Blog #11: The LAST Blog

Well, I promised a last blog. The problem is that we haven't read anything, so there's not really anything to respond to, and as I'm sitting here thinking about "the last blog," all I think of is Donna Summer's "Last Dance."

The song is ancient, but DJs at weddings play it all the time as the last dance of the evening, so you may have heard it before. It sort of signals that the wedding reception is over.

Oddly enough, when I went on YouTube to find a link, I also found other songs that are recommended to use as last dance songs.

And that still doesn't give me anything to ask you to write about in this blog.

So . . .

Write about the favorite genre you have used this semester and why you liked this genre.  Or write about the least favorite genre and why it was your least favorite genre. 

OR -- Write about the process of writing your first resume.  What prompted you to write it? What job were you applying for? What were your greatest challenges?  Did you get the job? Was it because of the resume? 

And that's it. I'm out for the semester.

Blog #10: So we have a research paper. Where are YOU headed?

So . . .  I'm back from Seaport Village. We got lots of amazing cheeses at Venessimo and also some chocolates from some amazing chocolate place. I don't know what that's called, but the chocolates were amazing.

There are only a few more blogs.
You might have done ENOUGH blogs, but a few extra points never hurt anyone, right? And this one could be useful.

This blog isn't based on a reading. Think about your research paper.

What discourse community/community of practice do you want to research?
Why? What is it about this community that interests you?
What do you already know about this community?

Where are you headed? What will you research?
Remember, this isn't about how great the community is or what this community does. This research paper is about the community's communicative practices.

How do you want to approach this paper? What do you want to learn about the communicative practice?

How are these communicative practices acquired? (Swales, Johns, Gee, Wardle)
What does it take for members to enculturate themselves? (Johns, Gee, Wardle, Mirabelli)
What literacies to members need to acquire? (Mirabelli)
What is this community's "way of being" (Johns, Gee, Wardle)
What does it cost to take on this community? (Wardle, Johns)
What values are reinforced by this community? (Devitt, Wardle, Johns)
How do readers need to see themselves? How do they need to consider authorities? How do they need to align themselves? (Wardle)

There are other questions you could ask based on the readings, but I'll leave it for you to come up with those. 

Who will you interview? What can you observe? What genres does this community have?

And so on. And so on. Begin imagining this paper.  And brainstorm.

Blog #9: Wardle and Work (Who Are You?)

NOTE:  Write Blog #8 or Blog #9 or both for extra points.

All semester we've been talking about identity kits and figuring out how to adapt to audiences and genres. Why?

Because when you leave SDSU, you will have to create an identity kit suitable for whatever job or role you play in your next life. 

And you have to figure out how to new audiences and write new ways and use new genres. 

In a way, all our experiments with op/eds and narratives and blogs and journals and reflections is about looking what other people do, feeling uncomfortable, and trying something new. Because that is what you will do when you leave this wonderful place. (Yes, I really do think it's wonderful. That's why I'm still here.)


When you leave here, you'll go to grad school or you'll get a job, hopefully in your desired career field, and you will have to figure out what it is that you need to be and how you need to be that. 

I can't teach you that. But I can ask you to think critically about what it takes to learn to do that. 

That's what Elizabeth Wardle talks about in "Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces."

Like Mirabelli, Wardle asserts that learning to communicate in new situations and new communities of practice is complex. It requires learning and conforming to "conventions, codes, and genres" (521). It requires a new way of being which can challenge your sense of identity as well as your values. It asks you to take on a way of being.  And that can cost you.

And if that sounds a lot like Gee and Devitt and Johns, well, that was on purpose. 

Take a look at what Wardle says about identity and authority and learning how to adapt in a new workplace. Talk about what you will have to do in your desired career or talk about the challenges of learning how to adapt in your internship or talk about what it will cost you. Or synthesize some of the ideas we've been working on.

Or something.

Blog #8: What are YOU Learning to Read?

NOTE:  Respond to Blog #8 or Blog #9 or both, for extra points.

My friends took me out to dinner to celebrate after I finished grad school. The server asked us what we were celebrating, and after I told her, she said that she finished grad school a year ago and was still looking for other work. I felt sorry for and afraid for me.

It's not that I thought the server was stupid or anything, but a service job was NOT what I went to grad school for. I guess I just wanted something better than that.

Am I a snob? I'm not sure. Do I dismiss the skills of servers? No. Honestly, I see this as very hard work. I've worked in service industry jobs before, and I don't want to work in those jobs again. But it does sort of seems like going backward, away from what I wanted to do. 

Do I see the service industry as less prestigious than working for a university? Maybe. I'm not sure. Now that I work at SDSU, I don't see my job as prestigious in any way. And I do know servers in high-end restaurants who make more money than I do. 

But I digress, as I often do.  In "Learning to Serve," Tony Mirabelli rejects the common assumption that service worker jobs are low-skilled professions that contribute very little to society and sets out to show that while the language used in a diner is DIFFERENT than language used in a classroom or one of Swales' fancy discourse communities, that doesn't mean that it is less complex. And like Gee, who talks about identity kits, he shows that language isn't just limited to words, either written or spoken. He illustrates these ideas by describing how he had to learn to read menus AND people in his work as a server at Lou's Italian Restaurant while he worked on his own grad school degree.

In this blog, you can respond to Peter Drucker's assertion that "interactive service workers lack the necessary education to be 'knowledge workers'" (145) or to others who consider service work to be "'mindless,' involving routine and repetitive tasks that require little education" (145) because these jobs don't require identification of problems, ability to solve those problems, or other complex abilities.  In fact, the National Skills Standards Board has determined that it only takes a ninth grade education to be a server (Mirabelli 145). 

Or you can compare Mirabelli's ideas about literacy to something you have experienced in your own life. 

Blog #7: My Identity Kit (Real or Mushfake?)

I am an introvert. I'm incredibly nervous in large crowds. I don't adapt well to new social situations--or job situations. I feel awkward. Like I don't know how to fit in. Because I don't know how to fit in. Like I don't know how to behave. Because I don't know how to behave. 

So I sit back and observe: What are the existing power structures? When do people talk? When don't they talk? What kinds of things do people say? What kind of vocabulary do they use? How loudly do they speak? How do they dress? How do they walk? 

And then, gradually, I venture into conversations, a few people at a time. 
By the time people actually notice me, I have mastered some things, and I seem like I know what I am doing, so people have no idea how awkward I actually feel. That's good. 

I was terrified my first day as an instructor of RWS100 at SDSU. I was a grad student, and I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Because I literally had no idea what I was doing. But I knew I needed to look what I was doing. 

I hadn't had a chance to observe other professors teach RWS 100, so I had no idea what identity I should adopt. I had observed what other professors wear, so I picked out an outfit accordingly. I wanted to appear smart and professional. Current but not too young. Or too old. 

I wanted to project a knowledgeable yet approachable tone. But I wasn't sure exactly how to do that. I didn't want any of my students to know this was my first day in the classroom, and so I had to pretend like I knew what I was doing. I didn't lie, but I did try to project a note of confidence, as if I belonged in the classroom. I was pretty sure it was obvious that I didn't feel that way, but maybe not. My students were all freshmen who had no idea who they needed to be either. 

And then gradually I figured out who I needed to be by conferring with other professors, by finding mentors, by reading pedagogical theories and stories about teaching, by experimenting in the classroom, by actually interacting with students and colleagues. 

There's a point to this story. In order to seem like a teacher, I needed to create what James Paul Gee identifies as "sort of an 'identity kit' which comes complete with appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, an often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize" (119). Until I know how to do that, I need to pretend, to engage in what Gee calls "mushfake discourse."



In this blog, talk about your experience in acquiring a new discourse or develop a new identity kit, how you pretended, how you felt, what you did. Or how someone helped you.  Talk about mushfaking and how mushfaking turned into the real deal. Or how you are still mushfaking. I am an introvert. I'm incredibly nervous in large crowds. I don't adapt well to new social situations--or job situations. I feel awkward. Like I don't know how to fit in. Because I don't know how to fit in. Like I don't know how to behave. Because I don't know how to behave.

Blog #6: Discourse Communities and the Cost of Affiliation

Steve Jobs didn't finish college. Neither did Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or John Glenn or Robert Frost. These fabulously successful individuals didn't need it. And yet, statistically, most successful people have complete college. Of course a college degree has no guarantees, but in the last recession, people with college degrees didn't suffer nearly as much as people without them. And most people agree that education plays a significant role in moving up the success ladder--even if what the end up doing has nothing to do with their college degree. (There are many ways to define success, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm saying enough money to live comfortably and meaningful work.)

The thing is, the people at who most need to move up the success ladder often don't finish college. That has led a lot of scholars to ask why and to create initiatives to improve graduation rates for at-risk students, those kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, kids who are the first in their families to go to college.  

I didn't come from a rich background, but my family just assumed that I would go to college. High school graduation was no big deal in my house; it was what you had to do to get to college. And I wasn't done with school until I had a bachelor's degree. That kind of mindset keeps kids like me in school even when they encounter challenges that might keep them from finishing. College is just what you do.

Every day I encounter students who don't have that kind of background; their parents don't understand what they need to do to finish, so they pressure them to attend multiple family gatherings that keep them from studying or to work more hours. Without family support, either financial or emotional, they falter, and many of them just give up, believing college isn't for them.

In "Why Poor Students Struggle," published in the New York Times, New York city high school teacher and educational coach Vicki Madden reviews completion rate statistics and suggests that the biggest challenge to finishing school may be that "students have to come to terms with the unspoken transaction: exchanging your old world for a new world, one that doesn't seem to value where you came from." 

This article reminded me of SDSU professor Ann Johns' discussion in "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice." She argues that when students become "active participants" in a discourse community, they often must make sacrifices that "can create personal and social distance between them and their families and communities" (511). To fit into a new discourse community, they have to take on the "values, language, and genres" of that community. This claim is similar to Devitt's claim that when writers take up a genre, they also take up the ideologies, values, and norms of that genre (339). 

So--in this week's blog post, you can discuss the ideas Johns and Madden toss out, or you can take a minutes to consider your process of immersion in an academic discourse community or your adjustment to university life or how you navigate between the way you need to be in your family and the way you need to be while you are here at SDSU.

Blog #5: A Discourse Community? What's that?

So, we've been reading op-eds and JSTOR Daily articles. What a breath of fresh air. They're written to make you want to read them, complete with pictures. 

Now I want you to take a look at something that is pretty much the opposite of creative: John Swales and the Discourse Community, available on Bb.

Yes, despite the fact that Swales got his own postage stamp (I don't know if that's real or not), this is not riveting reading. 

That's why we're going to talk about it in class first. To try to make it less painful. Or less boring or something.

I personally think Swales, a linguist who studies patterns of writing, is a genius, but I also personally think that his writing, especially this article, is pretty stiff. (If you REALLY want it, I can find it, and we can discuss it at length. That is, if you REALLY want it.) 

The thing is, everything we read about the concept ofdiscourse community is going to go right back to what Swales described in this excerpt, so if we want to have a meaningful conversation about discourse community, we have to start here.

At any rate, in your blog, I want you to take some time to define the concept of discourse community based on reading Swales. Keep in mind that the concept of discourse communityis NOT the same thing as the concept of primary audience. 

 

 

And then I want you to identify a group which might qualify as a discourse community based on Swales' six characteristics and analyze it based on those characteristics, just as he does for his After your analysis, do you still think this is a discourse community?  

And yeah. That's about it for now. 

Blog #4: You get an opinion! Everyone gets an opinion!

So this week's reading are so incredibly different that last week's readings. If academic writing is dry and incredibly boring due to dense sentence structure, four-syllable vocabulary, and abstract exemplification, this weeks reading may or may not be a breath of fresh air. I mean, who doesn't like emotionally-laden, one-sided opinions?
 
Oh. People who disagree with those highly stylized, emotionally-laden, one-sided opinions.
 

In an effort to appeal to as many people as possible, I have attempted to include many topics and many perspectives. Hopefully I haven't offended anyone.
 
But I may have.
 
 
 
 
 
That's the thing with editorials or opinion pieces. They have opinions. The goal is respond to something that people care about NOW (the rhetorical situation) and provide a clear argument that is designed to be as persuasive as possible, at least for a very specific primary audience.

 
As such, they employ rhetorical strategies. Comparisons. Metaphors. Statistics and carefully cherry-picked data. Loaded language. Hyperbole. Understatement. Irony. Division and classification. Exemplification. Identification. Metadiscourse.  (Does anyone remember the WPA?)
 
And they are loaded with ethos and pathos and logos.  
But mostly pathos. Most of the time.
 
Read three of them. Or more. And then read three of the JSTOR Daily articles. 

Btw, JSTOR Daily is a website devoted to providing snippets of academic research to people who are interested in snippets but don't want to read academic research.  You just never know what will show up on JSTOR Daily. 

In your blog analyze these genres in some way based on what we have discussed in class or some other criteria. What are these op-eds like? What are some common characteristics? Where do you see ethos? (How does the author make herself seem believable?) Where and how do you see logos and pathos? How is this genre different from other genres you have been exposed to in academia?

What kinds of ideologies, norms, or values does the op-ed genre reinforce or minimize? What impact does this genre have on those who read this? Or those who write them?

How is the JSTOR Daily different? What characteristics does this have? What ideologies, norms, or values does this genre reinforce or minimize?

Oh, heads up. Your first major project this semester is to write an op-ed, so you should be thinking about what you have an opinion on and what argument you want to make. Or if you don't want to create a highly stylized, emotionally-laden, one-sided argument, you could take some of those fabulous things you are learning in your other classes and craft a JSTOR Daily article.

 
 Oh yeah. I've been rambling. Take these ideas and go in some kind of direction.

Blog #3: Memes! Everywhere!

At this point you probably get that I am fascinated by the genre of internet memes, by the way the replication and transformation of patterns of cultural information. 

The Original Rose and the Original Poster

Take for example, Rosie the Riveter:

Someone, probably a guy, wanted to motivate women to work in factories during World War 2, so he chose one of those women to represent all of the women, and he fashioned an image, a poster that went viral, so to speak. No one called it that then. 

Over time, that image has morphed many times, taking shape for a variety of purposes. Take a look at a few of them:

The first three memes press the idea that women CAN achieve the things that men say they can't. They all replicate other strands of culture as well: female Mexican freedom fighter with a bullets draped across her shoulder, the common phrase "Fight like a Man" shifts to "Fight Like a Girl," celebrating the power of women, and the homage to Iranian woman depicts a woman in a hijab.

I'm not sure what the Obama mean says, whether this is positive or negative, but it not only memes the Rosie poster but also his first campaign slogan.

 

Okay. You get the idea. At any rate, read either Knobel and Lankshear or Davison. Both of them talk about analyzing memes. And then analyze a meme in your blog, an internet meme or another unit of culture that has evolved as it has been replicated.  Seriously fun.

Blog #2: Learn ALL the Genres!!!!!

 

When I ask my lower division students to think about genre, they immediately think music, about music, about rock or country or rap or whatever genre of music they are most interested in. Then they remember that they are in a writing class, and they think of literary genres. Plays or poetry, novels or short stories. Romance. Science fiction. Fantasy. 

That's not what I mean, but I don't mind. It helps them understand that each genre has its own characteristics. No one will confuse a rap song with a minuet. And no one will confuse a romantic sonnet with a science fiction short story.  

It also helps them to see that each of these genres has a different effect on its audience. We feel different when we are listening to rap than we do when we listen to baroque string quartets or heavy metal. The music does something. 

In this class, I'm going to ask you to consider some different genres. These aren't really literary genres, but they are written forms of communication, each with a  unique set of characteristics. For example, a blog is a unique genre. 

We expect a blog to be informal. Written in casual language. Way more casual than a formal academic essay. 

It might be accompanied by images. It will probably discuss real world ideas, responses, emotions. It's personal. You get to know the person who is writing. 

All of this is about audience response to genre. In her academic research article titled "Teaching Critical Genre Awareness" (2009), Kansas University writing professor Amy Devitt contends that not only does genre influence the audience, but that because each genre has its own "existing power structures and dynamics" (347), it also has the ability to do something to the author. 

In music terms, the musician feels different to playing Mozart than she does playing the Grateful Dead. More pointedly, it feels different to write a waltz than it does a head-banging rock song, and if I write waltzes all the time, I'll be a different person than if I write rock songs all the time.  

Back to Devitt. Her claim is that it's not just what the author says that has an effect on the author, but the very structure of the genre influences the writer because the genre has a sort of ideology, a world view of its own.  

I want you to unpack these ideas as you read Devitt.

First of all, think about what Devitt means by genre. What kinds of writing genres do you encounter at SDSU? At your job? Your internship? Your life? How are each unique? What purpose does each serve? What is designed to do? 

Next, think about what Devitt means by genre awareness. Why does she think genre awareness is so important? How might genre awareness and rhetorical analysis of various genres help you?

Early in the text, Devitt claims, "When writers take up a genre, they take up that genre's ideology" (339). What does she mean? How can an ideology have its own ideology? 

Finally, what does Devitt mean by "existing power structures and dynamics" (347) associated with genres? Why does she think genres have so much power? 

Devitt illustrates some of these ideas by discussing the five-paragraph essay, a genre you have quite a bit of experience with.  You could discuss that, or you might think of other real world examples of genres that you have used in the past or are using now.  For example, you might consider how writing a blog is different than writing a research paper for your psych class or writing a lab report. How is the purpose different? How does your style of writing change? How might using this style influence who you are? 

In your blog, you can write about any of these things or go in another direction if you want.  

Blog #1: Constructing Ethos, Creating Identity Kit

We raised butterflies this last spring.
This one wouldn't leave.

When you walked into the room on Monday morning, you expected something.

Certainly you expected a professor.
Perhaps you were hoping for someone more hip. More cool. Younger. Perhaps you were expecting someone who sounded more, well, academic.

Maybe you checked out my name on ratemyprofessor.com and you think you know a little bit about me. She's fair. She's flighty. She assigns a lot of homework. She's a tough grader.

More than likely you expected me to conduct the class in a professional manner, to make a syllabus available, to describe course expectations. You expected me to speak grammatically and to communicate clearly.

From this point on, you'll be judging me and the way I teach based on the way I continue to play my part of professor.


You'll be figuring out what kind of person I am.  And whether or not I can be trusted. 

At Sacre Coeur in Paris.
Did I mention I love to travel?

That's the way life works, or at least the way Goffman describes in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman claims we are all playing roles, consciously or unconsciously presenting an image of ourselves to the rest of the world.

Hopefully this image of myself I'm projecting to you is credible. That's what ethos is--the image we construct allows you to trust or believe a speaker or author.

James Paul Gee, a professor in psycholinguistics and discourse analysis, uses a different analogy. He describes what he calls an identity kit "which comes with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize" (7).

I will admit. That sounds a little artificial. But think about it. Whether subtly or dramatically, you behave differently in different contexts. You are one way with your friends. Another way with colleagues or roommates. Another way with your mom. And your dad, Your grandmother. Your sister.

It's not fake--it's situational.

Well, sometimes it's fake. The first time I stood up in front of an RWS 100 class, I wasn't quite sure who I needed to be. So I pretended to be who I thought I should be. And over time, I became who I needed to be.

Often these adjustments in the way we present ourselves are necessary in order for us to succeed and achieve our purposes.

Okay, I've rambled enough.
I'm presenting an image of myself for you. In blogs, I'm conversational. Use short sentences, sometimes fragments. I like short paragraphs. I appear random, but I definitely have a point.

If you're analyzing the appearance of this blog, you can see it's technologically weak. Maybe, you think, she not good at technology because she is so old. Or maybe she's busy and doesn't want to take the time to make this blog look better. Or maybe there's something else going on. You decide.

And when you're done trying to figure out what role I'm playing, make your own blog. In this blog, I want you to do the same thing I'm doing. Imagine an audience, this class. What's the best way to present yourself to this class? What role do you want to play? Who do you want this class to see?


Present yourself in such a way as to appeal to this class, using visuals, vocabulary, and ideas that appeal to that audience.

This first blog post is about introducing yourself and your purpose to this audience. Do your best.