post 9: "From Pencils to Pixles: The Stages of Literacy Technologies"

After reading Dennis Baron's, "From Pencils to Pixles: The Stages of iteracy Technologies," I'd have to say I don't entirely agree that the message of this piece involved him shruging at technology, founding it hard to imagine new technologies as fundamentaly changing the shape or nature of writing. He does claim that new technologies create new opportunities for fraud, however, I think his point was more along the lines of the evolution of technology, and how these evolutions (and evolutions to come) are affecting literacy. Pencils were infact considered technology when they were invented. They weren't (and aren't) as simple to make as you might think. You must have the exactly right amount of lead and clay proportions. You must also make sure the wood around it is stable enough not to break in a pencil sharpener, and the eraser must have the right consistency of rubber. The secrets of making pencils were as closely gaurded as computer companies software secrets are. From pencils and paper, to typewriters, to the first computers, to the modern day computers, what Baron wants us to really ponder is, "whether the computer will one day be as taken-for-granted as the pencil" (440).

post 8: "The Future of Literacy"

Elementary school through high school, I remember being forced to read books picked out by my teachers. My parents also strongly encouraged me to read, and tried putting me in the more advanced reading groups, or honors English courses, which was probably a mistake because I was always the student in those groups of classes who didn’t read, or didn’t know what was going on in class. Teachers also encouraged us from a young age to do projects on the computer using all the different Microsoft programs, especially “Word,” “PowerPoint,” and “Publisher.” In middle school and high school I had to take keyboarding classes, which were the most pointless classes I’ve ever taken. They were taught to us as if we had never been around computers before in our lives. The truth is, most of us had already been so familiar with the key board through programs like AIM instant messenger, or Xanga (an online journal blog), that we could already type at a fast speed while rarely having to look down at the keyboard. I think a lot of the school systems ways of “teaching” literacy are outdated. Instructors need to prepare students to be able to function effectively in online communication environments of the 21^st century. As stated in the text, “To accomplish this task, educators, certainly those who teach English composition only in its more conventional forms, will need to change their attitudes about literacy in general, and they will need additional technology resources so that they can work more closely with students to earn about the new, self-sponsored media literacies these youngsters are developing and practicing online” (419).  

"Sponsors of Literacy"

In Brandt's article, "Sponsors of Literacy," she goes into detail about the relations between sponsors and sponsorships. Sponsors, as Brandt describes them, are the "figures who turned up most typically in people's memories of literacy learning: older relatives, teachers, priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, influential authors" (335). Brandt agrees that sponsors never lend out their resources in an altruistic manner. There is always gain. Both ends are mutually getting something out of the agreement. Their gain might not be obvious, it might for example, be a gain they recieve somewhere down the line in the future. One example that I can relate to is a program I volunteer for called "Respite." It is a program designed for my major (communication sciences and disorders) in which you pair up with a partner and get assigned to visit an individual with some kind of disability for two hours every week. The idea is to give the care giver a break, as well as give the individual with the disability some entertainment. What I gain out of this volunteer program is not only a resume builder, but also experience with all different kinds of people, which will help me in the working world.
An example used in the text has to do with Little League baseball players who's jerseys have logos of a local insurance company on their uniforms. They don't wear the logos because they care if people buy the product, they just want to be able to afford to play ball.

Wikipedia Reflection Essay

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia in which anyone can create an account to edit or create other articles. How it works is, people add in information they think would be appropriate and helpful to an article, providing sources of where they got their information. If their information is unreliable, poorly written, contains other flaws, etc., people on Wikipedia will edit the information. The type of writing on Wikipedia is a process, just how Anne Lamott describes it in her essay, “Shitty First Draft.” It uses a network of knowledge from individuals across the globe, and it is constantly being edited for improvement. More than likely, the first drafts of Wikipedia articles were very poorly written and unorganized, but the more work that goes into them, the better they become.

When I began working on my Wikipedia edit about pre-lingual deafness, I remember feeling overwhelmed. One, because I was still getting used to using the program, and two, because I had no idea how I was going to get all the information together and organized in a clear fashion, while intertwining it with the work that was already present in the article. However, I remembered what I had read in Lamott’s essay, “Shitty First Drafts,” about not getting discouraged in the beginning of the writing process because it always tends to be the most overwhelming part. After you get over the hump, the writing process gets a lot easier. As she claims in her essay, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible efforts” (Lamott). I knew I needed to take it step by step, and in the end, my work paid off. My finished article, although not perfect, was a major improvement to what it was before. The next time someone takes time to edit the article, it will be even more insightful to those looking to gain knowledge on the subject.

Porter’s text, “Individuality and the Discourse Community,” exemplifies the fact that all text is inter-text, meaning it comes from pieces of work from other authors. Many students confuse this idea of borrowing work from others, and tying it together to form new text, with the idea of plagiarism. As students, we must get past that point of view and realize that all text is inter-text, our knowledge and ideas come from many different places, and we have the ability to combine that knowledge and put it down on paper as a new piece of work. Writing should not be thought of as “individual, isolated, and heroic” (Porter). Written work that becomes published is rarely (if ever) solely the work of one person. It goes through a series of rigorous editing before the final product is released. Wikipedia is somewhat similar to this, except it is constantly being improved, and is never actually “finished.” It is not “isolated, individual, or heroic” (Porter) as each article is the work of many individuals combined together in order to make it as complete and correct as possible.

I found Donald Murray’s article, “All Writing is Autobiography,” to be related, in a sense, to my Wikipedia edit. He claims that all writing is autobiographical because even if it doesn't come from your own experiences, per say, it still comes from somewhere in your head. The information you add to Wikipedia is expected to come from reliable sources, unless of course it is considered general knowledge. I agree with these expectations, because if you don’t have a source to back up your information, who’s to say you didn’t make up that information? On the other hand, I have a lot of background knowledge on the article I was editing (pre-lingual deafness) because I am a Communication Sciences and Disorders major. I noticed that while I was typing up my information for article, that some of it came from the knowledge in my brain, things I remembered my professor saying in class, from my notes, from reading my textbooks, etc. I don’t remember where or in what book or class the knowledge came from, but I still have that knowledge. Therefore, should I not add in that information because I don’t have a source? Or should I add it in anyway because I know it is correct and quality information for the article? As Murray states in his article, "I don't know where what I know comes from. Was it dreamt, read, overheard, imagined, experienced in life or at the writing desk? I have spun a web more coherent than experience."

Although I struggled with the assignment at first, when I saw my completed Wikipedia article finished online, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. I think that having Wikipedia open for everyone to use can be detrimental, but is mostly beneficial. If people want to, they can easily edit bull shit information into an article. Just know that when you are using it, to use it with caution. Everyone has knowledge to share, and if we all work together in combining, sharing, and borrowing that knowledge, we will all benefit.

"Rhetorical Situation and Their Constituents"

In Grant-Davie's text, he explored the concepts of exigence, rhetor, audience, and contraints. To define exigenc, one must ask themselves "What is the discourse about?," "Why is the discourse needed?," and "What should the discourse accomplish?" For example, almost immediately after boarding a cruise ship, the crew holds a mandatory meeting to go over saftey procedures on the ship. This discourse is needed so that in case there is an emergency, the passengers will know where the lifejackets and exits are located. It is trying to accomplish a decrease in the level of panic and chaos in case of an emergency, as well as to keep people safe and possibly save lives. As Grant-Davie simply defines it exigence is a "problem or need that can be addressed through communication" (102). A rhetor is someone who creates a rhetorical situation. When Al Gore brought awareness to global warming through his public speeches, he was an example of a rhetor because he was trying to get our country to realize the dangers of what's ahead and what we can do to slow down the process of global warming. Grant-Davie's texts wants us to examine the word "audience" from many different angles. You never just have "one kind" of audience. There is the audience that the writer intends to read the text, anyone who just happens to read it, readers who form a rhetorical situation, and the audience that is suggested by the text itself. Writers or speakers have to understand that even if their work is intended for a certain audience, a different kind of audience could be reading their text (or listening to their speeches). For example, at one point in the movie "The Social Network," the actor portraying Mark Zuckerburgh describes a certain vocalization as a "glottal stop" however, the sound was not a glottal stop. My Phonetics professor showed this clip of the movie to us in class portraying how they got this wrong in the movie. The movie has nothing to do with phonetics, nor does it impact the quality of the movie for almost any viewer, but this is just an example of how little pieces of information that writers of films create are being critqiued by all kinds of audiences, whether they like it or not. Constraints are the articulators way of getting a message across in a way that evokes manipulation of the audience's emotions. For example, if your roommate is driving you somewhere while complaining about how much gas they've been using recently, they are using constraits to try to get you to offer them some money for gas with out directly asking you for gas money.

"Shitty First Drafts"

In Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" essay, her central argument was not to over think writing too much when you are working on the beginnings of it. Let your ideas flow, and write down anything that pops into your head, not matter how crazy or weird it might be. Those weird ideas you write down might end up being the spark to your work, or a spark that leads to other creative sparks. Even well-accoplished writers have trouble starting out their work. Not even do the most famous writers sit down with a pen and blank paper, spitting out flawless first drafts with out a problem. "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it," (301) Lamott claims. Lamott is trying to pursuade young writers not to get discouraged or think that if the first draft is struggle, then it means they aren't any good at writing, because this is not true. Instead, she wants beginners to take it piece by piece. She points out that her writing is always a struggle, but in the end, after many revisions and edits, her work always seems to turn out fine.

I think the work on Wikipedia supports Lamott's argument about writing. Wikipedia is a public (meaning anyone can edit/create a page) online encyclopedia. How it works is, people add in information they think would be appropriate and helpful to an article, however they must include the sources of where they got their information. If their information is unreliable, poorly written, or contains other flaws, people on Wikipedia will edit the information. Basically, Wikipedia uses a network of knowledge from individuals across the globe, and it is constantly being editted for improvement. More than likely, the first drafts of these articles were very poorly written and unorganized, making them unreliable sources. The more work that goes into Wikipedia, the better it becomes.

"All Writing is Autobiography"

In the article "All Writing is Autobiography" Murray is asking us to reconsider, well just what the title states, that all writing is autobiography. He backs up this claim by including pieces of his writing in which he describes events in his life, however makes up false events within them. He claims that his writing is still autobiographical because even if it doesn't come from his own experiences, per say, it still comes from somewhere in his head, as Murray states in his article, "I don't know where what I know comes from. Was it dreamt, read, overheard, imagined, experienced in life or at the writing desk? I have spun a web more coherent than experience" (8). Murray wants us to reconsider how we think of the word "autobiography" as more than just psysical life experiences, but the experiences in your mind as well.

"Intertextuality and the Discourse Community"

According to Porter in his text "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" he claims there is harm in imagining writing "as individual, as isolated, as heroic." In truth writing is shared and borrowed. Interextuality is the bits and pieces of text which writers or speakers borrow are combine together to create a new text, and all text has intertextuality. The article uses Thomas Jefferson as an exmaple of this. The Declaration of Independence is popularly viewed as the work of Thomas Jefferson, but after some researchers thorough examination, it was discovered that Jefferson was not the originator framer, or a creative genious. Rather, he was a skilled writer but mainly because he was a skilled borrower of traces. In fact, his most memorable phrase of the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal," was borrowed from Euripides, and was a cliche of the times. Also, Jefferson's draft of the Declaration was edited vigorously by Congress. All in all, this example of Jefferson used means that he should get credit for putting traces together and molding the framework of the Declaration, but it was a group effort that created this document. Writers like Jefferson have achieved post-socialized status within some discourse community. "Students need to learn first what it means to write in a social context. They need to see writers whose products are more evidently part of a larger process and whose more clearly produces meaning in social contexts."