know your audience in order to include the right thought provoking material.
Using appeals effectively allow for strong context, the audience understands what the purpose of the piece is before its finished and is excited to make the same conclusions. I think that when you realize your audience enjoys reading what you're writing, you then feel comfortable as your identity as a writer. That being said, it takes a large amount of trial and error to determine what exactly your identity is. As a writer, I'd like to think one of the first steps towards self identity is being conscious of rhetoric, however, we are building our identities long before we pick up a pen or pencil. From birth we are a product of our environment, and consequently I think that my identity as a writer is who I am as a person as well, it is a living embodiment of what I have produced and exists so long as there is a copy for all of time. Using these key terms, I think that a large part of my writing is reflection based, however, I think that context as well as genre and audience play a big part of my identity. It changes based on the expectations of the audience, but that's fine, because we are constantly changing and growing throughout life. Capturing one way of thinking at one point in time or another leads to greater reflection and effective use of rhetoric in other disciplines.
Listen, yet cover your ears to think, see, yet do not see solely for yourself, for he or she who sees and hears can also lend you a pair of ears.
I believe Noah is trying to establish that being open to reflection is the key to being a good rhetor.
DeleteI think that your definition of writing says that the writer should first not only try to know what people know, but also to look into him/herself and see what he knows, and use both cases to reflect. Though, the final text must be directed to the others and not to the writer, who will have his response from the audience.
Delete1. At the beginning of this course I thought good writing was all about organization, creativity, thought provoking, and persuasive arguments and I’ve learned that good writing includes much more. We touched on some of these topics in class such as argumentation but we really focused in on the importance of rhetorical situation, genre, and audience. All the topics discussed in class relate to my initial thoughts on what good writing is composed of but they all expand on the ideas. I’ve learned that although good writing must be organized and thought provoking, it needs to build on prior knowledge and I must reflect throughout the writing process to continue to improve my writing. I think this class has really shown me how important the key terms are to good writing. Based on my incoming knowledge as a writer, I’ve learned to apply the terms we’ve discussed and build on my knowledge to make my writing stronger. On every assignment I constantly think of how I can integrate the key terms into my own writing. I hope to continue to build on my set of key terms and add more and more terms to my theory of good writing in the future.
ReplyDelete2. I think I’m struggling but growing writer. This class has taught me to focus on my audience and be more clear and concise. Also, I’ve learned through this class that the writing process is ongoing and although I might not be the strongest of writers right now, I will become stronger the more I write, the more I reflect, and the more I expand my knowledge base. I believe that the more I consider the key terms we’ve discussed in class when I’m writing I’ll become a better writer. By paying close attention to the audience and the input I gather from the knowledge community I’ll continue to grow as a writer.
3. Writing this quarter has been a similar and a very different experience to the writing courses I’ve taken in the past. In all of my writing courses there has been discussion about the importance of genre, audience, and revision; but this course has gone into much greater depth in all aspects of the writing process. I’ve never learned so much about rhetorical situation and its importance when writing and the value reflection has on my writing. Unlike any other writing course I’ve taken, I’ve been forced to create a writing theory of my own that I think applies to myself as a writer. This process of creating my own theory in combination of looking at key terms, I think will be very valuable in the future and I’ll apply to all of my writing.
4. Good writing should grab you and persuade you change. You should reflect on what you do and take input from the community exchange. Practice makes perfect, and you’ll always be learning. Don’t be afraid to affect and never stop yearning!
As I think about the last three weeks and how they have influenced me as a writer, I call to mind some of the vocabulary I used during the first week in my writing theory. I capitalized on the idea that writing for me was centered around argument as well as appealing to an audience. Looking back I'd like to add some vocabulary to this list including genre, knowledge community, and knowledge transfer. Genre never really occurred to me in my writing because in most of my assignments the genre was laid out for me. It was more following directions than really trying to fit my work into a specific genre. The next vocabulary word I'd like to add is knowledge community, learning about this concept has shown me that writing isn't just to appeal, but also to further the goals of a community that is interested in the same thing. This brings me to knowledge transfer, perhaps the thing that resonates most with me, I like this concept because I really see it working in my life, in school and out. I also am challenged by this notion because I feel like my writing could benefit if I was better able to transfer information, both incoming and outgoing.
ReplyDeleteConsidering my vocabulary selections and how they've changed, along with my personal thought on the matter I'd like to describe what my identity as a writer might look like. I like to write freely and I do my best to get along with people and see things their way. This is part of my identity because I try to be more aware of my audience and what they are looking for. It's hard sometimes to write what I want and still appeal to a specific audience, but to compensate I try to familiarize myself with the knowledge community my audience is interested in. In that way I can write freely, because I'm open to new ideas and interests so appealing to an audience becomes easy when I share an interest. I'd also like to say that my writerly identity is influenced heavily by what I have done in high school. I think they taught me some good stuff about how to write and what words to use, but I feel like they didn't teach me in four years what this class thought me in four weeks. That is that writing is adaptive and as a writer you must adapt on your own. In high school most writing was done with significant instruction and not much room for thought. This class has shown me that writing can't be predicted or brought down to a science, it's very individualized. Prior to this class I had only one teacher who made me adapt to a new writing situation, he told me to do a review of any media. I had no idea how to go about this because the instructions were only that, by the time I had finished the review I had done much of what my writing process currently says without even knowing it.
For my future as a writer I think this class will be a foundation. I came in thinking it would be sort of a reiteration of what I had learned in high school but it wasn't at all. Not only the environment of the classroom, the material and concepts were all different, not in the sense that they were new but that they were being analyzed completely differently. I think what I have learned about my individual writing process and what I can do to improve it will stick with me for as long as I write, it being adaptive and all. I the style of Dr. Seuss:
Write happy write sad, make sure that you do, know just who your writing to. Make a change and in them stay for your writing will no doubt become what they say.
Think before, think after and think deep. Write simply, write clearly, not fancily. This is my theory of writing.
ReplyDeleteBefore taking this course, I had had a half year's experience in the English Learning Center which was mainly teaching me the structure of writing. I learnt how to write an outline, summary, reflection, argument essay and research essay there. However, that experience didn't include much knowledge about writing theories. We just wrote, got comment from teachers and revised our papers. Here, in this class, I have learnt some theories about rhetorical situation, genre, reflection, etc. This quarter's study in writing helps me be more conscious about what a good process of writing is. Now I'd like to add two key terms to my first writing theory: audience, genre.
This quarter, we had a assignment which required us to write a column for first-year students. This assignment made me realize the importance of being aware of who your audience is. The language I use shouldn't be too academic in case those first-year students would have no interest to read my column because they like something more entertaining and well-designed. So I searched for some interesting pictures in my column which might draw more attention and interest from my audience. Also I transferred my previous knowledge to this column. I used an example from my previous reading assignment to show how genre works in life. As I mentioned at the beginning, now I think a lot before I write. Also, I think after I write. Usually my first draft isn't good, so I have to revise it with the instruction of my teacher which helps me a lot in finding what I am weak at and what I should add or remove. And after my revision, I usually look back at the whole writing process and look forward to getting some experience which can be used as a transfer for my next paper. This is what I called think deep.
Genre is the other key term I add and this is about my theory "write simply, write clearly, not fancily." The genre I write in serves for my topic and audience. Sometimes I don't write in the appropriate genre which makes my paper hard to understand. As a writer, especially a writer who writes in his second language, I don't have the capability to use some fancy words or beautiful expression properly. I admit my weakness and I am trying to avoid this kind of situation. Especially, in some certain genres, like an email to my professor or a presentation to show my research, I just try to write simply and clearly to show my points more directly. This helps me a lot because most of the time I am merely required to express my points clearly and I don't write like a poet or a theorist. With the awareness of genre, I just try to find the most appropriate words instead of those beautiful but frothy ones.
For me, writing is an activity of more emphasis on showing ideas than being a piece of art. I do wish one day I could use my words like a artist, but first of all, everything I write serves for my audience and it must be in the appropriate genre.
I think your theory of writing means to always be thinking and reflecting throughout the writing process, and you think writing clearly and concisely is vital to successful writing.
DeleteYour definition is very clear, however, I think it is the supporting details that add an excellent level of depth to your definition. You describe it as simple, clear, not fancy language. I think that this is very true, but you also describe how you had to learn to structure your writing. This lends back to your clarity, along with your revision. The transfer of knowledge is the final end point of your definition, and I think carrying it over to the next and making it seem like its a process that has a flow rather than simply a self repeating cycle allows you to more effectively respond to a prompt or argument.
DeleteI totally agree with your writing theory that think deep and write simple. as a writer, he needs to make his ideas more worth to read while as an audience he may need to understand writing as fast as possible and think later. I like the main two key terms you wrote because these terms are the main methods to make writing clear and simple.
DeleteAs a writer before, I didn’t know the main key terms like the rhetorical situation, genre before, but I did something about these. I just didn’t realize that I already contained the rhetorical situation and genre when I was thinking about the main ideas of the writing topics. Now, with the writing theories learned in WIRT 1122, I knew that rhetorical situation almost presented in each writing. Everyone who is going to write need to choose their own suitable rhetorical situation and genre. All these actions contribute to the good writing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first time draw the map of my writing process, I mentioned main ideas and resources. Main ideas contain the rhetorical situation and genre while the resources contain knowledge and transfer which mean that I transfer some knowledge by applying them in my writing. With my prior experience in writing, I would brainstorm some main points first and analyze them with searching some evidence online to support my points. But now, I think I need to think of my audience. My first task to write is to make my audience to know what I am talking about as soon as possible because the more fast audience can get your points, the more willing they would like to keep reading. So rhetorical situation and genre do a favor on this point to help audience to catch the main ideas in writing. That suitable situation created by rhetorical situation and genre can make writing easily to understand.
Writing is everywhere in life just like rhetoric is everywhere in writing. When people do some writing as writers, they must know rhetoric first. Also, being a goo writer is not easy. It has a process. You were working hard yesterday. You are tried to die today. You will go forward the next day. A lot of hard working will improve you to come into next level of writing. It is the same reason for every thing.
To be a good writer, He or she must be familiar with most kinds of rhetorical situation and genre in order to pick the most suitable situation for the writing. Next, choosing convinced evidence and writing with ethos, pathos, and logos are also acquired for good writers. It contains the transfer ability and knowledge for the writer. And then, receiving different reflections and revising writing will make this writing better.
I'd like to conclude your theory of writing as a process of being aware of rhetoric and genre, then use the right resource and language, and the final step is getting feedback which helps you to improve your writing. This makes sense to me and my theory is almost the same as yours. I always pay much attention to listening to others' comment which helps me a lot to improve my writing.
DeleteI liked what you wrote it really seemed that this course helped you to make some progress in terms of writing, and know you have firm ideas about it. Very different from me you are the kind of writer that likes to look backwards and analyze everything you wrote what helps you to write in a concise way.
DeleteThere are a few parallels between my thinking in the beginning of the quarter and how I approach writing today. Even though it was merely three weeks ago that we began the course, I feel like I have gained some valuable tools. Three weeks ago I thought that a good paper had to be very concise, just the right amount of information necessary to have a discussion about whatever rhetorical situation made you write in the first place. I believed that all that was needed to have an excellent paper were cold hard facts. However, to be an efficient rhetor you need to not only have facts, you need to be able to reach your audience. There is a good chance that your audience will be turned away from a paper just containing facts. They could get bored or they might not even read the composition. There has to be some heart poured into your composition, you need to be able to make your audience empathize or at least you should try to challenge some of their preconceived notions. I will take these new concepts of establishing ethos, pathos, logos and reflection and I will be able to consolidate these with my own way of analyzing, while helping to better express myself. I will keep approaching writing as a challenge, as a skill I might never master, but I sure will try. Depending on the audience, I will switch genres and even try new genres to stay on my toes. For whenever we step outside of our zone of comfort is when we learn the most, that diversity forces us to evaluate things from a different perspective and in turn it creates the perfect ‘transfer’ situation which you will utilize in the future.
ReplyDeleteWriting these last three weeks have been taxing, it has been more than 8 years since I’ve had to write academically. The most I ever had to write at work were blurbs on either sailors’ performances or quick summaries of events that transpired. This class has made me break through that fear ceiling that was holding me back. I’ve learned to take that fear and channel it into reflection, as a way to become a better writer. Through reflection and thus ‘transfer’ my writing will only improve by that perfect unison of learning by failing and applying the lessons learned the next time.
While apples and androids provide factoids,
People’s minds go devoid,
Rhetor and emotion we will deploy,
With their brains full they will rejoice!
Establishing ethos will make your voice,
Be heard throughout, be full of clout.
You will move masses without a doubt!
I can identify how this class is different from what you are used to in writing. I too feel that I have steped out of my comfort zone writing in this class. I like your Dr. Seuss style poem very much and I think it means that people are exposed to raw information all the time and to successfully write you need to be passionate and include some of your own though. Facts don't change people, people change people and it's all in how they use their facts.
DeleteBefore starting this class, writing for me was not the same as it is now. Why? Because sometimes I used prefer to just start writing looking at myself as a role model of the people who were going to ready my text, without thinking on other aspects. If I had to compare my previous writing process, I would compare it to a formula one racing car: the only goal is to win the race, and it only stops for quick repairs (which for me was like taking a brake and drink a soda), when the car is not able to continue the race or when it has reached the finish line. Those three weeks that have passed made realize that I had to pay more attention to my writing process, which made me set some key terms that will help me organize my writing process.
ReplyDeleteThe key terms are Subject, which in my wordle was related to some words such as topic, background and Idea, where I define what I want to write about (rhetorical situation) and what already know; Target, related to people which I learned that I was related to the audience; organization which included the process of defining the genre, the type of appeal that best suits me (ethos, pathos or logos) ; and finally the writing part which is followed by the Feedback, where I try to know from the readers If I’ve been successful in delivering my message or not. The next step is to save the knowledge gain from the final product to myself if I’m done or to use the feedback as base for the re-write process if I’m not successful.
Though I’m the engineering major, I don’t consider myself to be a very academic writer. The reason for it is because I like to feel myself free while writing. I like to sometimes just find an interesting topic, learn the much I can about it (sometime it may be an excuse to just get to know more about that topic) and let myself immerse in an ocean of ideas and write in a way as if I was trying to explain that matter to myself or to someone close to me. That is my definition of writing naturally. Doing this for academic purposes, isn’t always easy, at least for me. However, now that I’ve established some key terms, it will be much easier to write about almost everything because now I have a pattern to follow for almost every case or topic.
Finally, my own definition of good writing using both previous and current writing knowledge, and a way that describes my personality would be :
“The art to express, to an audience who something expects. Using words from the heart and the mind, in a way that they will follow, pass and always remind.”
I absolutely love your theory! You clearly make it a point that you need to know your audience, but you don't need to lose your individuality and passion in order to make your voice heard.
DeleteI was able to use the map of key terms that our group created to help me revise my drawing of my writing process by adding the key terms to the pictures that I had drawn previously. By doing this it helped me organize how I actually think when I sit down to write and how I can reflect and revise my writing to elicit a positive response from my target audience. During the first week of class my list of key terms included: argument, create, order, convincing, invested, audience, concise, individuality, and conclusive. While I still think that these key terms are important to the way I write I have learned many new terms that have significantly impacted my writing.
ReplyDeleteI now know that all writing starts with a rhetorical situation and how well you respond as a writer to that situation will determine your audience's response. Understanding rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) has also helped me to improve my writing skills. I think it is critical to have all three appeals working cohesively together when you create an argument. I have always known the importance of proofreading and receiving feedback on your writing; however, I previously didn't completely understand the entire process of reflection. I am now able to recognize and utilize reflection throughout my writing process and not just at the end. This has enabled me to write in a way that is more comprehensive, relatable, thought provoking, inspiring, and conclusive.
I took AP English classes all throughout high school so I was definitely no stranger to writing; however, that was 13 years ago. Since that time the only writing I did was while I was in the AF and this writing had to be very concise and to the point since I was mostly writing performance reports and award recommendations. When I first started writing for this class I found myself still being very logical and methodical in my writing process even though I was writing about topics that were very important to me. By employing the key terms that I have learned throughout this course, I have since been able to not only write how I did 13 years ago when I enjoyed it, but I have also drastically improved the way I write. I have been able to write well and have enjoyed writing about topics dear to my heart because I have been able to put my emotions and passions behind it, which is allowing me to see my individual identity as a writer. I know I will definitely be more prepared for my next class WRIT 1133 and I am glad that I have chosen to take writing classes as my first classes in college because I will transfer what I have learned to all of my future writing both in college and my career.
Rhetorical situation needs a rhetor
who knows the genre
for successful transfer
of ethos,
pathos,
and logos
to an audience
who can provide reflection
to said rhetorical situation.
As a writer I write trying to transmit information, from the knowledge that I have I respond to different situation, but what I know sometimes isn’t enough so that I need to do tons of research and look for more stuff to add to my paper, although some don’t need they are simpler as writing a letter. The writing is always a response to a rhetorical situation, in which we use a specific genre to reach or appeal to our audience attention, because it doesn’t matter what we are writing we will always have an audience, though sometimes we can be our own audience, and sometimes it can be so frustrating that it takes all of our patience. Writing is also a learning process from which we try to transmit or share our knowledge with others by the means of a language and trying to transmit trust in what we write.
ReplyDeleteBefore start taking this course I used to think on writing as just writing, writing to inform, writing to express, without considering how would the person that I am writing to, whether it would like or not, or even about how I should organize my thoughts. It have been working well but there is still too much to do, one think that I learned here is that we will many times something good, but if we consider everything we need to, if we revise what we work we will always write better, but better isn’t our best, it simply represents the long road that we still have to travel, it is like the sky or the horizon line that we will never reach. I heard from a teacher that we will always write something good, but then we need to write better to try to reach our best and we need to keep trying hard until our good is better and our better is best. That’s why one of the most important processes in writing is the reflection, it helps us to write with cohesion, about a specific topic, in response to a rhetorical situation as an writer they call me rhetor, because my writing reflect me just like it were my mirror, which raises the credibility of what I write, which is called ethos that along with the pathos and logos , from the three ways of persuade is part.