graphical representation

Never before have i been able to discuss everything I love and hate in one class. For three hours every Friday, complete strangers come together bringing the greatest things they have to offer: their knowledge, lead by our peculiar teacher Mr Trey Connor. We argue, we persuade, we link, and we think.

I wrote alot before this class, just randomized thoughts that seem to only make complete sense to me. But this class taught me to organize my thoughts, specialize them, put them into little labeled boxes and share them. Trey Connor opened my eyes up to so much, but not just him, it was a collaborate effort of the class. i contributed to my own discovery of how to write to an audience, and show visual analysis, and support my claims. I've learned more about writing in two months then all of high school.

Blogging and informal writing has always been my favorite form of expression. I've always carried a notebook with me so whenever i have a thought or feeling that i want to remember or elaborate on i write it down. Writing has always been an antibiotic for me, if i put it into words i can free up more space in my head for other things without forgetting it. It wasnt hard for me to blog in this class, i would prefer to rflect in that form, its more my style. BLOGGING AND INFORMAL WRITING IS MY CHOSEN PROFESSION OF WRITING. i pretty much have a PHD in it. Jack Kerouac is a big influence in my life, his writing has always made me feel better about my writing, in ways of understanding and expressing myself without caring if it makes sense to others.

"Fellow writers were always asking Kerouac how he did what he did. So Kerouac set down 30 essentials in something he called “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose.”

1 Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2 Submissive to everything, open, listening

3 Try never get drunk outside yr own house

4 Be in love with yr life

5 Something that you feel will find its own form

6 Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7 Blow as deep as you want to blow

8 Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9 The unspeakable visions of the individual

10 No time for poetry but exactly what is

11 Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12 In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13 Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14 Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15 Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16 The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17 Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18 Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19 Accept loss forever

20 Believe in the holy contour of life

21 Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22 Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23 Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24 No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25 Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26 Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27 In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28 Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29 You're a Genius all the time

30 Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

The above 30 "beliefs" always help me when i get writers block or write myself into a corner, they helped me alot in this class when i really wanted to put my thoughts into words or wanted to connect to the reader.

So we watched this video called Obsession about radical Islams and we were assigned to blog about it, it was titled Rhetorical Analysis of Visual Rhetoric and it is the best example of collaborative, coordinated, and distributed writing in this class. We responded on one page while linking,and interacting, and responding to each others work, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes arguing, but at least being open to everyones point of view. Honestly, i was a little intimidated to write stuff on that page in fear of being argued with, but it was still helpful to read over it as it changed and grew.

Rhetorical Knowledge

Audience: What have you learned about addressing an audience in ___ writing?

So far I've learned that adressing an audience has alot to do with my tone and form of writing. Depending on who my audiece is, my work needs to be written to best suit there reading abilities and interests. Once i decide who my audience is, it should be easy to find the write tone of speech i want my work to have so that it portrays the rights meaning.

Purpose: What have you learned about the purposes of ___ writing?

i've discovered that knowing the purpose of my writing is key in making a good claim. if i have purpose to focus on, i dont get off track as easily and start rambling like i usually do. having a purpose helps me write each sentence, its important to me that everything contributes to the purpose, and stays on focus so that i can best achieve the purpose of my writing

Voice and Tone: How would you describe your voice in this project? Your tone? How do they contribute to the effectiveness of your essay?

in this project i would describe my voice as reflective, informative, strong, and enlightened. im trying to convey a tone of excitement since this is my favorite class and i do love every assignment, and i think its contributing very well since nobody wants to read a reflection about stuff that was thought to be boring

Context, Medium, and Genre: How did your context determine the medium and genre you chose, and how did those decisions affect your writing?

this is something i've struggled with, its hard for me to stick to one medium and one genre so when i look back on what i've written it always seem too random. it was good to specific focused assignments so train myself to keep the context of my work under one genre.

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

Learning/ Inquiry: How did you decide what to focus on in your writing? Describe the process you went through to focus on a main idea, or thesis. How did you judge what was most and least important in your exploratory writing?

honestly, when choosing a focus or a main idea in my writing, i tried to go with the easiest way to explain what i was trying to say. sometimes i get ahead of myself and a little too wordy so i always refer back to the purpose of my writing to help keep focused. when judging what was most and least important in my exploratory writing, i tried to not ever repeat myself or say the same thought twice just differently written. if a piece of information wasn't helping my purpose in the way i needed it to or was kinda useless to me i would simply eliminate it. i tried to say exactly what i wanted to say with the least amount of words.

Responsibility: How did you fulfill your responsibilities to your readers?

i tried to know as much as i could about the topic i was wrting about when fulfilling my responsibilities to my readers, its vital that you have support for any writing thats not entirely personal, i also try to make it as clear as possible where i stand on the subject if it happens to have multiple points of view, that way the reader knows where i'm coming from, and is aware of any biased statements that i might make.

Reading and Research: What research did you conduct? How sufficient was the research you did? Why? What additional research might you have done?

on every assignment that required researching i liked to find the history, examples, recent occurences, special connections that i can make, other related topics, and what others thought about that topic. For example, on our sustainability assignment, i googled "sustainability" but followed as many links as possible without getting completely off topic. for my link pile, i wanted to have really good hardy links that had depth and purpose so its taking me time to find some great links, but all great projects are never finished so its all good. i think my research was very sufficient because it helped me complete the assignments with a better understanding of the topics. theres always additional research that could have been done, no one topic is completely researched. i could have looked further into the rabbit hole for every assignment, and not just skim the surface just to get it done.

Overall: As a result of writing this _________, how have you become a more critical thinker, reader, and writer? What critical thinking, reading, and writing skills do you hope to develop further in your next writing project? How will you work on them?

Composing Processes

Invention: What invention strategies were most useful to you? Why?

freewriting is most usefull to me because it lets me just flow. i can write whatever comes to mind, related or not, and then go back and polish it later.

Organizing Your Ideas and Details: What organization strategies have you used and learned? How successful was have they been?

Revising: What one revision did you make that you are most satisfied with? What are the strongest and the weakest parts of the paper or other piece of writing you wrote for this chapter? Why? If you could go back and make an additional revision, what would it be?

Working with Peers: How did your instructor or peer readers help you by making comments and suggestions about your writing? List some examples of useful comments that you received. List some examples of how you revised your exploration based on those comments and suggestions. How could you have made better use of the comments and suggestions you received? How could your peer readers help you more on your next assignment? How might you help them more, in the future, with the comments and suggestions you make on their texts?

Graphic, Visual, & Digital Composing: If you used photographs or other visuals to help present your exploration to readers, what did you learn about incorporating these elements?

giving a visual is the best way to capture the readers attention

i love having related visuals so that people dont get bored by just looking at a bunch of words, my graphic representaion is a wooden star, its a prop i got from working at american eagle, i covered the star in thoughts that i had about life and economics and going green, all the thoughts came from this class

Becoming a Writer: What writerly habits have you developed, modified, or improved on as you constructed the assignments for this class? How will you change your future writing activities, based on what you have learned about yourself?

Conventions

Editing: What sentence-level problems did you find most frequently in your writing? How will you avoid that problem in future assignments?

Genre: What conventions of the genre, if any, gave you problems?

Documentation: If you used sources for your paper, what documentation style did you use? What problems, if any, did you have with it?

Writing Technologies

Think about the ways that you have used digital technologies over the course of the semester. What technologies are you using to facilitate the act of writing? How are you using them? What have been the benefits and drawbacks of the writing technologies you use specific to the rhetorical situation you have used them in?