Zooming Out A Bit (15-20 min)

This course is about language, rhetoric, and writing. We will learn about all three of these things primarily through writing a bunch of stuff, but we will all use a variety of methods to do so (we will “prepare” our writing in different ways). You are already an expert in each one of these topics. You have been using rhetoric the longest, followed by language, followed by writing–but you have been using all of them for the vast majority of your life.

• Rhetoric is a way we use symbols to make knowledge, coordinate activity, express ourselves, and influence others. You have been doing that since you’ve been a baby–you used crying, smiles, gestures, among other symbols before you started to master language. Being intentional with symbols is being rhetorical.
• Language is something you acquired after and with rhetoric, and can be used to serve rhetoric. We use words in various combinations to think, communicate, and make art (i.e., make knowledge, coordinate, influence). Being intentional with language is being rhetorical.
• Writing is a symbolic mode. Speech, image, audio, video, and other modes use rhetoric, but writing has had huge staying power for the last 1,000 years. Arguably, we write more now than we ever have (think about texting, social media, and the wide availability of sending documents via digital tools). Writing, though, can also include other modes–you might write before you give a speech, you might incorporate design and images into a document you write, and so on.

Let’s think about these distinctions in a scenario:

You have a roommate or family member who is not doing chores they said they would do. Let’s say they rarely clean the dishes they use and this often leads to a sink piled high with dishes. For about 2 minutes, write to yourself about how you might address this roommate or family member by using:

• No speech or writing, but rhetoric using non-language features (e.g., gestures or body language, facial expressions, static or moving images, sound effects…etc.)
• Speech
• Writing (think about the genre or mode: handwritten letter or note, text message, etc.)

Try to write out exactly what you would do or say and how.

What do you notice about differences in your approach?

In trying this out, did you notice any different sorts of feelings involved in each approach? Did one approach feel more alienating or warm, more angry or understanding, etc.? Did that have anything to do with the mode of communication (i.e., non-linguistic, spoken, written)? Why do you think that is?

I will break you up into groups to talk about it.

 

Are You The Enemy? Is That Useful? Or True? Feelings, Language, and Writing (20-30 min)*

One of you wrote the following in your annotation on the Murray reading:

That pride is the completion of the paper, while the shame and the frustration is the fact that the product could have been better.

 

It is interesting how emotionally charged the language is here: pride, shame, frustration.

Is the act of writing full emotions? Why?

Is it useful to be your “best enemy”? What are the pros of this framing? What are the cons?

Take 1 minute and respond to these above questions on your own.

Let me hear a response. When that person finishes, pick one person to contribute next. You always have the option to “pass.” We are going to get in the habit of talking to each other and not just back and forth between me and you.

Poem Activity

Read the poem, “Immigrant Can’t Write Poetry” together. After the first reading, what strikes you? What do you notice? Read it a second time. After the second reading, What strikes you? What do you notice?

Take 3-5 minutes and respond to these above questions on your own.

Let me hear a response. When that person finishes, pick one person to contribute next. You always have the option to “pass.” We are going to get in the habit of talking to each other and not just back and forth between me and you.

What do we imagine when we write, who are we writing to? How does that look different in difference situations? Why does that matter?

Take 2-3 minutes and respond to the above question on your own.

Let me hear a response. When that person finishes, pick one person to contribute next. You always have the option to “pass.” We are going to get in the habit of talking to each other and not just back and forth between me and you.

 

I wonder if the enemy we might have in revision is something else entirely than our own competence as a a good reader of our own writing. An enemy also might be the constraints we face when trying to accommodate an imaginary reader that demands we give up part of ourselves.

How do you keep YOU in language and in writing? How do you keep your history? I hope you ask that question throughout this class and for the rest of your college career (and beyond). Your languages are beautiful, don’t get rid of them.

In this class, we only ask that you become more aware of what you are capable of doing as a writer, to be thoughtful in reflection and revision about how you can do other things (possibly better things), and how you might manage the pain of writing as a pain of labor rather than as a pain levied against your identity and who you are and want to be.

To think about this more, we are going to do this blog post due for Wednesday.

*Adapted from Amy Baily

 

How to Tame A Wild Tongue (15 min)

How do we use language in ways that we love, must we always prioritize audience so much??????

Take a minute to pick a question below that you would like to respond to a bit in writing:

1. What is a wild tongue? Anzaldúa says they can only be cut out, not tamed. Why do you think they say that?
2. What was it like to read the Chicano Spanish that Anzaldúa uses? Why do you think Anzaldúa uses Chicano Spanish in her essay?
3. How many languages do you think you have? How do you know? How can you use them as a writer? Or should you never write certain languages? Why or why not?
4. Why do languages change? How come Spanish became Chicano Spanish in a certain region of the southwest US and Mexico? How come there is a thing called AAVE? Or, really, anything? How come there is not just an “English”?
5. One of the section titles of Anzaldúa’s essay is “Linguistic Terrorism.” What do you think that means in the context of this essay?

Let’s organize groups by the questions. Who did question 1? Tell me in chat. Question 2? And so on…

In groups, you’ll discuss then we will come back and talk about it.

 

Literacy Narrative Assignment (5 min)

We are going to explore these kinds of themes in our Literacy Narrative project: what our languages are and how the practice writing, schooling, and other factors in our development into adults have continued to shape how we have adapted those languages to reading and writing over time.

To get the prompt for the first major writing project, go to Blackboard>Submit Assignments>Major Writing Projects.

Let’s go over this briefly, just so it is on your mind in the early going. The first draft is due February 17.

 

Check in about Reading Annotations and Learning Module (5-10 min)

You should have all received feedback from me about the homework that was due on Wednesday.

• For the Reading Annotations, this was a version of a Reading Response assignment. You also did one for today. It is about setting habits for college-level reading that can help you be successful in any course. It is less about me making sure you do something “right” and is more of a gift I want to give for you to help you read, connect, comprehend, and retain as a reader (which absolutely will help you as a writer–not the least of which being the revision process. Future Reading Response assignments will involve discussions on Discord an short writing responses. can do whatever, just do active!
• For the Learning Module, remember that these replace a synchronous class meeting so they are trying to replicate the sorts of things we would be doing in class if we were to meet in class. In my teaching, I like to have active discussions and do lots of writing, so I try to do things on Discord and in the space of the WordPress comments to do some of that. Make sure you read each page in its entirety and do the task or tasks that are asked of you on each page.

Reading Annotations

 

Examples:

• Asking Questions.
  • In response to Murray on creating and reviewing a large number of invisible drafts- “Page by page rather than draft by draft. However, possibly a combo of both leading to a lower amount of total drafts made. Quality over quantity?”
  • “If good writing is essentially rewriting and never stops, then how does an author know when to stop and to get it published?”
• Marking Page to Direct You What Is Happening. Reader was marking where Murray began to talk about revision with “About to list steps of revision” at start. Then proceeded to write “Step 1”, etc.
• Connecting to Personal Life. 
  • Challenging Author. In response to Murray about importance of having abundance of information when writing: “Usually, whenever I research for some paper I need to write, one of the biggest issues I have is researching too deep into the topic, and having to carefully select which parts of my research to put into the work.”
• Putting in Own Words. 
  • “read what is written aloud to see if something sounds right. sometimes a sentence sounds weird or better when spoken aloud.”
  • “always be sus about your own writing”
  • “That pride is the completion of the paper, while the shame and the frustration is the fact that the product could have been better.”
• Connecting to other parts of text / Recognizing patterns.
  • “In this section the idea of distancing
    oneself from their own work and the
    benefit it provides towards better
    revisions is reiterated.”
• Analogies. “The intended audience. Like personalized marketing towards a certain group of readers, or readers in general”
• Examples. “important to keep free of clutter and use good flow ie. good transitions form one topic to the next”
• Extend logic of something you read. “This goes to show that if time constraints weren’t a thing, writers could probably rewrite the same article or book that they’ve been working on for the duration of their entire lives”
• Putting something in a useful binary.
  • being passion-hot as writer” and “critic-cold as reader”
• Try to answer the author’s question. In response to Murray asking “How much information is enough?: “Although subjective, I feel as if this element is the most difficult one, as they can’t put too much information such that they overwhelm their readers, but they can’t starve their readers either, which varies a lot depending on the audience they want to appeal to.”
• Note interesting possibilities. 
  • “I wonder if there has ever been a writer who had spent all their life on perfecting just one piece of writing, and how the quality of that one piece would’ve differed from the works of their peers.”
  • “What I found interest was that experienced writers have the ability to form multiple drafts in their heads”
• Using symbols (not possible in textbook interface as much):
  • 

Learning Module

• Make sure you read through the page
• Make sure you look for a task (or tasks!) on each page!
• Questions?

 

Next Time (2-5 min)