Response to “College Admissions Essays: A Genre of Masculinity” by Sarah-Kate Magee

Response to “College Admissions Essays: A Genre of Masculinity” by Sarah-Kate Magee

Choose 2 out of the 3 questions

Question 1.

How closely do your own experiences with writing and language fit broadly held gender stereotypes? In which aspects do your experiences break the stereotypes?

Response 1.

I would consider my writing history to be very masculine. This is because of the to the point, leave out the fluff and emotions way in which I commonly choose to write. That way of writing is characterized as masculine. As I have grown older I have wrote more feminine more often. This is largely because of the influence of teachers, who happen to be female, pressuring me to make my language more complex (which I do not agree with), and emotionally fueled. I believe writing should be stating facts and opinions to get the point across. Since I began to write more feminine I sometimes catch myself writing that way and become aggravated by it. I break the gender stereotype more often in papers about myself because it becomes much easier to. I like to express my emotions at times. I have had some very inspiring life events that involve others and myself. When I write about these topics I tend to write more feminine.

Question 2.

How long does it take to set up, or explain the origins of, her specific research questions and methods of addressing it? What major “moves” does her essay make in order to get there (what different lines of thought does she pursue one after the next)?

Response 2.

I felt that it took Magee until the 14^th paragraph to set up the origins of her question and how she aimed to explain it. The questions she was facing were very complex and undefined. To get to that point she had to write virtually her entire piece. The possibilities and perspectives continued to change, not only of Magee’s but also of other outside sources. Magee addresses how masculine writing has a more powerful impact in many places. She then went on top point out that many females write in a very masculine way and it does not seem to matter what sex you are, you are still capable of writing in whichever gender stereotype you choose. I was shocked that she did not refute the fact that masculine writing was better at any point. There surely must be a time and a place where feminine writing has an advantage.

Response to “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively” by Margaret Kantz

Question 1.

What does Kantz contend that facts, opinions, and arguments actually are?

Response 1.

Facts, opinions and arguments are often not what they say they are. They are very commonly just a large agreement of opinion.

Meta Moment

How would you name the constructs that Kantz is calling in to question? Why would it be useful for you as a writer in college or in professional settings to understand her finding and claims?

Meta Moment Response

What Kantz says is very important for understanding any source of information. It makes me really reflect on the saying, “history is written by the victor”. The agreement of opinion becoming fact is all too common and must be considered before taking anything for fact. By considering if ‘facts’ are actually facts you will ensure that you do not make silly mistakes or believe the wrong thing.

Response to “Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People” by Charles Bazerman

Question 6.

Bazerman defines genres as “recognizable, self-reinforcing forms of communication” (para. 21), as “patterned, typical, and therefore intelligible textual forms” (para. 5), and as “standardized forms of utterances that are recognized as carrying out certain actions in certain circumstances” (para. 23). Pick a genre that is familiar to you (for example, a course syllabus) and explain how it fits these defining characteristics. For example, what actions does it carry out? What makes it recognizable? What are its recognizable patterns? What about a syllabus is typical across situations? How do you know a syllabus when you see one? Why is this form used repeatedly? Why is it helpful that people (in the syllabus example, teachers) have a common way of communicating in a particular recurring situation (in the syllabus example, of conveying expectations every time they teach a new group of students)?

Response 6.

Before I answer this question I would like to state that I believe this question is far too long and complex to be effectively answered. A course syllabus is a very common genre that we all come across and understand. It always contains agreements between the students and teachers, course expectations, and generally a list of assignments. A syllabus is very obvious because it will always state that it is a syllabus. It is very helpful to have this consistency across all courses.

Rhetoric Notes to Myself

This post is not anything that has been assigned but a reference for myself that embodies key point of rhetoric that I would like to remember and be able to reference at any time. They may or may not be helpful to other students as they are not refined but written in a way that makes the most sense to me in a quick referenceable fashion.

This first part is just definitions of key words I wanted to greater explore and understand

·      Exigence- reason for communication, an obstacle to overcome or defect to fix, could come from a past event or to better the future

·      Discourse- language being used to accomplish something

o   Instance of language

o   The writing itself

·      Constraints- factors that limit or otherwise influence the persuasive strategies available to the rhetor

o   May make rhetor more or less sympathetic to the discourse

·      Interlocutor- reader or recipient of any form of rhetoric

·      Epistemic- activities that create new knowledge

·      Stases- pattern or questions that helps explain what issue is being addressed in a rhetorical situation

o   Commonly can be the five W’s and How?

·      Receptivity- the ability to be dynamic and change situationally

This next part is random notes I felt were crucial to rhetoric

·      Writing does not contain meaning until rhetors and interlocutors interact to create meaning and knowledge

·      Rhetorical activities create new knowledge

o   When you write you create new knowledge that did not exist when you began

o   Writing is epistemic

·      “Good” writing is situation and contingent to what you want to convey or achieve

·      All communication (i.e. writing or speech) has a motive whether it is obvious or not

o   Always has exigence

o   May be predetermined or spur of the moment

·      To understand any piece of writing you must see the motivation of it (i.e. purposes, needs, values, and expectations of the rhetor)

o   This parallels the rhetors discourse

·      A piece may have multiple exigencies, constraints, rhetors, or interlocutors

o   Opens possibility of multiple forms of discourse

o   A single rhetor can play multiple roles with different exigences

Response to Keith Grant-Davie’s “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents”

Response to Keith Grant-Davie’s “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents”

Question 1.

Have you ever thought of writers as negotiating with their audiences? As a writer, what is the difference between imagining yourself talking to and negotiating with your audience? What would you do differently if you were doing the latter?

Response 1.

I have never before thought of writers as negotiating with their audiences but I do believe that it is a good idea that should always be considered. Simply talking to an audience can be boring and not as engaging as you may wish. If you think of your rhetoric as a conversation it will be much more interesting and you can compound your ideas to create a much more in depth discourse that may be much more epistemic. This can happen because the interlocutor will be constantly reconsidering their thoughts as this “conversation goes on.

Question 4.

What are constraints? To help you work this out, consider what Grant-Davie’s constraints might have been in drafting this piece. Bitzer, you learned in this piece, argues that we should think of constraints as aids rather than restrictions. How can that be?

Response 4.

Grant-Davies had the constraints that he needed to accomplish as much as possible while still being able to communicate with his interlocutors in an effective manner they could comprehend. This can be spun to be positive in the fact that he could take the confusion and apply it to become teachings.

Question 7.

Grant-Davie suggests that we have to ask three questions to understand the exigence of a rhetorical situation: what a discourse is about, why it’s needed, and what it’s trying to accomplish. What’s the difference between the second question and the third question?

Response 7.

Why rhetoric is needed and what it tries to accomplish is very different. But also the same… Why a specific piece is needed versus what it is trying to accomplish can be redefined as cause vs. effect. The cause of a piece drives a rhetor to examine why they need to do anything at all and the driving forces behind it. On the contrary, the effect of a piece is what has been achieved or accomplished. So how are they the same? They parallel each other with thoughts and both contribute to the greater goal to create a piece that solves both the exigence and stases of the piece to help the interlocutor  absorb an epistemic piece.