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? 

CID and Good Ideas

Johnson says that "good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete." Using a coral reef system as a sort of metaphor, he shows how this can happen. 

Essentially by attending the "Conversations in the Disciplines," you were able to see Johnson's theory put into action. Good ideas connecting, fusing, and recombining together in the form of research and writing. I want you to pick one or two of the presentations--tell us who are you using specifically--and deconstruct the presentation using Johnson's theory to help do this. In other words, Johnson concludes his chapter by saying, "we are often better served by connecting ideas than we are protecting them." You are in essence responding to this notion by using one of the presentations as support of this. 

Be specific. Use both Johnson's piece and the presentation(s) as support for your deconstruction of where good ideas come. 

The video above is Johnson visually showing where good ideas come from. 

Remember: it's ok to step out of the box. Deconstruction is a great way to examine something in your own unique way. 

250-400 words. Engage with one another.

Due: Monday, April 22, 2013.

In-Class: Interview Prep

Today we are going to be discussing/thinking about the different methods you'll be using in your research. One of those methods is the interview. After completing a round robin with several different members of the class, I want you to do several things: (1) talk about issues that can come up in an interview; (2) talk about how to respond to those issues; (3) discuss what makes you most nervous about an interview--what might you do to help ease those nerves; and (4) generate a list of possible questions for your interviewee (if you have started this already then I want you to discuss the questions you have already created and why you created them the way you did).  (5) discuss how the interview can and will enhance your analysis in response to your research question(s). And last, talk about when and how you are going to go about setting up your interview--if you have done this already discuss how you have done this. Shoot for around 200 words. 

Surveys and Interviews

Interviews and surveys are two other methods you'll be using as part of your research. Even though MacNealy discusses only surveys in this chapter, there is a lot of cross-over between surveys and interviews. Where do you see this cross-over? According to MacNealy, what are the challenges and disadvantages to these methods? What do you need to keep in mind when designing your questions? What types of questions do you see yourself using in your own research? How do you analyze these questions? Conclude by discussing your plan for incorporating these methods into your research.

250-400 words. Engage with one another.

Due: Monday, April 15, 2013 by class time.