Reading Response 13

Wysocki – “The Sticky Embrace of Beauty”

Summary

In her article, “The Sticky Embrace of Beauty,” Wysocki attempts to analyze the concept of art and how it has different effects on people and their perceptions based on details held within pictures. She argues that our predetermined notions of beauty can both give us pleasure as well as anger from a picture. She breaks it down into a very descriptive analysis of what you feel when you see anything

Synthesis

This doesn’t really have much in common with anything that we’ve read. It discusses literacy a little, such as in how your experiences influence what you see in art, as well as how position, shading, and other factors influence what you receive from a picture. It relates to Berger in that it analyzes art, and the one that Wysocki looks at a lot is about a nude, basically. However she widens her approach beyond just nudes and applies her concept to all art.

QD

2. Visually, it is a low-visual text because other than the picture in question and the following diagrams, there are very few pictures or any defining features to the article to help convey anything more than “essay.” Aside from her longer quotes that are indented from her main essay, it flows like any other essay.

3. No it doesn’t work as a consumer. It interests me on a purely biological level, but it doesn’t make me want to either purchase the book or learn more. I have much better things to spend time on, such as finishing this reading response.

A&E

2. Beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder, as some people find some things appealing whiles others don’t, and vice versa. I don’t agree with can’t because there are very few things that are truly universal. Based on culture and your own personal experiences, you come up with your own idea of what beauty is. Wysocki was correct by saying that it is subjected to social forces.

MM

This statement fits her article well, because although she refers back to her original argument about the Peek article, her reasoning can be applied to a plethora of different art types. Her deductions could be applied to anything with  a picture in it, such as her statement about the difference between placements, as well as discussing how when you make something it becomes more universal.

Thoughts

I didn’t like this text much, though I did agree with her final statements on the subject. My tiresome complaint of the argument being stretched is coming back again. Her sources are reference in a way that she expects us to know what she’s talking about, and her vocabulary is excessively complex. I honestly didn’t fully understand what most of her article was about til I reread the Framing the Reading section of the apparatus.

Reading Response 12

Baron – From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies

Summary

In his article, “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” Baron attempts to show that the computer is just another addition in a long line of new writing technologies. He goes about this by showing how writing itself was a new technology in its day, and spends a lot of time describing how the pencil, something we take as granted, was originally something invented not even for writing, but evolved over time.

Synthesis

This piece has a lot of characteristics of the Malcolm X piece as well as Lamott and Diaz, because it has a much more personal feel. It relates it’s topic to themes that we as the audience would understand and relate to. It also has a little hint of Berger in it because it analyzes everything in a historical order, which not many of the other articles do.

Pre-reading

A list of the technologies I use for writing:

·         Computer

·         Pencil and Paper

·         Verbal Communication

·         Music

·         The Internet

·         Written Sources (such as novels or reference materials depending upon what I’m writing.

A&E

2. There are many writing technologies that could be improved, but I think what needs improved would be grammar check. Most word processors have it now, and it’s nowhere near as helpful as spell check. Most of the time its corrections don’t even make sense or are just blatantly wrong. Not only do I think this, but teachers will mark of when I listen to it, so it seems a pointless addition at the present moment, but it would be good if someone were to update it.

Thoughts

This article was much more engaging than I went into it thinking it would be. The author does a very good job capturing the reader’s attention with a meaningful topic as well as helpful sources that don’t bore the reader. The points that the author bring up to prove his point of view are different from the stock sources used by scholars, and I learned new historical facts on top of being convinced of his point. It was engaging and interesting. Very impressed.

Reading Response 11

Brandt – Sponsors of Literacy

Summary

In her article, “Sponsors of Literacy,” Brandt attempts to show us her new definition of literacy and show how her concept of sponsors that she has developed through all of her research into literacy. She states that these sponsors teach us how to be literate, in turn showing us to be who we are, almost molding us with key characteristics of themselves.

Synthesis

 This article is much along the same lines as those whom dealt with studies that they had done, such as Kantz and Klein. However, Brandt is analyzing something she noticed while studying so1mething related, but different.

Pre-reading

List of ways reading is promoted: learning to read is an achievement early on, reading contests in elementary school, most popular forms of media are text (i.e. newspapers and magazines), writing contests with various organizations, college applications, ect. Reasons for being a better reader and writer are that you will do much better when you are older and are trying to get a job and have a family to support. This advice is usually given by adults, especially close relatives or older friends, and the occasional teacher.

A&E

1. I grew up in Ann Arbor, MI till the age of 9, then moved to Defiance, OH. Moved from suburbia to the middle of nowhere. Had several dozen times as much yard, as well as chores. When I got to Defiance, I didn’t know anyone, so I read a lot because I was by myself. This stayed this way till high school, and I still keep my love of reading to this day. I’ve always liked to read, but it was honestly the bullying of my fourth and fifth grade classes that led me to love reading. It’s almost like a default activity for me. Because of my voracious appetite for books, I became very literate, vocabulary wise. However I did a lot of pleasure reading, so come high school, I did not like many of the novels we read for class. I had friends who were into my kind of books by then though, so I didn’t entirely die of boredom.

Thoughts

The piece was interesting enough, and presented a lot of neat points that I had never thought about. However, my chief complain of it needing shortened still stands, and after going over my paper on stereotypes, I think some authors write long passages just because they can. While this one isn’t the case, I think, it could’ve been shortened or consolidated without any loss of meaning.

Reading Response 10 (Bryson)

Bryson – “Good English and Bad”

Summary

In his article, “Good English and Bad,” Bryson attempts to show how the “rules” for the English language are not only convoluted, but straight up wrong or nonexistent. He argues that many of the “rules” have become so confused that many different rules are there from confusion or no reason at all. He doesn’t feel that to have a rule just for the sake of the rule is a good enough reason to use sloppy or inelegant grammar.

Synthesis

This text is similar to many of our texts, picking a construct to challenge and then proving its point. However, it is like many of the shorter works by having a sort of commentary in the background, a little bit of dry humor to keep the reader awake. The author uses examples that are simple yet get the point across in the most effective way, similar to many of the pieces that are directed to students, yet this article is approachable by many different people of different mindsets.

Pre-reading

Good English is a very loose term to apply to anything with so varied a basis. Good grammar is something to strive for, but not entirely necessary. Sometimes context is more important than grammar, especially in speech. I personally will use improper grammar to make a point or to be funny (i.e. pronouncing words as they are spelled with phonics as well as combining words to make a new word).

QD

1. Bryson is challenging the writing construct of grammar rules, show by his many examples of where rules contradict each other. He points out how flexible and democratic the English language, going into a brief history of how academics throughout history have tried to revise the rules to make them simpler, but they constantly make it worse. He gives purely grammatical examples that show where the standing rules are deficient to help prove his point.

A&E

2. Bryson means that whatever we want the English language to do, it does. Throughout history, meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and “rules” have changed at the whim of a popular scholar. Personally, I’ve seen commas rules taught four different ways throughout my schooling career, none of which my parents or siblings were taught. Teacher to teacher, scholar to scholar, each rule has a varying level of importance, with some getting bent or broken frequently by one, but being invulnerable by another.

MM

Some parts of speech are noun, verb, adverb, pronoun, ect. I learned how they all relate in school, a long time ago. Most of it is ingrained into my subconscious mind, so I do it instinctively, most of the time. I do not think about it at all when I write, I think about translating my thoughts to words, and they magically appear in a relatively correct grammatical format, if I’m lucky. It may help me write better if I knew grammar better, because I could fall back on it to try mixing up my sentence structure, but not very much.

Thoughts

This piece was much more interesting than many of the others we’ve read recently, mainly because of the more down to earth vocabulary as well as descriptive and understandable examples. They were relatable with my own experiences with the language, indeed they were relatable to just about anyone. This made it much more interesting to read.

Project 1 Intro/Conversation

Intro

When you think of writing, there are two distinct genres that separate it down the middle. To many, they are as different as night and day, blue and red, hot and cold, sweet and sour, the list goes on. When it comes to writing, you can either write creatively or academically, poetically or rhetorically. This gap between fiction and nonfiction has long been thought to be unbridgeable. This construct; a construct being something that we accept as true due to extensive exposure within our culture or discipline, but was something agreed upon in the first place; has been discussed extensively by ( ) who mention (). I say that this gap is neither as long nor as dark as many people make it out to be. While there are distinct differences between them, by changing the situations, you can understand both. To show how this construct works, I will challenge a second construct that is prevalent in the literary world, on both sides of the issue. The concept of the stereotype has been around for a long time, in both fiction and nonfiction. This construct has two faces, as has been the common theme so far in this paragraph, in that it can be applied to both sides, but from different angles. For the creative side, there is the idea that to have good writing all you need are stereotypical characters to make a good story. For the rhetorical side, there is the concept that an essay must be straightforward and lengthy, as well as use complex vocabulary. The result of testing this construct on both sides will then by default test the original construct that we have set out to prove. Meta much? If so, get ready for the most convoluted set of logic to make sense that you’ve ever seen.

Synthesis

Literature and Composition: Separatism or Convergence? By John Trimbur is a work that supports bridging the gap between the creative and rhetorical. By showing his stated initial want for them to be separate and realization that they can work together. Also, Create Flesh and Blood Characters by William Kowalski illustrates my point of stereotypes for the fiction side. The article Challenging Stereotypes About Academic Writing: Complexity, elaboration, Explicitness by Douglas Biber and Bethany Gray shows the stereotypes found in nonfiction and academic writing and challenges them, thus proving the point I’m trying to make. I also want to look at Greene’s article on conversation, but don’t know how it will fit in if at all. The same goes for Porter’s article on Intertextuality and Elbow’s on Contradictions.

This is a bare bones outline of what I intend to do, but more analysis of the texts is required to know more about what I want to do with what source. 

Reading Response 9

Bernhardt – “Seeing the Text”

Summary

In his article, “Seeing the Text,” Bernhardt attempts to show the relationship that the visual points of text have on people when they read them. He argues that how something is set up graphically will lead to different ways of understanding as well as different levels in interest toward the material and can also be traced to the audience that the text is geared toward.

Synthesis

This article is a lot like Klein’s as well as Elbow’s, because it is written for a more academic audience. He throws a couple of bones in that are more for students, but the majority is very high level. It is also structured in a very scientific pattern, laying out all of the evidence and then results.

Pre-reading

No, none of my other classes have me do lab reports or organize text with images. If I were to, the visual clues would help narrow down the details that the text may have a hard time to describe to the reader.

QD

4. It is normal to have a teacher want us to write a paper that follows a specific form because then everyone has to write the same way and it is a lot easier to judge and grade the student’s work. When you have it as an assignment, it gets rid of different student’s interpretations and has only the teacher’s interpretation as the valid one, so there is a more linear grading system.

A&E

1. There may have been times that I’ve had to use unconventional visual structure, such as in my high school chemistry classes where it was structured more as a list in some parts. To use them again would only be beneficial in a science field, since most English teacher’s will want the generic essay, but if asked for it won’t be a difficult thing to do.

Post-reading

McCloud would have had a diagram for each paragraph, showing each part that he was talking about. I think this way would’ve been much easier to understand, because instead of having to both understand him and visualize his visuals, you would only have to understand the concept.

MM

In the context of looking at graphs and charts would probably be the most common case. Pamphlets and newspapers are also set up visually, as they have pictures and aren’t a wall of text. I couldn’t say what assignment calls for the most visual thinking, but the readings of McCloud and Berger apply since they involve art and images, not in that order.

Thoughts

This article was dreadfully boring, and aside from McCloud’s work, it doesn’t appear to apply to much of what we are doing in this class. His vocabulary, like many of the others that we have read, is unnecessarily complicated and circuitous, and merely confuses the reader rather than informing them.

Reading Response 8

Porter – “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community”

Summary

In his article, “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” Porter attempts to show the reader that plagiarism as defined in popular culture isn’t in fact what happens. He argues for intertextuality, which states that “all writing and speech – indeed, all signs – arise from a single network.” (88)

Synthesis

This is a lot like Klein’s work, because not only is he supporting his idea that is a much broader context than many would think to apply to writing, it is most obviously written towards a more scholarly community, as shown by the spinning of my head after reading it. The vocabulary and rhetoric he uses is definitely not meant for anyone without a Phd.

Pre-reading

I get a lot of help from writing, by asking friends for advice, having others proofread, even by relying on spell check frequently. I have even participated in my fair share of collaborative writings, voluntary and otherwise. Anything I do in life can also have an influence on my ideas that I’m working on, even if they have no correlation.

QD

4. I’ve always evaluated writing on whether or not I like it, and whether it fits the criteria I set out to accomplish. Most of the ways my writing has been evaluated before fits with my own idea, although I may be less knowledgeable about all of the grammar rules that my judges.

5. His work reflects on his principles, because he keeps bringing other people’s ideas into his article not only to show his point, but to make it as well. He is obviously not the first to think about this, because there are already a large number of people on both sides of the fence over the issue.

A&E

1. There are many different texts in it, shown in all of the different ways of displaying comfort and there are homages back to the tried and true, as they are trying to make money off of it. The cultural intertext is the constant use of not only women, but of different racial mixes to try and show that all types of people will look good as a result of said product, making it more universally accepted.

MM

No, he hasn’t changed my mind as all, because I know in my writings I’ve relied heavily on the assistance of others; his declaration of it merely confirmed my suspicions. I don’t think I’ll change the way I right at all, because I think that by using outside sources I also push myself to be more creative so I don’t feel as though I’m not contributing to my own writing.

Thoughts

I did not enjoy this text at all, it was long and hard, and the concept not overly surprising or interesting. That it was obviously written for people over my level of comprehension didn’t help at all, and makes the concept that much harder to grasp.