Beginning to Draft the Essay

For this blog post you are doing an SRR: summary, respond, reflect. First quickly summarize what happened in Ballenger's #4. Next respond to it, in other words, what did you learn; what applies to your own research; what was your reaction to learning these things. And last, you are going to reflect on the chapter. What connections can you make between other readings, class discussions, and drafting of your own essay? 

***He discusses two ways to respond to inquiry-based research. Remember for your essay, you are NOT creating an argument. 

Shoot for 250-350 words and engage with your peers. 

Due: Monday, May 6, 2013 by class time. 

Conference Day Blog

As part of your conference day, you need to complete this blog by 10:00 pm or you will be considered absent. 

Essentially, you have thought about your theory of writing at least once in the blog post "investigating key terms." Other blogs have hinted at your theory without being so direct. You are going to continue your thinking, musing, and defining of your theory of writing for this post. This is meant to be reflective in nature, so it's good to revisit some of your old blogs and see what you said.

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? How do these key terms connect to your research? Why is it important that you write in different genres of writing (so far, you've experienced the following genres: blog, proposal, report, lit review, outline/brainstorming, reflection)? 

(2) Writerly Identity

Who are you as a writer? A researcher? How does considering key terms contribute to the development of your writerly identity? How do you think research, especially inquiry-based research that you're doing right now, contributes to 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 known for his witty and oddly inspiring quotes sets the tone for your conclusion of this post. In one-two sentences, write your theory of writing in Dr. Seuss style. 

350-500 words. Engage with others (there's at least one or two of you not doing this--you can't receive a check plus without engaging with others...). 

What is a Lit Review?!?

After reading through the 2 sample lit reviews and essays, please take a look at these 2 websites again: 

(1) http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-reviews/

(2) http://www.duluth.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/researching/litreview.html

Taken together--the sample lit reviews, the sample essays, and the two websites, please respond to the following questions pulling on at least one of the samples to evidence what you are saying: 

What is the purpose of a lit review? (be specific!)

What is the purpose of an inquiry-based research essay? 

How do the two differ? 

Why might it be *extremely important to do a lit review before writing your essay? 

Why do we learn how to write a lit review? 

Next move to your research, and respond to the following questions:

What is the purpose of your lit review?

What is the purpose of your inquiry-based essay? 

How will you make the two differ? 

Be as specific and detailed as possible. Remember to engage with one another. 

**You will NOT be able to respond to this blog without having read through the examples and the two websites. And this is NOT the time to *breeze your way through the blog hoping to get some amount of credit. 

Due: Monday, April 29, 2013 by class time. 

Lit Review: In-Class Work Day

In about 200-300 words, explain your visual representation: what's your purpose of your lit review? What are some of your themes? What sources will you use within each theme? Finally, then discuss what's next: where do you need to do to start drafting your lit review.

Why Write and Why Research?

Auster answers his question "why write" through different experiences. For this blog post, you need to respond to this question on two levels: (1) why write in relationship to yourself (use examples from your own life as Auster did) and (2) why research, in other words, why do you need to know how to research? Pull on your own experiences again. 

As you respond to these two questions, you also need to draw on past readings and use key words to begin to make connections between readings and key words and to your own writing identity. 

250-400 words. Respond to one another. 

Due: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 by class time. 

Emily & Dre

Our key terms revolved mainly around rhetorical situation and its role within activity theory-- basically how our rhetor, Chuck Norris, is “learning through doing” (giving) his speech (Russell & Yanez).

The rhetorical situation is spurred on by an exigence, as seen in the explosion bubble near Chuck’s head. Chuck then makes choices as to how he well present his response to this exigence since, after all, “No situation can have a nature independent of the perception of its interpreter or independent of the rhetoric with which he chooses to characterize it.” -Vatz (p. 154).

Next, we placed our audience in the path of the “salience” rays being emitted by Chuck. After this the waves are interpreted, which is a key step in any rhetorical situation. Finally, “logos,” “pathos,” and “ethos” are on top of the audience because they modes through which Chuck’s argument is conveyed upon his crowd.

Our visualization is strong because it is simple AND comprehensive. It’s also highly imagistic, so it’s easier to understand and commit to memory. Plus, it’s Chuck Norris. He’ll kick your ass if you don’t.

DJ, Keegan, Jack

We set up the representation based on a hierarchy within the connections of the key terms. Going off of Vatz’s definition, the rhetor creates the rhetorical situation and thus it is the largest word in our collage. The reason that Vatz has the rhetor in such high regard is because he gets to choose the salience and reinterpret the situation. The second largest word is rhetorical situation because it encompasses some of the other connections like audience, purpose, and salience. Bitzer is the reason we have rhetorical situation as a large word because he includes the whole process, he has the exigence and the audience (the cause and the responder). It shows that we need to be responsive to all parts within the context in order to have the most successful persuasion and so it represents that part of our research, writing, and thinking. It connects to the course because we have discussed these terms in depth more than a few times and it shows how we think the terms have been presented in importance.

Hannah and Will (Vote for us)

Will and Hannah

We chose to create a flowchart to show the connections between several key concepts. We started with rhetorical situation, collectively defined as the cretion of reality. This creation of reality can be thought of using either the definition given by Bitzer or the defintion given by Vatz. Bitzer claims the sitution affects the rhetoric, and therefore Bitzer’s key terms relating to rhetorical situation include exigence, audience, and contraints. Exigence refers to the problem that the rhetor solves through his or her discourse. Audience refers to the people receiving the message. Contraints are the factors that shape the response to the rhetorical situation. Vatz claims that the rhetoric controls the situations, and his definition of rhetorical situation includes the terms salience, choice, interpretation, and rhetor. The rhetor is vital to Vatz’s definition the rhetor chooses, based on what they feel is important (or salient) what they convey. The rhetor is responsible for how the audience interprets the situation that they present. Regardless of whose defintion is used to explain rhetorical situation, the creation of reality synthesises together to provide the final product, which is discourse. 

This flowchart makes sense because different interpretations of the same concept lead to the finished product, discourse, through unique processes. The flowchart also represents both of us as writers because one of us agrees with Bitzer’s view of rhetorical situation while the other agrees with Vatz’s definition. In this course, as with in other courses, we can connect this image to our researching, writing, and thinking skills. For example, our perception of the discourse we produce can be viewed throught the lense of this flowchart.

Ben and Jackie

Here is the link to our online crossword puzzle. After you're on the link, scroll to the bottom and press "solve online" the answer key AKA our key terms are also available at the bottom of the page. Click on "Answer key HTML"
http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2013.04/2213/22134207.684.html  

For our representation of the key terms of rhetoric we decided to create a crossword puzzle. A crossword puzzle formats the answers in a way that connects letters from one word to another. Therefore, the crossword is an accurate representation of rhetoric. The puzzle illustrates the interconnectedness of the words. Without a rhetorical situation, salience, choice, ethos, pathos, logos etc. would not exist. Although Vatz and Bitzer’s key terms differ immensely, both styles are important when considering the key terms of rhetoric cumulatively. In Vatz’s article, he proposes that, ‘“The very choice of what facts or events are relevant is a matter of pure arbitration. Once the choice is communicated, the event is imbued with salience, or what Chaim Perelman calls ‘presence,’’’(Vatz 157). Therefore, our decision to include salience, choice, and rhetor in our key terms is logical. This statement also reveals how the words are related. The situation would not be interpreted if not for the rhetor. Without the rhetor, a choice would not have been made. In turn, there would be no salience in the situation because the choice of what to make salient would not exist. In an article based on Artistotle’s perception of rhetoric he also references the rhetorical appeals that Bitzer explains. The article states, “According to Aristotle, the available means of persuasion are based on three kinds of proof: logical (logos), ethical (ethos), and emotional (pathos)” (Artistotle 280).

This format represent us as writers because as each word in the puzzle relies on another word to be complete, we rely on all of these aspects of writing in completing a given piece of writing. The crossword relates to the course because we do not only study one aspect of rhetoric. We need to understand all of the different terms in order to build an argument. Just as you use the other answers in a puzzle to determine another solution, we rely on our knowledge of certain terms to guide us in our interpretation of the others. In an article based on Artistotle’s perception of rhetoric he also references the rhetorical appeals that Bitzer explains. The article states, “According to Aristotle, the available means of persuasion are based on three kinds of proof: logical (logos), ethical (ethos), and emotional (pathos)” (Artistotle 280). 

Abdullaziz and Paul

We chose a Venn diagram to best depict the key terms accumulated over the quarter for a couple of reasons. The first and most important reason was to connect the rhetor and audience and show how the two create the rhetorical situation.  A picture tells 1000 words making a Venn diagram easy to follow and understand.

The representation we created makes sense, because according to Vatz, the rhetor holds a big portion of the power that creates the rhetorical situation; that’s why you can see more terms in the rhetor category. The audience’s interpretation and perspective allows for the creation of the Vatz’ rhetorical situation.

Due to our similar styles of thinking and writing, a Venn diagram was a logical choice to represent the key terms. As writers, we both describe ourselves as grammatically and logically organized. As researchers, we collect data and find connections in order to generate an accurate idea based on the acquired knowledge. This also relates to Johnson’s ideas of how good ideas get created; he says that good ideas come from many perspectives coming together to create a new unique fully developed idea.

This is connected deeply within the course as to how we always discuss new ideas in class and find connections in-between different terms and concepts. This method moves on with us as thinkers into other courses that demand writing in college. Key terms and concepts in writing will be utilized by everyone including us throughout our studies, jobs and professions.

Lewis and Emily B

We chose to do a Wordle document to show how we understand the key terms of this course. The Wordle allows us to put higher importance on some terms over other by making them bigger. Throughout the course this far, we have talked about numerous important terms, so it is hard to find the cut-off point. The Wordle also represents how we view our key terms as an umbrella. Rhetorical situation is basically the all-encompassing term so it is the biggest. From there we put the key terms into multiple groups with a few terms per group and made the words smaller as the groups went down in importance. The Wordle represents us as well as the whole class as writers, researchers and thinkers because we used everyone’s blog posts to find our key terms. Vatz believes that choice and the rhetor are some of the most important terms while Bitzer would disagree. We still added these words and made them fairly large based on the fact that we discussed Vatz so much in our class. MacNealy is another scholar that we discussed that relates to our key terms. For example, discourse and textual analysis are two important words that we put in our Wordle because they connect to almost all of our readings. Then MacNealy defines these terms as words, pictures, and diagrams. We also included these three words in our Wordle but made them smaller because they don’t relate across the course as much as others do. Outside of this class, we can use this image as a guide to remind ourselves of the level of importance that each term has. While the importance will change depending of the situation that you are applying them to, the idea that terms build on each other to create a rhetorical situation still stands.


P.S.

 - Lewis

Spencer and Danielle

For our representation of these key terms, we created a collage of pictures in the shape of a question mark. We chose the question mark because we feel that all of these terms can be changed and manipulated by the author. Each person can chose to what to include, what to emphasize, how to present it to their audience etc. so the question mark shows that the combination of all these terms is different for all people.

We think the collage is the perfect representation of all of these terms because it really reflects who we are as writers, researchers and thinkers. Both of us draw inspiration from many different sources and our writing process is constantly changes as we learn what works best for us. Also, as students, we are engaged in many different activities and by using a collage it emphasizes how we are multi dimensional people. Many different things, people, activities, characteristics, passions, etc come together to make up who we are.

This is also shown in the Russell and Yanez article about Genre Theory. This article discusses the importance of showing students how what is learned in one class can be applied to many other classes and even after school. We both believe that this is very important and definitely something we have experienced in this class as well as outside of school. We have learned about reflection, audience, purpose, etc. in this class but that knowledge can be used throughout my business classes and professional career.

I think Vatz’s article about Rhetorical situation also applies to our collage. This is because he emphasizes the importance of the rhetor and how they control the situation. This is emphasized in our key terms because each word we chose reflects something that can be altered, designed, or manipulated by the author. It can vary greatly by whomever choses to engage in it just like how each person who looks at our collage can interpret it differently.

            

Key Terms: Connections and Interlockings

Guidelines for today's activity:

Purpose: 

To show me and your peers how you understand the key terms of course--how they apply to you as a writer, researcher, and thinker; how they apply to your writing and research process(es); and how they apply to other future writing and research situations (in other words how they will transfer to other writing/research sites). 

Step 1: 

In a group of 2, you are going to create a representation of how you see the key terms connecting together. The representation can be anything from an image or series of images to a graph, a chart, poster, collage, etc. Instead of hand drawing it, you are going to use things found online: word, powerpoint slide, glogster image, wordle, etc, etc. You might first need to sketch out your ideas on a piece of paper, but your final produce will be something done online. 

Step 2: 

Create your representation. 

Step 3: 

Defend your representation. 

Why did you do what you did? Why does it make sense? How does it represent both of you as writers, researchers, and thinkers? How does it connect to the course? to you? to what you'll do in other writing sites outside of this class? 

Use at least 2 readings to help support your defense. These should make sense in other words you can't just throw a scholar in there and hope there's a connection. Establish ethos. 

Shoot for at least 250 words. 

Step 4: 

Create a blog post--create your own, you are not commenting back to this one!--where you use both the representation and defense to show the interlockings of the key terms according to your group. 

Step 5: 

Comment back to at least two different groups reflecting on what you think about their representation. 

Step 6:

We vote. The winners, according to the class, receive a prize. ;-)

**This is a timed event meaning you must complete it within the class period. Pay attention to the time but don't rush. Just because you are done first does not mean you will win. My guess is a good final product should take over an hour to complete. 

It should be a thoughtful and engaging finished product. 

Lit Review: The Hows and Whys

The Lit Review

Part 1:

As you go through the different web sites, jot down notes--what are things you need to keep in mind? What is the order? What do you do with your sources? After you compile a list of notes,  start to think about how you are going to write you lit review. What are some difficulties that you might encounter? What are some things you feel pretty confident about? How is a lit review different than your research report? 

Part 2:

After reading through the sample lit review, respond to the following questions: (1) what are some important characteristics of a lit review? (2) what do you need to include in your lit review? (3) what are things that you do not do in a lit review? (4) what you do believe is most important to remember/understand about a lit review? 

Then create an outline of a lit review (similar to the spider web here), in other words, show me how you understand the design of a lit review. As you create it, think of your own research and how you might begin to organize it for the purposes of the lit review. 

Conclude: what, as you understand it, are the purposes of a lit review?