Monday, March 16, 2015

English 101, 2015

  
I signed up for English 101 with a bit of a preconceived notion of what it would be like. I’ve never really liked writing much and I imagined writing boring papers about things I wasn’t interested in and thought I would hate the class. On the first day though, this idea changed and I had some hope for the class to be not as horrible as I had previously thought. I liked that this class focused more on the critical thinking part of writing instead of the usual grammatical, technical aspect that generally accompanies academic writing.
Throughout this quarter, this class has really made clear what “joining the conversation” looks like and how the overall process of writing comes together. I also feel more comfortable with the peer response process than I did before. In my presentation essay and the work leading up to the final piece, I feel that I have demonstrated my understanding of both the conversational tone that we have learned about in this course and also the process of rewriting and revising that we have also focused on a lot this quarter.
I started out with my first essay about interconnection and how the blogging world may be changing the way we as a society read, and although my presentation essay contains a very small amount of the same ideas that were in the first essay, some of them were passed onto my second essay. One of the things I really liked about my first essay was the idea of us all being connected and an idea of everyone being changed by things other people do, so that was what I brought into my second essay. In my second essay, I felt like I did a really good job of keeping a conversational tone and cutting out biased words that might alienate some readers. I didn’t like centering my writing around blogs, so for the second essay I used Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog” a little less and focused more on what genre meant from Paul Heilker’s view point and how that affected things. One of the things that really helped me with this essay was the hypothesis-question-hypothesis CIP we did in preparation. I felt like this was a very good way to both use ideas from before while also bringing in new twists. The idea of looking at genre in a different sense really drew me in and I was more excited to write about it. This is why I thought the ideas in my second essay were a lot more developed than my first, only to be brought down by a lack of evidence from the texts. After the second essay I started thinking a lot about the ideas proposed by all the texts we had read about people become who they are and how that connects with writing, and became interested in how they could come together in a larger sense. I took my third, presentation essay more bigger picture. I used my first two essays as learning experiences for my presentation essay, so that when I finally did have the final draft it is has all the best parts of the first two and also new ideas.  Nancy Sommers says, “it is always the writer’s voice, vision and argument that create the new source” and that is what I tried to do with my final essay, using the conversational tone that we talked about in class and my own take on the idea of genre to combine both Sommers, Heilker and Sullivan and converse with the sources to make my own source. One thing that I really lacked confidence in on my first couple essays where the citation packages. I had trouble with citing them correctly and also using them to back up my claims, so this was something I really worked on when writing my final essay. Also, reading Stuart Greene’s essay on inquiry in writing helped me to understand what critical inquiry questions where along with how to “converse” better with the sources.
Before this class I had only ever been told that I needed to prove something with my writing, essays with strict guidelines on how they were supposed to be structured and written, so for me, the way we wrote in English 101 was a breath of fresh air. I have never liked having a thesis and proving it because it leaves nothing to the reader and also limits the audience. Having a CIQ opens the paper up so that it is more than one sided and in the end would make a more valid case, because all angles have been looked at thoroughly. With a thesis based paper, I think that the writer is set up to only look at one angle of an argument, or discussion and once this idea has formed, is hard to not just look at essays like this. I myself had a hard time adjusting just this quarter to actually discussing a topic rather than arguing it. With a more holistic view of a topic, I think it’s easier to write a paper that better serves the purpose of it and also the audience.
I chose to present my portfolio in the form of an online network. I chose to do it online to both mirror the interconnectivity Sullivan talks about in his essay and because part of it is also in blog form, also bring in the ideas of Sullivan. The main part of my work is on a blog, then linked to a Pinterest board. The reason I chose to do this was because Pinterest is something I like so I was trying to bring in some of my own touch (having not loved blogging in the past or in this course) and also because of the conversational feel Pinterest has. On the pictures (pinned onto Pinterest) anyone can comment which gives the freedom to converse easily with people you have never even met. If you have never used Pinterest before, there are different “boards” on a profile, like pages that all have a similar thing, usually like “hair” or “food”. The pinner then can either post or “pin” pictures on boards from an outside source or re-pin something they find and like from someone else’s board. If you click on a pin, it will direct you to the original source that it was gotten. Because of this, each board consists of pins from many different people, all in one place to create its own feel or genre, while also being a place that other people can visit and converse on. This for me was a logical way to bring together the ideas of Heilker and Sullivan.
With my board that I created for my portfolio, called “A Way of Being in the World”, I pinned quotes from authors we read and ones I thought had to do with my presentation essay topic, pictures that all had a feel to them that I wanted for the page and also pictures from my blog “Joining the Conversation” so that if you click on the picture it will take you to the blog. I really like the fact that this layout joins both the Internet and the conversational tone and feel that it has with Heilker’s more abstract definition of genre. Sommers’s ideas come into my portfolio mainly through my presentation essay in which I used her piece as the main source supporting evidence, along with Heilker and in the quotes and pictures I pinned on the Pinterest board. I chose the titles of my blog to me more similar to Sullivan’s idea of conversing on the Internet and I picked the board title to reflect more of Heilker’s ideas, in that I wanted the pins on my board to create one feel or genre of being in the world.
Prospective:
I took a creative writing class in high school my senior year that I hoped would be a less structured way to write in an academic setting. By the end of the year I was very discouraged by the fact that I felt less confident in my writing, and didn’t even feel like trying anymore. I think this was due to the fact that it was a very structured class.
Although not liking the way the English 101 curriculum was set up this quarter with our final grade only based off of work we are doing at the very tail end of the quarter, I did appreciate the fact that I feel more confident in my writing now. Some of the things we talked about in class and worked on in our writing like the authoritative I and the revision process, I understand a lot more now and are part of the reason I feel more comfortable in my writing now.
The way we wrote in this class was not only a style of writing, but also an idea that I have seen taught throughout me life. In my high school chemistry class, our teacher stressed the fact that we needed to ask questions and come to conclusions based on what we knew and could see, not just assume things. I think can be very applicable to different situations, even apart from just writing.  Looking at all the facts of a situation and thinking a little more deeply on it I think is a valuable lesson to take away from this class and also a way of thinking I personally can bring into my future classes, and just generally in my life.


            

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Abstract

            Genre as a way of being can mean different things, thinking about it in the context of how things come to be and extending the ideas in Paul Heilker’s “On Genres as Ways of Being” and Nancy Sommers’s “Here I Stand Writing” this essay questions whether it is the genre something is put under or the process of how it came to be that is more important to the reader. By bringing together both genetic characteristics and experiences, a person is molded to be who they are or the genre they are at every moment of their lives. Exploring how this shapes both how they perceive things and also how others view them. Also this paper brings in the idea of uncertainty and how embracing it might be necessary when experiencing or trying anything new, whether reading, meeting other people or simply venturing into life itself to know oneself. (149)


Tags: Genre, Paul Heliker, Nancy Sommers, Andrew Sullivan, Uncertainty, Genre as a way of being, Life, Views, First Impressions, Experiences

Who We Are


Is genre and what it could mean in relation to a person just a label, or does it have a deeper meaning? It’s easy to put labels on things and look at them purely for what they have to offer on the outside, but I think its fair to argue that there is a lot more value to people, and pretty much anything else, than just what appears on the surface. This deeper value comes from a vast many things, including where you come from and the culture you where brought up in. My mom always told me that there was no escaping the fact that I would eventually turn into her one day, as she would turn into my grandma someday too. This idea is reflected in Nancy Sommers “Here I Stand Writing”. In a lot of ways, I would be honored to turn into my mother but in other ways I value the fact that I am my own person and have worked very hard to be just that. It is very hard to break out of boxes that people put you in and to be a true reflection of who you are instead of what people expect you to be or their first impression of you. In his piece, “On Genres as Ways of Being” the author Paul Heilker goes into more detail about what genre could be described as, and that is as a way of being in the world. The question being, does genre describe an overall way of being—“who am I” or does it describe how you got to be the person you are at every moment in your life— “what has made me this way”? Or, in the world of literature, does appearance and label affect the reader more than the history and where the writing comes from? It seems that once a position is established, a side taken, a decision to be someone is chosen it is hard to think differently, even if this means simply breaking away from a first impression. If I accept that I am going to turn into my mother one day, I probably will. Although a recurring theme in Sommers piece is luck and how it was one of the things that made her and her mom different, she still found herself instilling the idea of luck into her own children. Are labels and who we are always defined by what we present on the outside, and how people perceive us or do we have the power to show what we truly are even from moment to moment? Author of the essay “Why I Blog”, Andrew Sullivan expresses how blogging is a true representation of oneself from moment to moment each time an author posts. With novels or essays its not as easy, they don’t have a choice in how they present themselves, but we can look at how the way a person thinks leaves them with a preexisting idea of how a piece of writing is or who a person is.
Genre in relation to people can be described in many ways if you look at Heilker’s definition. A way of being in the world could be as simple as the way you are when you eat breakfast or ride a bus, or could encompass a whole era in your life, like high school or college. But say that we think about genre in terms of moments, every moment having a different genre comprised of everything that has lead up to that specific instant, continuously making us who we are with every second that passes. This allows for a great deal of genres, and would certainly mean that people are more than just a label or stereotype that might be put on them, and also more than just one dimensional. This same idea, extended to literature, applies in the same way. As Heilker says “there are simply too many genres for any one person or even group of scholars to analyze in this [regularly assigned genres] way”(102). Books are more complex—as well as people—than any one definition could describe, or any one front could possibly illustrate. Combining literature and people, the idea still continues into the way authors write—when writing, what has made a person who they are comes across in their writing. However, with ever-changing genres comes some uncertainty of how things will be next, which although a lot of times very small can be scary just because it’s new and unknown. Also, if we are ever changing is there a way to present that new self to the world with every new moment?  Both Heilker and Sommers discuss writing and living with uncertainty and press it’s importance; “we have to embrace the uncertainty and stand naked and clueless in the face of new data and experiences” (Heilker 99) and as Sommers advises, we should have “courage to live with uncertainty, ambiguity and even doubt” (130). Both authors stress the importance of living, and even embracing the uncertainty in writing and life with each new experience, saying that embracing this is the only way to truly invent something new and learn about ourselves, thus maybe accepting uncertainty is one way to be both continuously be open to new things and to show who we are to the world with each changing genre. This of course is scary, because it means showing the world who we are before we may even know are ourselves. Andrew Sullivan discusses this kind of vulnerability in the context of blogging, saying that blogging is “raw honesty, its dedication to marking life as it happens and remembering life as it was” (1) he also compares blogs to diaries that everyone can read, that mark every moment of the authors life as it happens with 100% accuracy. In fact, any kind of writing can be making the author vulnerable in some way, either in the process of writing it or the act of publishing it, but with each case you find out something about yourself. Whether it was in the instant the piece becomes public or simply the moment you had a realized a truth about yourself you hadn’t come to terms with, with blogging, all in one moment exposed to the world.
Even if we accept that genre could define just a moment in terms of what has happened up until that point and that embracing uncertainty might be the best way, we also have to look at what has happened up until each point. Culture, socioeconomic circumstances, parents and peers all play a part in how a person views the world, affecting both how they will write and also how they view things they read. In turn, all of these factors also affect how we ourselves are viewed. If we accept certain ideas about ourselves, they inevitably shape who we are. This isn’t the only thing that shapes us; there are aspects in our lives that we simply cannot run away from, one of which is our genetic makeup. Sommers says several things in her piece about her mother and also about being a mother. She talks about how luck was a part of her own upbringing, and how her mother would send her “cards monthly with four-leaf clovers taped inside… printed in capital letters—GOOD LUCK”(Sommers 123) and she swears that it isn’t an idea she instills in her daughters, but ultimately she realizes that the idea of luck is part of what she passes on to her children. Thus adding the importance in also accepting things we cannot change about ourselves.
Approaching the unknown, whether it be the rest of your life, reading a new book or meeting a new person, with a predisposed attitude can dramatically change your view of it, but is this view permanent, or could your opinion change over time when the real underlying truth is discovered? On a much more simple note, when you select a book for its genre, does this label matter more than the actual content? This might be similar to judging people when you first meet them based on where they come from or what they look like, essentially a stereotype and sticking with that first impression, why keeping an open mind is so praised and encouraged when talking in the context of acceptance and understanding. With such a comparison, it might seem that genres within literature might hinder the whole business rather than help. We need to keep in mind, however, our definition of genre—everything that has lead up to any moment in a person’s life or anything behind what has made a piece of literature what it is. If this definition is kept in mind, it isn't difficult to say that we should indeed look at genre when starting a book, meeting someone new, or venturing into our lives. Although easy to say, the hard part is getting this across to the people who are viewing you.
Being aware of what has made something or someone what they are is probably at the core of understanding that person or thing. The common phrase, “walk a mile in his shoes” describes the importance of knowing the struggles and events of what makes a person tick. This can be partially achieved through writing and reading. How an author writes and what they write about says much about them, just as how you write says a lot about you, using your combined “voice, vision, and argument …[to] create the new source” (Sommers 127). When writing, it is never just one thing that creates a new work, but many things coming together to form it, an author’s background, voice and a new take on the subject. Writing is not only a direct reflection of yourself, but can also be used as a means of finding out who you are, “our acts of discovery are inward journeys as much as they are outward expeditions,” Heilker states. This means digging up things from our past to “[face] the possibility that we have lost parts of ourselves over the years” (Heilker 99), and discovering that these events and parts of the past are what make us who we are in conjunction with things that we get from our parents. The things we get from our parents being one of the most important things that make up who we are. Sommers mentions words from Reynolds Price, “nobody under the age of forty can believe how nearly everything’s inherited” (123). By the time a person is this age they may reach the conclusion that they are very similar reflections of their parents, like it or not, but it is this combined with personal experience that makes up a “new source” or who a person truly is.
Our genes and the things we experience throughout our lifetimes are what make up the genre of our lives, at every moment and through every time, fluid and ever changing, and changed even by the little things. Perhaps, albeit scary, embracing the uncertainty is the only way to venture into anything new, in writing, reading or in life, to get the whole picture—because you can never really know what is coming or how something will be.

Q-H-Q




Application Answer


  Last summer at Camp Michael, I was a counselor for CIT’s, or counselors in training. The girls ranged from 7th grade to 9th grade. I’ve always known that a large amount of kids that attend the camp come from hard backgrounds and have experienced some really terrible things, and that often this camp is the one week in the year that provides loving, caring, support. I had always known this, but it didn’t really become real in my mind until I was pulling one of the girls aside for a forth or fifth time to talk to her about being a role model. She began to break down and started telling me about why she had trouble being a leader in the small group settings. I heard her whole life story, and it was terrible, horrible things that I had never even thought possible for anyone to go through let alone a 12 year old. She was in a foster home and told me things about the family she was with that made me immediately worry about her home situation, so after talking to her I went to the camp director. I started crying when I got there, and she knew why I had come. The directors had known about the situation and were doing everything they could to get her the help and support she needed. Granted that part of the problem was that she has already gone through so much hardship that some of the whole story was probably just wanting some attention, but I thought that something had to be done right away. Upon hearing that everything that could be done was already underway and had been for a while I had a feeling of hopelessness that I had never felt before; this was someone’s life, already hard enough, that couldn’t be fixed that second. The next day, the director, the girl and I sat down and talked about the whole situation. We went over everything that was going on and I realized that some things just aren’t how they should be. Kids should never go through anything that bad, but some do and sometimes the best anyone can do is to be a loving, approachable supportive person in their lives. I learned that sometimes that’s all you can be to a person and that that’s okay.

Genres of Life


Idea Map