PB3A

              Cinzia Pica-Smith and Timothy A. Poynton’s peer-reviewed journal entry entitled, “Supporting Interethnic and Interracial Friendships Among Youth to Reduce Prejudice and Racism in Schools: The Role of the School Counselor,” focuses on eliminating prejudices that exist even among children in elementary schools and “improving social, emotional, and cultural competence among [these] youth” (Pica-Smith, Poynton). In order to generate two separate genres stemming from this single journal entry, there must be two distinct audiences for which they are intended.

              The first of these audiences is the young children—especially those attending an elementary school—that are the prominent subject of the original article. While it would be inappropriate (and likely far too advanced) to straightforwardly discuss issues of prejudice and racism with young children, they would likely respond well to the detailed pictures of a storybook. Popular children’s books include the Junie B. Jones series, the Charlie and Lola series, the A to Z Mysteries series, and the Clifford, The Big Red Dog series; the covers of each of these are depicted with young, white children as their protagonists. While the young students likely do not pick up on this consciously, “same-race friendship preferences begin in preschool (Fishbein, 1996; Fishbein & Imai, 1993; Rutland, Cameron, Bennett, & Ferrell, 2005), [and] overall, interracial friendships decrease while intra-racial friendships increase as children grow older (Aboud et al., 2003; Kawabata & Crick, 2008)” (Pica-Smith, Poynton). Transforming the basis of Pica-Smith and Poynton’s journal entry into a story in which youthful, relatable characters of multiple races and ethnicities interact, playing outside, learning from each other, and spending time in each other’s homes would relay the anti-prejudice concept to children without them even realizing the situation at hand. These stories must include detailed, applicable pictures and emphasize that regardless of the activity, the children are engaging in it together. Each page will contain no more than a few simple sentences, allowing for the children to understand it. It must, however, contain a sufficiently complex and interesting storyline in order to maintain the interest of the young student.

              The second audience that the new genre must be tailored to appeal to is the teachers, counselors, and other staff members of the elementary school. Holding a workshop or event that each of the faculty members must attend, in which informational handouts pertaining to destroying the gap between students of different races and ethnicities are distributed, would strongly relate to the issue discussed in the scholarly publication. These handouts would include suggestions on how to go about closing this gap, such as, “school counselors must be willing to openly discuss issues of race and racism, prejudice, and discrimination with students and adults in the school community to support the optimal intergroup contact needed to facilitate intergroup friendships” (Pica-Smith, Poynton). They would also include graphs and tables of statistics displaying the results of research, perhaps pertaining to findings that “linked collaborative learning and teaching strategies in the classroom to increases in interracial and interethnic friendship and prejudice reduction” (Zirkel 2008). The handouts will touch on aspects of pathos, in the hopes of convincing faculty members—especially teachers and counselors who deal directly with students—of the reasons WHY they should want to eliminate prejudices; they are the ones that see on a daily basis how the students are impacted by their environments, and they probably do not enjoy observing bullying and hearing racist remarks. The handouts will serve as a reminder that it is the job of the faculty member to take action to prevent these occurrences. 

Painting Trees

What decisions did these artists make? What similarities/differences between their decisions did you see?

Each artist was forced to decide which tools he was going to use, and while I definitely do not think that the artists had to decide the approach and style they were going to use in their paintings, it was definitely an subconscious, predetermined method to each of their paintings. Each made the decision regarding the color scheme they were going to use, whether to create a three or two dimensional picture, and what kind of paints they felt would best represent the image they hoped to portray.

And, most importantly, how have they described their moves? Be specific.

Each artist describes his moves as though it is the unchangeable way in which he sees the tree. For example, I don't believe that the artist who saw the tree as a piece of architecture CHOSE to see the tree as a piece of architecture. Instead, his painting of the tree reflected the architectural image he saw, and he simply stated the steps he was taking to make sure his art reflected his perceived image of the tree. The same goes for all of the others; I don't feel as though the artists chose which "moves" he was going to incorporate. Each simply described exactly what he was doing, and in doing this, his perception of the tree was reflected in his moves.

How could you characterize their styles, and what impact does that have on you (an audience member)?

Each artist self-characterizes his styles in the following ways: 1. architectural structure 2. full of life and personality/vitality 3. detailed study/portrait of trunk 4. bony structure/growth pattern/bursts out of the ground. This shows me the countless different ways that one object (analogous to one topic in writing) can be approached and analyzed.

Journal Q & A

I had a really difficult time starting my WP2 paper and even getting through the entire first draft…the first draft I turned in was hardly even an essay. I feel like I pulled together the structure quite a bit in the end and was able to write a complete, coherent essay. I don’t think it was as good as it could have been, but it improved exponentially from first to final draft.

The most helpful comment I received yesterday was to utilize a matrix or table because I was struggling with forming coherent thoughts in my writing.

I am absolutely and 100% a “hard copy” person and had a hard time with online editing. I like have the paper in front of me and being able to manually cross out, scribble, highlight, etc.

WP2

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B8BLdWvo_pbmKNG6edwopdkuPAUPAvwpEokGOYegAYM/edit?usp=sharing

PB2B

When it comes to moves, Anne Lamott, author of the excerpt, “Shitty First Drafts,” and Kerry Dirk, author of the essay, “Navigating Genres,” often dance to the same beat. What, then, makes the two pieces of writing so distinguishable? Although the authors incorporate several of the same writing concepts and components, each has a flair that pertains to her unique style of writing, something perhaps better known (at least in De Piero’s Writing 2 Class) as a move.

Anne Lamott has a style all her own; first and foremost, the title of the selection taken from her book, Bird by Bird, is “Shitty First Drafts.” This title, in itself, is a move; it is a unique word choice that characterizes this piece of writing. I am going to go ahead and take the initiative to say that very few of you have read an academic book, article, essay, or anything of the sort that has the word “shitty” in the title, let alone the body. And I am also going to make the blanket statement that I bet it grabbed almost everyone’s attention, as it did mine. In a similar manner, Lamott’s writing is laced with comparisons that the average “how to be a better writer” book lacks, such as:

“The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, ‘Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,’ you let her” (Lamott, 1).

This comparison is wildly casual and quite unfiltered, a couple of moves that Lamott seems to maintain throughout her writing in order to connect with her audience. This works because it makes the audience feel as though they are being spoken directly to, rather than spoken at. She blatantly and sarcastically remarks that she knows only one great writer who “writes elegant first drafts,” but because of this, “[Lamott and peers] do not think that [the writer] has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her” (1). This unfiltered way in which Lamott writes appears to be a defining characteristic, or repeated move, in her writing that helps her to relate to her audience and draw them in.

              Author Kerry Dirk, like Lamott, appreciates a casual approach to writing, but simultaneously preserves a more academic tone than that of the previous author. One of Dirk’s most prominent moves is her use of rhetorical questions and examples—often in response to said rhetorical questions. For instance, Dirk poses the series of questions, “What features…should go into this essay? How personal could [she] get? What rhetorical moves might [she] use, effectively or ineffectively?” (250). She aims to prompt the readers to ask themselves similar questions when analyzing a piece or writing one themselves; however, readers that were not already interested in writing and genre analysis likely will not feel any more inclined to ask themselves these questions due to their lack of interest. Dirk also relies on other authors (primarily Professor Amy Devitt) to support her claims and increase her credibility repeatedly throughout her writing, often using large excerpts from their pieces that must be offset from the rest of the text. A very bold move, in my opinion, is the use of her own writing as an example of a self-proclaimed “effective” letter. She provides an example of a letter she wrote that was intended to remove a late fee from a credit card, then proceeds to analyze it and discuss why it is effective. This is a move that I have seen from very few (if any) scholarly writers, and to be frank, it did not do the trick, so to speak; her use of her own writing as an example drastically weakened her credibility in my opinion.

Regardless of their unique styles, there are still several moves that unite the dances of two authors, such as including personal anecdotes in their writings to provide background information and perhaps seem more personable; Dirk gives a short account of the process she went through in order to write her essay, and Lamott shares her account of the times when she was the author of California magazine’s food reviews. Another move both authors make is the use of parentheticals to share their less significant thoughts. For example, after mentioning that California magazine folded, Lamott says, “(My writing food reviews had nothing to do with the magazine folding, although every single review did cause a couple of canceled subscriptions. Some readers took umbrage at my comparing mounds of vegetable puree with various ex-presidents’ brains)” (1). Dirk makes use of parentheses when she discusses why people choose to watch horror movies or chick flicks based on their predetermined response, “(nail-biting fear and dreamy sighs, respectively)” (Dirk, 254). While these “side-notes” are not essential to make the authors’ points, they DO add personality and perhaps serve to re-interest the audience. In a piece of writing, the words written in parentheses are often interpreted as being spoken in a whisper, further implying that they are not crucial to producing an effective essay. Both Dirk and Lamott follow the same path with another significant move regarding sentence structure, the use of fragments, or incomplete thoughts. Regardless of context, Dirk makes “complete” statements that begin with the word or, like “Or groan. Or tilt your head” (249), and Lamott writes, “Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled” (1). This move serves to maintain a casual, conversational tone between the authors and their readers, allowing the authors to further engage their audiences in the subject at hand.

PB2A

If we are asked to write a credible research paper regarding medical advances toward curing AIDS or newly-discovered computer programming methods, why is it that searching and citing Wikipedia would be strongly frowned upon? It contains a sufficient amount of accurate information—at least in my experiences—does it not? What it does not have, however, is research-based, peer-reviewed information. In order to determine the distinctions (which may be slightly more difficult to pick out than one might assume) between a peer-reviewed, scholarly publication and a nonacademic text, a SCIgen research paper—a computer-generated research paper regarding computer science that flows grammatically, but actually makes very little sense after a thorough read through—is placed side-by-side with a peer-reviewed, academic publication entitled “Quantum Cybernetics and Complex Quantum Systems Science: A Quantum Connectionist Exploration.”

Due to my complete and utter lack of understanding of either publication, the main focus centers around surface rhetorical features and conventions rather than an in-depth analysis of computer science methodologies, whereupon I sincerely apologize for any disappointment. But without further ado, each article begins with a large, bold title at the top of the page; however, the academic publication title is printed in red and is also preceded by publication information, including the original source, publication date, and volume, issue, and page numbers. The names of the authors are printed just below the titles in fonts smaller than the titles are written in, bold and black in both cases. Just below the authors’ names in both articles is an abstract, detailing the focuses and purposes of the articles; however, the abstract in the scholarly academic publication is more than twice as long as each of the ones generated by the SCIgen program. Where the generated paper’s abstract is followed by a table of contents, the scholarly academic publication’s abstract is followed by a list of key words, a digital object identifier (DOI) number, and repeated publication information.

The two fall back in stride with boldly marked and numbered introductions (both marked by the number, one). The generated paper then proceeds in a much more general sequence than the other, using generic headings, such as, “Related Works,” “Architecture,” “Evaluation,” and “Conclusion.” The scholarly publication is much more explicit in regards to its headings, such as “Quantum Artificial Neural Networks as Autonomous Quantum Computing Systems.” In each case, all of the section headings are numbered and followed by paragraphs that refer back to that heading. Both publications contain either tables, graphs, or equations, or a mixture of the three. The generated publications, however, contain only five or six of these, whereas the scholarly publication is littered with equations and contains two tables. While specific language regarding computer science is used consistently in both publications, the SCIgen paper is more or less gibberish, and therefore, illegitimate. Both close with a lengthy list of references, citing the sources used to write the papers.              

The most readily visible discrepancies between the two publications are the non-textual structure and detail that compose each. The scholarly publication is marked by color and even some shading with the purpose of color-coding rows of information for clarity; it is also separated into two columns of text. The SCIgen publication, on the other hand, is written in only black ink and is not organized into columns. Although these differences are important to note, they are not necessarily the defining factors of a scholarly publication versus a nonacademic text.

Despite all of the similarities between the two publications, there must be something (besides the fact that it is clearly marked as peer-reviewed) that creates the distinction between the scholarly text and the nonacademic piece. The most prominent differences are the amount of proof that the texts use to support their assertions and the intended audiences and purposes of each. Although I do not claim to actually possess an understanding of either article, it is quite clear that nearly every section of the scholarly text is sprinkled heavily with supporting mathematic concepts and equations. The SCIgen article does use a few graphs and diagrams to back up its “claims,” but with just more than a glance, it is obvious that these “claims” and graphs are nonsense. Because the SCIgen articles are only produced for the sake of amusement and entertainment, their intended audiences are much more extensive because no one can actually make sense of what is written in those papers. Quite contrarily, the scholarly research paper is geared toward a very narrow range of audiences with the intent to inform its readers about a very specific subject regarding “Quantum Cybernetics and Complex Quantum Systems Science” (I apologize for my ineptitude to find a better way to state it). Regardless, the objectives of the two differing texts are quite apparent, even without conducting an exhaustive analysis of the computer-science-jargon-flooded text.

PB1B

As the name so generously implies, an online “genre generator” gives rise, at random, to a set of reproducible conventions that pertain to a specific genre; in this case, the chosen genres are computer science research papers, comic strips, and memes.

These computer science research papers (although I make no claim that I understand what they are discussing whatsoever) all appear to follow very precise patterns, from the way the subject matter is presented to the formulaic graphs and flowcharts found in their bodies. Each research paper begins in the exact same way: a dark, bold title followed by the author’s name and a brief abstract, which allows the reader some insight into what the paper’s objective(s) is/are. These papers are littered with specific jargon that an audience with no background in computer science has no hope of understanding (I am a real-life model of this statement). For instance, “Cyberinformaticians have complete control over the server daemon, which of course is necessary so that Boolean logic can be made pseudorandom, certifiable, and amphibious,” means next to nothing to me. However, because a computer science research paper is geared toward a very specific audience, a person with no knowledge in the matter can make no statements to disclaim its legitimacy. The phrasing of the sentences throughout the paper tend to be very short and concise, perhaps so as to increase the clarity for the readers. If we take a step back and analyze the paper from a broader perspective, we find that each portion of the paper begins with a bold heading (i.e. Table of Contents, Introduction, Related Works, etc.), contains multiple non-textual figures, such as graphs and flowcharts, that are labeled and briefly described, and lastly, have a list of references at the very end.

              On a completely different spectrum of genres, comic strips, and more specifically, the comic strips found on pandyland.net, have an entirely unique set of conventions. The dialogue and interactions that take place between Finlay and Simon tend to be very crude and vulgar, such as, “I’ve got a really horrible rash on my winky,” partnered with the image of Simon with his hands down his pants; needless to say, I do admit to laughing once or twice. These comic strips were very simple in nature, from the personalities of the characters to the color scheme and details within the images. They are intended for and appeal to an audience that is likely very different from the previous genre, one that does not necessarily have a specific educational, political, or religious background; that said, however, the intended audience is certainly not people from a conservative or traditional culture. The presentation of the comic strip in itself is specific to the genre in that each strip is displayed in a series of three side-by-side boxes, each containing an image of only two characters. A convention, perhaps unique to a sub-genre of comic strips, is the random fashion in which the interactions between the two characters are displayed; there is no storyline or specific subject matter, but instead, an illogical sequence of events or (often one-sided) conversations that occurs.

              Quite similarly to the conventions of a comic strip, memes are often crude and vulgar in their humor. Their goal is usually to make fun of or speak down upon another person in an amusing, unconventional manner. Memes each consist of an animated or photographed face, bordered on top and bottom by bold, white letters, all within a small square. The words and phrases made up by these letters contain high levels of sarcasm and are usually lacking in the areas of spelling and grammar; two popular memes begin with, “Y U NO…” and “not sure if…,” both of which fail to use correct grammar and are not fully-formulated thoughts. Memes are meant to be comical and therefore, are geared toward a general audience that is likely intent on finding humor within them; however, meme audiences are usually looking specifically for memes or come across them on a social networking site. That said, the intended audience is likely to be a younger, internet-savvy generation.

              Given the websites used above (pdos.csail.mit.edu, pandyland.net, and memegenerator.net) and their creations, a better understanding of genre can be achieved by analyzing each unique set of conventions and patterns. As people learn these patterns, they are able to apply their knowledge while analyzing a certain text, movie, song, etc. and develop a tighter grasp on what it is that embodies a genre.