Farewell!

So long, farewell, auf wiederesehen, goodbye!  Thanks for a great quarter.

Videos on How to Create an E-Portfolio

Wrapping Up Our Course: Crunching Your Survey Data

Pie charts that I want to show you:

• A couple of the readings
• WPs

Quantitative data:

• 75% enjoyed or strongly enjoyed the course.
• Peer/reader review workshops: 54% helpful; 21% unhelpful
• 75% of you are motivated to complete the course readings.
• 92% liked/loved the structure of class.
• 80% thought the “textual features/qualities" matrices were effective for guiding your writing development AND justifying your grade
• 82% enjoyed posting your PBs to the blog.
• 70% thought the time/effort was worth in terms of your writing development.  
• 70% felt that this course helped your develop as a writer 
• 70% felt it helped you develop as a thinker.

Interesting/cool idea.  I’m really going to think about that…

• I like the [Daily Historian] idea, but maybe make it a bigger percentage of the grade. Personally if it were only worth 5% or my grade I wouldn't be all that compelled to take it too seriously or to work too hard on it.
• (I wish we would have…)  functional punctuation :)
• BIAS. I think talking about bias is super important. When we read, our individual context gives us different biases and trying to shut down those biases can be tough.
• Give us specific problems on others' writings and we can work as groups to solve them.
• I liked THLOGing, but thought you could combine this with journals by prompting us with certain THLOG questions each week.
• Frankly I think we do so much good reflecting on the process in class that the thlogs felt VERY forced for me. I didn't really enjoy writing them because I felt like it was done out of the context of this class when I was focused on other stuff.
• One thing I think could be a little better is the amount of work. Everything we do in the class is super valuable, but some of it was a little too much. I felt like we had at least one essay every week if not more (between the PBs and WPs), plus the thlogs, which could get a little tedious. Maybe shorten the thlogs to every other week or so.
• Time management. Some of the responses require more sophisticated thinking in order to get a well written response. In some of them, I feel like we were a bit rushed. And for the group seating, it's better to separate people based on their learning style by perhaps taking a pre­class survey first instead of a "friend" group.
• I understand the point of the journals, but i often thought that they were repetitive with the THLOGs and that I was saying the same thing in both. Maybe you could somehow combine them and prompt students with journal like questions for their THLOGs each week? since you said our THLOGs were sometimes ehhh and I'm not sure how seriously everyone took the journals each class period.
• I think it might be cool it you allowed for another ten minutes at the end of class for a reflection. Most of the time, the moment I step out of this class I forget a lot about what we learned during class, but I feel like if there was time to think about we did and reflect, I would more likely remember what we learned and maybe why we learned it.
• I think it might be helpful to answer the journal questions on the doc through bullet points. It seems less formal, allowing for a more "first­order writing" kind of response that I think is more appropriate for journals. It will also probably encourage others to write their journals in another doc, which will allow them receipts for the reflection essay/portfolio.
• Maybe assign the journals at the end of the day, so you can see the answers at home and select the best ones and discuss those at the start of the next class.
• If you could somehow do some sort of response type thing for the journals that might be cool? The way that we all respond to various PBs? I definitely took time on my own to go through some responses of students depending on the topic and if it was something i was struggling with or needed more clarification on. Maybe just encourage students to do this more; I'm not sure how many people thought to look back for inspiration for assignments.
• You could randomly pick 4­5 responses and go over those. As you go over each one, let students comment or add their input.
• Maybe discussing with students about which response they agree the most/or disagree the most is a good interaction with students.
• Maybe cut down to one question rather than asking two or more completely different ones. Saves time and gets to the point?
• I think the rubric is great, but maybe doing it on a 5 point scale instead of 3 would be more helpful. I get that that would be a lot more work to do that for 25 papers, but it would be helpful to know if your just almost there at a 4 or right in the middle at a 3.
• I sort of wish that we could have chosen the article/piece that we wanted to transform. I think it would have been a much more fun assignment.
• [Using sources] is probably something that many people already know but I think at least a little discussion about it would be nice.

Potentially interesting/cool idea for YOU…

• I think the best activities were those that everyone was engaged in and into. I often felt like I was the only one talking in my group and doing the work, but when other people were participating they were a lot more interesting to hear other peoples comments. I guess this just depends on the class and how people are feeling that day.

True, teaching/learning is tough, and there are always so many inevitable trade-offs…

• The comic are interesting to read, they gave a break from reading scholarly journals.
• WP3 [was my favorite]. It was the most engaging assignment but didn't get enough attention. If we spent more time on it I think we would have learned even more from it and learned to better analyze genre having been assigned to create something that fits into a genre.
• Just maybe a little less work in general. I felt the class went a little too fast sometimes, and that I had more work from this class than any other
• Always give a lot more time for peer reviews because the more time we have the more thoughtful we can be.
• I generally liked it and found it helpful to hear feedback from other peers and to just have a new perspective looking at my work because sometime the ideas I want to get across don't transfer the way I want to into my work.However, I think some people didn't really take the peer review workshops all that seriously so there were times would I would get feedback that would do nothing to help me (they would say you did a good job! or good ideas!; no criticism to help me improve.)
• I took a theme with [thlogging] to help me enjoy it, but just like responding to my classmates PBs it felt forced most of the time.
• The thlogs were great because again, they were online. They were pretty quick to get done and became part of my weekly routine. At times, they were a little tedious, but then I remembered what they were taking the place of and I was happy to do them.

I appreciate that, but…

• Overall, I wish i gave more effort in this class. Its just this quarter I'm taking really time consuming classes, so i was usually tired and not participating. I'm sorry for that.
• Homework load is a bit unreasonable compared to the other writing 2 teachers based on what I've heard from other students. This course took probably the most amount of time compare to my other classes which can be a good thing if it's a more advanced writing class. However, since this is still an introductory lower division writing class, I personally did not super enjoy the workload we faced compare to the other people who are taking the identical "class" for pretty much the same reason to meet the general education requirement. I mean, yes, the activities does make us think critically and be a better writer, but workload is a bit too much.
• I think talking about books could be interesting. For example, discussing what JK Rowling did in order to make Harry Potter novels so widely loved. How did the books transformation to a movie add and or remove from the effect of the book. (This can be for any book)
• Maybe do a bit less for the portfolio, or have everything due a little bit earlier because it will be very time consuming during finals week while we all study for our other classes.
• Go easier on the grading, please. Make the portfolio worth more credits.
• I think that just really deciding what is necessary for that week and what is not based on the material presented in class would be helpful. For example, for weeks where we only met once that week and did one or two activities the whole time, a thlog wasn't really necessary. Also, maybe changing the word requirement on some things would be beneficial. I found myself being repetitive sometimes because there just simply was not enough material to discuss.
• I think that even though we had a couple of days off this quarter it would've been helpful to have some due dates pushed up. I feel like the last few weeks we've been cramming a lot of info into a short amount of time which made the class a lot more stressful. I would much rather to have been working on my final portfolio over this past weekend than editing my WP3 for the final submission.
• Emphasis on the readings would help in my opinion. Personally I don't see their importance as much as I should and just see them as extra stuff. But that could just be me since I didn't refer back to them as much.
• It's good to see how other people view my work. But with that being said, it's difficult for me to take advice from people who are most likely at a lower level of writing than I am. Just sayin'
• I think [Google Doc journals are] a great way to keep a digital archive of our class since we do so much work its nice to keep it around. Posting anonymously was fine by me.. kind of indifferent. Could possibly have been given an ID number at the beginning of the course to constantly post to just so its easier for you to track our responses and so we dont post on top of each others (idk how big of a problem that is?)
• Towards the end of the quarter though it seemed like some of the work that you were giving us to do in class was just busy work. Like when you had us vote on the summaries or when you had us find examples of framing and whatnot in the comic readings.
• Hope you can also arrange some activities helping us understand stuff related to WP3.
• The only problem I had with the thlogs were that they were typically not "due" until the end of the week, and by the time I usually got around to doing it, I would have forgotten what we had done in class and what we had learned.
• It it was a PAIN but I think it might help a lot when we do the reflection. so I guess its not that bad.
•  I also would have liked being able to choose our own groups for some things ­ specifically peer review ­ because we might feel uncomfortable with certain classmates reading our works due to insecurities, or just a matter of how people get along.
• Maybe it can have a ten minutes break after 50 minutes class.
• For the peer review workshop, I would suggest keeping the groups together instead of doing random groups because sometimes its easier giving constructive criticism to people you're comfortable with. and when its randomized, its a little more awkward telling somebody what needs work and what doesn't.
• [A comment that wasn’t ineffective included] Things like "Just thinking out loud...but could your paper benefit from restructuring?" I'd rather just straight up be told "Yo, you should really consider restructuring your paper­­I'm having an issue with the way it is currently."
• The comments that were about thinking of the paper as meat and potatoes ­ that we can't bite off more than we can chew. I understand the concept, but the way that it is phrased makes me feel like I should include more "fluff" in my papers as potatoes, yet I know that is the opposite of what you want. (What?!)
• When sharing my grades with friends in the class I noticed that even when we got the same grade the marks on my feedback matrix were further right than my friends which was pretty frustrating. I think being more consistent with that would be helpful.
• WP2 could have used more clear directions just so that we had a better idea of what was expected of us. I think it's hard to do that kind of assignment and maybe rethinking the assignment as a whole in terms of FORMAT and not LEARNING GOALS might be a good idea.
• I think that studying moves was a bit irritating. I really felt like we overcomplicated the concept of moves and the term felt a bit forced into situations at times in the class. It's a great concept but referencing it was kind of confusing and I felt like trying to talk about it directly was really awkward. I think the focus with moves should shift into adapting each students natural thought process by opening them up to the idea of it rather than making them quote "moves" directly all the time.
• I am a private person and was not comfortable with having to make a blog in the first place. I prefer for my submissions to be reviewed specifically by just you as the instructor.
  

Hmmm… I think you might want to think twice about this…

• [The course readings weren’t] really pressing, it didn't feel like most of them were really required.
• Because paraphrasing is EASY. In a college level course there is no reason to go over paraphrasing, we all know how to do it already.
• (I wish we would have…)  Learning to write things that are more applicable to life outside of being an english grad student. Like when am i ever going to need to analyze the rhetorical features of an article in a real life job??
• (I wish we would have…)  Writing research essays. I feel like WP 2 was supposed to be our attempt at that, but the prompt wanted us to focus on the moves and whatnot instead of research. While that is important, I think that learning to actually do research and write about it is the more important skill to learn (especially considering that this is a research university).
• (My favorite part of the course was) Peer editing and discussion.
• You can seem to be condescending at times which is not cool...I understand that you want everyone to participate and what not but shutting people up when they want to give their input in a class discussion just because you want to hear from other people is very rude.
• I don't think the peer reviews are completely necessary. Maybe another type of activity that had the same purpose but was more effective
•  
• Nobody knows how to give feedback that is helpful.
• We are always under time constraint, which hinders us sometimes in our feedback for other people. Since writing level is different among people, it may take some people longer to form a response to help the writer more or fix their grammar mistakes.
• I felt like there wasn't really a point of posting [the Google Doc journal responses] kinda just added another step in a long process.  (Here’s what 3 other respondents who submitted their surveys right before you wrote: (1) It was cool seeing what others had written to get other ideas and perspectives of the prompt. (2) Its fun to learn everyone else's response to a same question.  (3) being able to see everyone else's work is interesting and inspiring.)
• I am pretty sure everyone just bullshitted their pbs. N one really wants to read a bunch of different peoples project builders.
• Sure about that?  Here’s what your classmates wrote: 
• “It was nice being able to read other people's PBs and to see the similarities and differences in our thinking. Sometimes I would notice that almost everyone's PBs sounded the same, and other times I would see ideas presented in someone else's PB and have a WOW moment.”  
• “Reading classmates' work, for myself, is another way to improve my writing skills.”  
• “Really interesting to see another perspective.”  
• “It provides more ideas for me to writing WPs.”  
• “There are many creative people in this class and it really is cool to see their work. It makes see how there are many ways of executing the assignments and makes me think, "Oh wow I shoulda thought of that."”
• Just thinking that you're a pretty hard grader. Or I just never understood what you were ever asking for with our papers.
• It was a little difficult in understanding my grade because I didn't know what part specifically made me get what I got.
• I honestly do not like learning about genre nor do I think its the best way to improve a student's writing. I believe we should focus elsewhere or on more than just genre awareness. It gets very repetitive and uninteresting in my opinion. I wish we would look further into different areas, such as doing genre for wp1, something else for wp2, etc.
• I liked the idea of genre. But I don't know if it will help me in future courses.
• I didnt really like this approach. I did learn a lot about writing but unless I go into a writing career (which I am not because I dont like writing) I dont see how this really helped me besides passing writing 2.

Woo!

• Besides the reason that we were supposed to discuss readings in class, I also felt motivated because I wanted to practice reading, and learning specific writing techniques in the reading
• This class was 1,000,000 times better than i was expecting! A lot of constant work, not challenging stuff, but constant, but very worth it!
• The videos were a pleasant break from reading and lecturing. Frequently, the videos really helped to solidify points brought up during class. "Moves" was the best for getting us to understand what moves are. The horror movies and country songs were really useful for realizing that we already know genres and their conventions and to refine that point.
• I really enjoyed how interactive this class was and how it pushed me to participate. I really did give this class my all although I was challenged by personal circumstances throughout the quarter. This refreshed my view on learning and made me interested in writing again :)
• I liked that I was forced to be engaged. I have not experienced a class in college this small or interactive and I really enjoyed it. I have never been one to gravitate toward raising my hand and sharing my opinion, but I was compelled to in this class and I thought that was awesome.
• The atmosphere of the classroom. It was nice to have you be real with us and treat us like actual people, rather than accidentally thinking we were kindergartners.
• I liked that you said to "add my own voice" in the papers. That something that most writing teachers that I have had before never really encouraged so it was nice to know that you wanted out personalities to shine through out papers.
• I really enjoyed the small group discussions in class. They helped me develop my ideas and "get out of my own head" by seeing how other people think about/view the same concepts and ideas.
• Attitude is always on point. It makes it so much more enjoyable to sit in a classroom with a positive professor who actually gives a shit about the stuff they're teaching.
• 3 of my housemates are in writing 2 with different TA's this quarter and while they have been assigned less work than us I feel like I learned a lot this quarter, which is the opposite of how my housemates feel.
• I think it helps to get feedback not just from the teacher's perspective but also from people dealing with the same thing. I've gotten helpful comments and tips that I would have never thought of. I see it simply as people helping you in your writing.
• I felt proud of my blog because in the end of semester, when I looked back to 9 thlogs I had written, I saw my progress, my feelings, and my experience just like I was writing a book.
• (About the blogs) Everyone could see how we were developing and we had that classmate support if we did not understand something
• I really enjoyed thlogging. Like big time. Because I'm a super forgetful person, I often forget class content, so being able to just vent out my thoughts was really helpful. I tried to add a lot of pictures and make it entertaining for me/other people to read.
• There was one thlog in which I was talking about hedged writing and realized how much rhetorical tools, diction, etc. was important and how it fit into our lives. It helped me to better appreciate the material we were studying and its importance
• I liked how you included thoughts in addition to feedback. It gave me a glimpse in your thought process and it helped me give other people better feedback. I also found feedback on the positive side extremely helpful. Last quarter, whenever I received my paper back it was just filled with red negative comments telling me this was right or this was wrong. It got the point where the TA simply crossed out paragraphs without explaining why he did so. You're criticism was super­helpful and I appreciated it.  (And at the end: ahhhhhhhhh!)
• Telling me to make sure that every single sentence in my writing somehow supports the argument I'm attempting to make. That was super helpful because I could sit back and think "okay, what is BS and what has genuine meaning." In addition, telling me to use my own voice in writing helped. I came into Writing 2 just wanting to write in a way that you would think is professional and acceptable. But now I'm like woo I can still be myself.
• LOVED [learning/thinking about “moves”]! thought this was a super easy way to understand a difficult topic. I explained moves to another Writing 2 student with a different teacher and she liked it too!
• every piece of writing falls into a genre, WOW. made soo much sense
• It took a while to realize what moves really were, but I finally got a working definition of them that they are just specific decisions an author makes that if had not been made or if were different could have completely changed the work.
• The Bob Ross and Disney video showed me exactly how to do my WP3. When writing it, i knew exactly how to tackle it.
• I loved [the genre awareness/theory] approach. It is an incredibly useful tool for a very broad range of college coursework across majors.

PB3A, Composition/Writing Studies Journals, and WP3

Writing 2rs,

Here's a list of our in-class lottery results from Wednesday's class so you can remember which article you landed and, if there's still space, which ones you could swap.  (Remember: no more than 3 people can pick the same piece, please.)  If you wanna swap, shoot me an email and I'll update the list as soon as I can.

If you're still not satisfied with the options in the list I provided, that's totally cool -- you can choose other scholarly pieces from the composition/Writing Studies field.  Make sure, though, you shoot me an email just so I can give you a thumb's up on your pick.  Here's a super-useful link to a site that provides a comprehensive list of the journals in my field.  Below is a more curated list of some of the more popular journals -- at least the ones I'm most familiar with -- that you can find within that aforementioned link.  The ones that aren't hyperlinked aren't "open access" -- they require a library-authenticated sign-in.

• College Composition and Communication
• College English  
• Across the Disciplines 
• Written Communication
• Kairos

Lastly, as far as PB3A goes, try not to over-think it or psych yourself out toooooo much: your only job at this point is to pitch your WP3 Genre Transformation idea.  Tell us (your classmates and I) what your scholarly piece is all about, then describe which two genres (one to/for an older audience, and one to/for a younger audience) you're planning on creating and why.  Then: what will you do in the transformed genres?  What ideas from the scholarly piece will you "foreground" and why?  As always, be as specific as possible.  On Tuesday (the day after PB3A is due), I'm going to provide some feedback to your ideas.  Also, as I mentioned in class, I'd like you to finish commenting on each other's PB3A blog posts by 8pm on that Tuesday.  (I'll be commenting throughout the morning/afternoon on Tuesday, so if you hold off til Tuesday afternoon, you'll be able to get a glimpse into my thought process in the comments that I leave on everybody's PB3A posts.)

Okey dokey, artichokeys.  That's all for now.  Hang in there and keep working hard -- the quarter's almost over.  :)

Z

"Painting Trees" with Bob Ross and Disney Artists

These videos can help us get at “rhetorical decisions” and “moves.”  They show artists describing their composing process—the artists lead us through their thoughts and their actions.  No matter which option you choose for WP3, I want you to lead me through your moves in your follow-up self-analysis, so while you watch these videos, I want you to consider:

• What are some "moves" you see in these videos? 
• How do these artists describe what they’re doing?  What do the artists refer to while they describe their work?  What do they talk about?  What do they direct our attention towards?  
• How would you characterize each artist's style, and what impact does their style have on you (a viewer/audience member)?  How have these artists chosen to portray their subject matter?  

Bob Ross and His "Happy Trees"

4 (Disney) Artists Paint One Tree

Prepping for WP2: Pop Culture-y Sources on the Web

Here's a list of possible pop culture-y (non-academic) publications.  Please know that they don't all represent the same standards for "journalistic integrity" and/or objectivity -- these sites focus on a wide range of content and perspectives, tailored to different audiences.

Poke around and find something you like!

• ESPN
• Esquire
• Vogue
• GQ
• Rolling Stone
• The Atlantic
• Slate
• Vice
• Harper's Bazaar
• Politico
• Huffington Post
• Drudge Report
• SB Independent
• Ed Hat
• LA Times
• NY Times
• Washington Post
• Philly News
• Wall Street Journal
• Mother Jones

On-Campus Presentations/Readings Relating to Writers and Their Writing

Writing 2rs,

I've been asked to pass along these two tidbits of on-campus presentations/readings relating to writers and their writing.  I'll consider tossing you a modest amount of extra credit if you attend, take notes on what you see/hear/think, and then reflect on it all.  More details to come in class on Monday, but I thought I'd give you a heads up in advance.

Hope you're all having a great start to the weekend.

Z

"Moves"

I.  Love.  This.  Lesson.
#omfg
#truestory

Whether you realized it or not -- and whether I, the writer, realized it or not -- I made some "moves" right there.  I tapped into my pop culture resources and used some informal conventions of the modern "millenial" generation to (1) reach you, my target audience, by writing a somewhat unusual teacher-to-student "hook" in the beginning (2) let you know that I'm honestly juiced up to teach this lesson... perhaps my enthusiasm for this will be contagious, and (3) let my hair down for a change.

Some other moves I made right there?

• put the key buzzword in boldface for added emphasis
• #'d that list so you realized that there were only a few things you had to get through
• #'d that list so that my punctuation (commas) would come across more clearly -- the #s allowed me to separate each "thing" without using commas.  By using #s, I can save my commas within each item/thing so you (probably) wouldn't confuse them as an additional unit/thing
• used the "rule of 3" (a cheap trick that most readers seem to enjoy)
• finished the list with a joke.  If I started that list with my "long hair joke," would it have been as effective?  Probably not -- punchlines usually work best at the end.

OK, so Writing Project #2 is coming up, which requires you to analyze and evaluate what's gained/lost between scholarly and non-academic texts.  To most effectively do this, I'd like you to consider each writer's moves -- what they're doing, how they're doing it, and whether you believe that it was effective.

By studying this, my hope is that you'll be able to detect writers' moves more clearly and, in doing so, consider adapting what you find to be effective.  Think of this as a way to open up your tool kit.

Ever hear of two musicians "jamming out"?  Well, this is essentially what you're doing as a (good) reader.  You're listening to what the writer/musician is trying to communicate, and if you like what they've done, feel free to "borrow that lick."  (But remember: if you're borrowing their ideas/research, you need to attribute that work to them in a citation!)

Blah blah blah.  Here are some videos that can help us start thinking about "moves."

#thisissocool

Click here for the MJ video on Vimeo.

An Animated Video of a Blogger's Writing (and Thinking and Researching) Process

My beloved Writing 2rs, this is "must-see TV."  (See what I did there by hyphenating "must-see"?  It's certainly not that important in the grand scheme of things, but it's just one of those little meaning-making writing tips that I'd like you to keep your eye on so you can, hopefully, put it into your tool kit.)

Here's an animated at a(n incredibly thorough) blogger's writing process.  I honestly think this could help you (re)think about how you approach your writing (and thinking) in our course and in your others as well!

Song Requests?

Wanna hear a song while we're working in class?  Pick one and slap it into this Google Doc. Make sure you pick lyric-less songs -- sometimes it's tough for people to concentrate when there are lyrics.

"In Defense of Rhetoric" Video

As we continue to build our genre awareness, it's important that we get a firm hold on the term "rhetoric."  Rhetoric goes hand-in-hand with genres, their conventions, and how writers choose to communicate their messages.

Genre and PB1A

Writing 2rs,

I wanted to post a message here that can, hopefully, help you think through your upcoming PB1A assignment (due Monday, before the start of class).  

The best place to start is by asking, "Well, what exactly is a genre?"  This is a great question, and we'll be thinking about it all quarter long.  (Really.)  On the most basic level, a textual genre is any piece of writing that's bound by similar patterns in its form (the "look" of it) and content (what it's about).  Another way to distinguish between genres is to consider their social action -- what they do in the world and what they're intended to accomplish.

Let's take a quick look at two genres: "Get Well" cards and car advertisements.  One is intended to express sympathy and love; the other is trying to swindle you out of your hard-earned $$$.  One is very personalized and generally short/sweet; the other is also probably relatively short but it's usually not tailored to a specific person -- I can't remember the last time I opened up a newspaper or a magazine and a car ad said, "Yo, Zack!  How's that commute from Calabasas to Santa Barbara going?  We've heard that you'd like to swap your "folkswagen" for a truck!  Well, check this puppy out!"  Car ads are generally depersonalized.

These are lots of other ways to analyze these two genres.  You can consider what media they typically appear in (car ads occasionally appear on TV commercials -- have you ever seen a "Get Well" commercial?), what kind of specific (or broad) audience they're targeting, and what appeals or types of evidence they use, if any, to do so.  Genres can be broad, loose, and somewhat vague or they can be nuanced, tight, and very specific.  At its best, the concept of "genre" is an analytical tool that we can use to better understand texts and how/why the function in the ways that they do.

All in all, at this current point in the course/quarter (less than one week in!), I just want you to gain added practice with exploring genre.  If you're still a little hesitant about "genre" and what it is/isn't, go back to Dirk's Navigating Genres piece and give it another read.  (That's a million dollar study tip!  It never hurts to slow down and revisit the material multiple times.)

There are a bunch of textual genres out there in the world.  Wherever you can "see language," there's a 99% chance that it falls into some kind of genre.  Sometimes, even when you're "hearing language," it's coming from a textual/written source and it comes right back to a textual genre.  News broadcasters, for instance, are typically reading a report that's been written, which has then been posted onto a teleprompter.  (Genre is an incredibly "Matrix-y" idea.  Once you begin to really see/understand the world through genre, it's almost impossible to un-see it.)

Before I bring this babble fest back down to Earth and get to your PB1A assignment, let me add a couple more dimensions to genre and genre theory that can help you dig down even further.  By considering a genre's affordances (what it enables, such as bottom-up participation by its users/readers -- think of the co-creation that's enabled by a wikipedia entry or possibly how some commenting forums on online message boards can shape the ensuing analytical "conversation") and its limitations (what is restricted, disabled, or unavailable), you'll be able to evaluate a given genre for its strengths and weaknesses.  One other way to explore genre to its fullest extent is to think about how its historical evolution and how it's been shaped over time.  (PS: I'm not expecting all this for PB1A!)

Now, for PB1A, I want you to pick one specific genre you're already fairly familiar and then gain practice with studying, deconstructing, and analyzing it.  I'm basically asking you to take a long, hard look at one specific genre and then: 

1. break down its conventions (just like we've been doing in class with the country tunes, the horror movie clips, and the letter of recommendation requests) and then take a shot at explaining why some of those conventions exist.  One convention of (most of) the letter of recommendation requests was a formal tone.  Why?  To signal respect for the reader -- the person who would be writing the recommendation.
2. analyze its rhetorical features which include its intended audience, the author's/writer's purpose for producing it, the greater context in which, and any stylistic patterns.  The reading that I've assigned for Monday (Carroll's "Backpacks and Briefcases") will help you better understand what "rhetorical features" means, so make sure you read this before you begin writing your PB1A.  (Rule of thumb: always read the assigned readings first!) 

In our course reader -- and on Gauchospace -- I've included a badass document that can help guide your genre analysis for PB1A and beyond.  It's called... "Genre Analysis" and it's got a bunch of super-useful questions you can consider to help you "get at" genre.  It's located somewhere towards the end, close to the letter of recommendation request (which, again, represent a distinct genre for all those reasons we discussed in class).

I hope this message helps you.  Try to have fun with this (and all) our assignments and feel free to "go for it" and pick a weird/unusual textual genre.  If you can, include a screen shots, scans/pictures, or links that represent a small sample of whatever genre you've chosen so we can actually see what these genres look like.  Also, making specific references -- think: direct citations or quotes -- from them could really make your PB1A an outta-da-park homerun.  

G'luck!

Horror Movies! More Practice with Genre and Conventions

Scenario: all of a sudden, you're sitting in the middle of a movie theater, watching a horror movie.  How do you know you're watching a horror movie?  What features/things about this movie make it a horror movie?

 After you jot down your predictions, let's put our hypotheses to the test!

The Shining

Psycho

It

Paranormal Activity

Thinking About Genre (and Conventions) Through Country Music

I wanted to post these videos to help you (re)consider the following questions which can, hopefully, help you to think about the relationship between genres and their conventions:

• what's the "glue" that binds these songs together? 
• what about them makes them fall into the “country music” category?
• at what points do they bend/blend into other genres (such as folk, blues, and bluegrass)?

"Your Cheating Heart"

Lyrics

"Coal Miner’s Daughter"

Lyrics

"Whiskey River"

Lyrics

"I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow"

Lyrics