Blog post Wednesday Feb. 3

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In the first essay, “You Better Think Before You Spit”, I found that the writer did not use punctuation well. There were a lot of errors I noticed throughout the entire essay as well as some grammar errors. Overall the writer went into detail about the organization but I felt that some of the sentences should’ve been better organized. Meaning there should’ve been placed a little better. Some of the paragraphs didn’t really seem to flow. In the second essay, “The Puerto Rican Student Association: A Community Identity Analysis”, I feel like there was a lot of repetition of words and phrases as well as when the author was writing about the interview, it seemed very choppy a little hard to follow. Also, when the author was using evidence, some of the phrases were missing quotations. I also liked how the author explained what a discourse community is and gave definitions whereas the first essay did not. Overall, the author went into great detail and explained things very clearly.

In the first essay, the author cited these sources.
Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing, vol.1, 2010, pp. 249-262.

Glatch, Sean. Personal interview. 29 Mar. 2019
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Johns, Ann M. “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity.” Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies, 1997, pp. 498-510.

Project: Spit. “About.” Facebook,
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ProjectSPITUCF/about/?ref=page_internal. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019

In the second essay, the author cited these sources.
Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 1, 2010, pp. 249-262.

Johns, Ann M. “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity.” Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. 1997, pp. 498-510.

Puerto Rican Student Association. “Constitution of Puerto Rican Student Association.” PRSA at UCF, 25 Oct. 2017.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Boston, Cambridge: UP, 1990, pp. 466-473.

Understanding Discourse Communities, Dan Malzer

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Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page

Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities.” Writing Scapes: Readings on Writing, Volume 3, 2020, 100-115.

Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words

In Dan Melzer’s, Understanding Discourse communities he explains why discourse communities are important for college writing and beyond. A discourse community has the following features, a common set of goals, mechanisms of communication between members, use of mechanisms to provide feedback, one or more genres to further the goals of the group, a specialized language, and, expert members. Each academic discipline is a different discourse community. Discourse communities shape how and what we write. It may be difficult to write to a discourse community at first but you have to learn about it and ask questions to understand their goals and genres and language.   

Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author.

A new term that I learned is Lexis which means specialized language. In the reading, the author writes the definition of what a discourse community is and defines lexis in the sentence.

How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

Going forward learning about how to understand discourse communities will help me improve my writing but also help me understand my other classes. I now know what questions to ask myself when I enter a new discourse community.

Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion.

How does understanding discourse communities help you in your other classes beyond writing?

Reading Journal, Kerry Dirk

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Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, 2010, 249-262.

Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words

The article went into depth about how different genres affect our daily lives without us even realizing it. Throughout the text, there were multiple examples that stood out to me and that I could relate to. For example, one of my favorites was at the beginning of the article where it talks about the country song playing in reverse. The reason this was so funny to me is because of how true it was. As well, I enjoyed how the author went into detail about how this joke’s reaction depended on the audience in which it was told. The author used this as a perfect transition into the main topic of genre and how it relates to my writing.

Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author.

One new term that stood out to me within the article was the word rhetorician. The article stated, “Perhaps the shift started when the rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer wrote the following”. From using context clues, I inferred that the term meant a profession that related to rhetorical situations.

How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

This reading connects to other articles from class since throughout this course I will be using genre and rhetorical situations to guide my writing. This article has given me insight into new ways I am able to approach my writing.

Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion.

How does genre and rhetorical situations impact writing, as well as, how does a piece’s delivery impact an audience?

Reading Journal: Dasbender

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Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page Dasbender, Gita. “Critical Thinking in College Writing: From the Personal to the Academic.” Writing Scapes: Readings on Writing, vol. 1, 2011, pp. 37–51. 
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words Critical thinking isn’t just about going in-depth in an article or reading it’s more about learning to go beyond the piece of writing. In Dasbenders article, Critical Thinking in College Writing: From the Personal to the Academic, she explains how to think critically and how to go beyond the piece of writing. As you read the text you first should ask yourself questions about specific words or phrases and what the author is trying to imply or what it may mean. Then, you need to look for important ideas. Ideas that help you understand the text and ideas that stand out as important. Then, one should look for key terms in the important ideas and try to explain what the key terms mean. Then, one should write a personal response to the essay to create a relationship with the text. 
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. A new concept I learned is writing a personal response in critical thinking. Using the author’s own words, “This stage in critical thinking is important for establishing your relationship with a text. What do I mean by this “relationship,” you may ask? Simply put, it has to do with how you feel about the text.” I thought that this was interesting because I never thought about creating a personal relationship with the writing in the critical thinking process. 
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

 

 I have not read many articles about critical thinking but now I look back on other articles I have read and I have been able to think about them in more of a critical way. Going forward I will be able to use these steps for critical thinking in the future readings I do as well as help me become a better writer. 
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. How does critical thinking apply to reading and analyzing a text?   

 

Critical Thinking Intake Assessment

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Last semester I wrote an argumentative essay and through that writing, I had to find sources that were credible. For each article, I found I looked at the date of when it was published and the author’s credentials. I made sure that their credentials related directly to the topic of the writing piece. I can change my stance on any issue if I have enough sources. I believe that if there is evidence to support the idea then I can write it. It may not be something I believe but it’s it can still be logically correct in someones else’s mind. So depending on the audience I am writing to I can defend either side.

Multimodal Final Reflection – So Far

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At this point, I think I have finished my essay for the most part. I have it complete I am just re-reading it and double-checking everything. I am very comfortable with this type of writing I felt like breezed through it but I still like the other essays that we have done this semester. I feel like I have really learned a lot throughout them all. I didn’t have any problems that I was facing with this essay. But I do think that it took me a little bit just brainstorming and thinking back to the rest of the semester and figuring out what I struggled with the most but overall I didn’t really have many problems writing this essay at all.

Reflective Writing Video Response

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Watching this video I learned that reflective thinking is more important than actual writing. It’s not only looking at past events but future writing events and how you can improve.
It’s important in becoming a better writer and a student because it allows you to realize what you did wrong and allows you to think about what you can to do improve in the future.
Reflection is an important skill for life because it allows you to think about a situation that might not have gone your way you would have liked it to and gives you the opportunity to improve and grow from that.

Project #3 Relfection

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In this project, I feel that I have definitely improved in planning and coming up with ideas for my project. I really struggled in that area during my first few projects but this project I didn’t take as much time planning as my other projects. I also had issues with phrasing in my last essay and I feel that I did better in this one. The area of weakness that this project highlighted for me has to be word choice. I feel that there were not very many good academic words other than marijuana because all the other words for marijuana are more slang words. I felt that I was being very repetitive in this essay. The most stressful part of writing this essay had been the word choice because I was afraid that I was being repetitive but I also felt that I couldn’t really use any other words. I think if I could do this project over I would change my angle on the subject and just focus on the economic side of legalizing marijuana or I would look at the criminal side of it and focus on how legalization brings down crime rates and allows law enforcement to focus on bigger issues going on in cities. Also if I focused on the criminal side I could talk about how the use of opioids has gone down in the states that have legalized marijuana to some extent.

project #3 draft questions

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I have learned that arguments are a form of conversation and not a competition between two people. Arguments should be crafted in such a way that it lets others see both sides of an argument. I have learned that the legalization of marijuana is a controversial issue that has multiple viewpoints and sides. The legalization of marijuana is a hard issue to cover because of the nature of the issue. Some problems that I have faced while writing this project, are that it is hard to find unbiased sources to pull from for my writing.

for argument’s sake response

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Cohen’s main claim is that people see arguments as a battle with a winner and a loser but Cohen believes that in an argument there is no winner or loser he wants to change that so then arguments become a tool for communication between ideas. He gives the metaphor that war is a battle between two people. He then goes on to talk about how in this form of argument that people rely on tactics such as defense and attack instead of trying to see the positive in opposing ideas or views. When he gives the metaphor about the jury I was able to relate to his idea that arguments can become a performance in front of an audience. After watching this video it made me think about how I can use this in my writing and in my everyday life. In project 3 I can take a look at the opposing views of the other side and instead of discrediting their argument I can learn from it and work it into my essay.