WRITING PROCESS ANALYSIS

Anne Lamott suggest that in order to write a good paper, a shitty one is first necessary. She says that it helps her to almost produce a form of word vomit which she then cuts pieces away from until it is where she wants it. My writing process is basically exactly the same as when GWRTC started. I had never put thought into how I wrote papers, I just did it in whatever way worked for me. We have all been taught tricks and strategies to make writing easier, but I have found that my way works perfectly for me. I have done my process the same way for as long as I can remember which is literally just sitting down and writing the paper all the way through. After I write a good amount, I go back to read it but only to help myself remember where I'm going with my thoughts. It may be a time consuming process, but apparently it is working. Confidence in my writing was completely lacking until this year, more specifically this semester and even more precisely, with our writing class. The only thing that has changed about my writing process is my confidence in it.

TROUBLE WITH DIGITAL STORIES

Being completely technologically challenged, taking on the project of creating a digital stories had me worried at the start. I had never done anything like it, but with the help of iMovie and many tutorials it ended up being a breeze. Since my digital story only consisted of pictures that I had taken, I did not have to mess with bringing videos off of YouTube and putting them into my project which could have made the project much harder. iMovie ended up being very easy to use so problems with creating my story were minimal to none. The only part of the project I had a lot of trouble with was uploading the video because first it was necessary to change it to a compatible version, but luckily loading it to YouTube was just as acceptable as uploading it to JMUTube.

VALUE IN DITIAL STORIES

Digital stories without a doubt hold value in academia, and outside it. Academically speaking, it is important to have a variety of mediums in which students can learn. Simple lecture and a wordy presentation of information is efficient, but not always entertaining for the students making it harder to learn from. When there are forms of technology at our fingertips that also allow us to be quietly entertained paying attention is difficult, but if the material is presented through something such as a digital story it is much easier to focus and retain information from the modern, attention-grabbing video. Outside of academia, digital stories hold just as much value. People can create or capture memories and stories from the past in a way that describes them better than a simple photograph or verbal story based on memory.

GROUP PROJECTS

Group projects tend to cause problems with the members as well as problems with the actual project, but I lucked out. Our group works well together, and does good work. The only challenges to working with other people, in my case at least, was making the work flow as if only one person had done it, but I think we ended up doing a really good job. It is always hard to make deadlines for each other and decide when to do work because everybody is going to have different schedules and different slots of free time, but in the end it all came together. Even with spring break right in the middle of our work time, we managed to do everything in a timely manor. The only way that the project would have differed if I had done it alone would be that it would all be in my words rather than my group members as well. The research and actual work we did for the project was done really well to the extent that if the project had been an individual project, I would have done it exactly the same way.

RESEARCH AND WRITING

The past few readings have really opened up my eyes to the improvements I need to make while writing and researching. With research, it was always a type of deal where I found information related to my topic and used it best I could. I need to comprehend and give personal meaning to the information I find as well as analyze it using it not only in the best way I could, but in the best way IT could be used. My writing process is not necessarily the process described but it is one that seems to work for me. I could try the different processes and techniques presented and incorporate them into what I already do which will hopefully in turn help me become a better writer!

READING ALOUD

Before our peer group conference, I could not even remember the last time I had read aloud. I've given speeches and have talked in front of people at other times, but papers that I write usually stay completely confidential between my teacher, myself and occasionally my parents regardless of the topic. Confidence in my writing was something that I did not have even in the slightest until I read out loud. Reading my paper in front of my group members and professor felt completely different than reading it in my head to myself. I realized that maybe I don't sound as stupid as I think I do when I write..

CYLE #1 PROJECT SOURCES

Carr, Nicholas.  “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, August 2008.

In Nicholas Carr's article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he starts off talking about how he feels as if over the years his mind and ways of thinking have continually been changing and ends up correlating this change to being online more and more. After analyzing the situation, he came to the conclusion that with this increased introduction to fast and easy information, our minds have become used to processing information in a similar way, "chipping away" at our ability to concentrate and contemplate.  Our brains as well as traditional forms of technology have to adapt to the new lifestyle centered on speed and efficiency. With the example of Google and direct quotes of their goals to create an artificial intelligence and become the perfect search engine and their “easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence”, it is clear that technology is not only making us stupid, but is increasingly becoming more and more artificially intelligent. 

With personal experience in the area of not being able to focus on long articles or books, numerous outside sources and an entirely too relatable topic, Nicholas Carr’s article is an interesting and seemingly credible source for the Cycle #1 Project. Aside from ironically writing a lengthy ONLINE article that he expects his audience to be able to focus on fully, he presents a good argument that with quick and efficient searching and surfing through technology, adaptations to other forms of technology and even to our brains have been made throughout the last decade or so. There are links to some of the references he made and the article overall seems professional and well thought out.

McIntosh, Ewan.  “Blogging Improves Young People’s Confidence in Their Writing and Reading.” Edu.blog.com.  December 19, 2009.  http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2009/12/blogging-improves-young-peoples-confidence-writing-reading.html

Ewan McIntosh’s blog post ironically called “Blogging Improves Young People’s Confidence in Their Writing and Reading” presents the argument that kids who are reading and writing frequently are often more confident in their own reading and writing. McIntosh credits technological actions such as texting, instant messaging and blogging for this confidence.

This article as a source is good but not the absolute best. He does gain credibility with presenting slight counter arguments but the sources and research is not top notch. At one part of the article, he explains how blogging can help, but then we come to find out it will in a foreign language, which does not apply, to a majority of people. 

NEW LITERACY

Clive Thompson and his article "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy" presents the idea that technology,  instead of impairing the young generations writing skills, actually gives them (us) an upper-hand position in the writing community. He argues that with all of the writing we do, from texting to tweeting to Facebook status' and Tumbler blog posts, we actually have learned how to write for an audience. In my personal experience, I have noticed exactly that. Last semester I was assigned a final for my GHIST class in which I was to write a response to a given prompt. When I have big assignments, I usually get my parents to read it first to make sure what I am turning in isn't a complete jumbled mess (sometimes it most definitely is). Especially with this paper, they were pleasantly surprised at the overall tone and feel of my essay saying how it took them into their mid to late 20's to get to the point where I already was. Talking to peers, friends, teachers, and family members at almost all second of the day in some form of print has certainly given myself as well as other adults the variety of perspectives needed to address a number of audiences allowing for literacy to go into a bold new direction, not backwards.

JUST DO IT

JUST DO IT


We are all familiar with Nike, right? They advertise mostly with commercials showing people working out or being athletic in their perfectly perfect Nikes basically giving every viewer the false hope that if we wear Nikes we will all the sudden be athletic and in shape and immediately have swag. While I do love my Nikes, wearing them does not at all make me athletic.. I just look athletic.. and if people have no swag to being with, its hopeless. Since picture ads only ever get glanced at for a second if even that, the advertisement department apparently decided to get creative with this ad in hopes of at least a pause for the reader to think, "Is that a kid peeing..? Why is he being encouraged to 'Just do it'..? OH, Nike". Instead of advertising the statistics about the product or company, the viewers emotions are touched on, specifically their sense of humor. This strategy is called pathos, or the capacity of a text to invoke emotions, and is the only rhetorical strategy used in the ad above. Since humor > statistics any day, the ad even probably attracts an even bigger audience than it would have if it had been full of ethos or logos (I'm just going to assume people know what those are). The purpose of the ad is obviously to attract people, generally people who already are Nike fans since technically all it has is a check mark and a child peeing, back to Nike for even more purchases. Worked on me. I went online shopping after seeing it/ writing this and am now $50 less rich than I was. Stupid pathos. 

SHITTY FIRST DRAFTS

Anne Lamott and her article “Shitty First Drafts” presents an interesting, and in her case effective, writing process in which to produce a good piece of work, a “shitty” one is necessary first. In my experience, her theory actually has something to it. When I have a writing assignment, my thought process starts similarly with the first paragraph being a jumbled mess of an attempt at collecting my thoughts. I write and tweak and write and tweak until I am left with an overall idea that I am enthusiastic about which then sparks interest for the rest of the piece allowing me to complete the assignment easily. After the hard part is over, the rest comes naturally. In most cases this process is done in one sitting with some exception for the lengthy of particularly challenging tasks. When I have put a lot of time and effort into a piece, editing and revising is too hard to do in the same sitting because I will have been too close to the project for too long. Even though the rest of the paper comes pretty naturally, I tend to write maybe a paragraph at a time, and then reread the paper. Unfortunately for myself, this is a long, dreary process but a process in which I have instilled my faith, similarly to the way Anne Lamott instilled hers into her shitty first draft.