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The E-Portfolio

https://davidjharte10.wixsite.com/theeportfolio

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Final Sunday Something

For my final Sunday something, I am going to reflect on Sunday somethings and how they helped me throughout the quarter.  

When I did my first Sunday something, I honestly didn’t like it at all.  I’m never very creative with stuff like this, and once I saw someone else’s post, that was the only idea I could think of, and these short connections took a lot longer than expected.  As I got better at them, I started to understand topics in the class in different ways than just academically by connecting them to things in my everyday life.  I was seeing examples of genre, audience, and discourse in my everyday life, and at the end of this quarter, Sunday somethings were my favorite posts to make.  So, I just want to thank this annoying little assignment for helping me learn in ways that I never would have thought of.

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Learning to Learn Video

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rB5azFjusMuplj3o1

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Letter to the Author (Extra Credit) Lucy, Peter, and David

Dear Dr. Elijah Davidoff,

We are so excited to have you as our newest author with The Rhetorical Publishing Company. We believe that your skills as a knowledgeable author will best be displayed through the promotion and advertisements of our company. Here at The Rhetorical Publishing Company we strive to display the deep innermost beliefs and thoughts through credible sources, like you a Doctor with a PhD. in psychology, writing, rhetorical situation, and especially transference. This book will display you theory in the transference of learning and knowledge to an audience that is very expansive. This audience can be anyone that is interested in being able to transfer knowledge universally. Through our publishing company we will be able to target everyone with interesting advertisements that differ from the typical boring, educational targeting other companies prefer to use. We hope that after your book hits the market you will be able to add another New York Time’s best seller award to your belt. We can’t wait for your book tour to begin in all 50 states, as many people have already reached out to us that they have bought tickets; we are projecting that the signings will sell out. Your commercial for the book drops soon as well! We firmly believe that with this company you will achieve that. We know it is a great risk for you to decide on our firm for you 68th book, but we swear on the history of writing that this is the right decision. Again, we couldn’t be happier you picked us!

Best Regards,

The Rhetorical Publishing Company

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This is our ad for the extra credit project.  

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The Unveiling of a Writer

Job Ad:

Calling for all writers with good mechanics and formal writing capabilities.  Job includes writing many 5 paragraph essays and formal essays.  The job will give you experience for you in the future and is a good entry-level position.  Leads to future promotions within the company.

I chose a Job ad to show my writing because writing has a felt like a job all of my life.  I would rarely write for fun, and did not like writing in grade school or high school.  I said that the position is entry level because I still feel like an entry-level writer when it comes to college-level writing.  I haven’t quite found my form yet which is not bad since I am in an entry level writing class.  I included that formal essays are included in the job since those were basically all I wrote in high school.  Also, I included that the job leads to promotions because it isn’t bad to have experience like this, but it is just all I knew.  One memorable college experience that impacted my writing identity, which I have talked about before, is when I finished my first full lab report.  I spent a lot of time on it and thought it was perfect.  When I got it back my TA didn’t think it was as great as I did, so it was an eye-opening experience that college writing takes more than what I am used to.  

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Let’s Have a Moment

My first “moment” in which I used what I have learned in this class to something outside is when we learned about the transfer of knowledge.  I have never actually thought about purposefully transferring knowledge from past classes, experiences, or lessons to things I am learning today.  I have begun to try this as the quarter has continued.  For example, now as I do my chemistry labs and reports, I have the book from my lecture open, along with my class.  While this would seem obvious to do, I hadn’t actually done it before.  And, while it is not necessary to understand the information, it helps out a lot and often helps answer the questions I have.  

2. Another moment in which I explained something in class is when I realized that I have been academically writing nearly all of my life, and that helped me understand genre in terms of writing.  I always remember my eighth-grade teacher would tell us to remember that we are writing for him, so we should write how he would like to see it.  While this probably didn’t help my writing in hindsight, it was me using genre before I even knew it.  Because I was thinking about genre at such an early age, I have a good grasp on it and was able to explain it to myself by using my past knowledge.

3. My final moment comes from when we read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.  This book has taught me many things, but most of all to simply not give a fuck.  It helps me relax and get rid of stress because I realize how much I do care about that is pointless and maybe even bad for me.  One thing outside of the class that reminds me of this is the song “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley.  He tells us to not worry about a thing because everything will be alright.  I get a similar message from Mark Manson because he says we all have to worry a lot less about everything.  

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Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)

Who: Mark Smith

What: Murdered

Where: Parking garage

When: June 6, 2010; 10:37 p.m.

How: Multiple stab wounds

Detective

On Sunday, June 6th, at 10:37 PM the Denver Police received an anonymous tip that there is a man lying face down in the parking garage at the corner of 8th and Randolph.  As my partner, Paul Malone and I arrived on the scene, we saw the man, later identified as Mark Smith, lying face down in a pool of blood.  He had several stab wounds in his torso area, and no murder weapon was found in the area. Being late on a Sunday night, no guard was on duty but there were some security cameras scattered throughout the garage that we are in the process of acquiring.  When the coroner arrived on the scene, they removed the body and cleaned the pool of blood.  There are no known suspects at the time, but I call for a full investigation to find Mark Smith’s murderer.  

Coroner

Mark Smith was admitted to my division on June 7th at 2:08 AM.  He is a middle-aged Caucasian man with several stab wounds.  When Smith’s body arrived, we removed his bloody clothes to find five stab wounds in his abdomen area.  Each of them ranges from 1-2 inches, with 2 fatal wounds in which his lung was punctured.  Cause of death was suffocation and blood loss.  Smith also had a large bruise and contusion on his head from hitting the concrete ground.  Smith has several defensive wounds on his forearms and hands, showing that he put up a fight against the assailant.  

Eulogy

We all here knew Mark.  As a father, husband, mentor, boss, coach, or in my case, a brother.  Mark was the best brother I could have asked for.  I remember when I was in fifth grade and he was in eight, some kids were bullying me on the bus.  After school Mark confronted all of them by himself and stood up for me. He honestly got pretty beat up by all of them, but that was the type of guy Mark was.  He would always put others in front of himself no matter the circumstance.  Mark will always remembered.  His impact on the world will long outlast his short life here.  I pray to God that we find the person who did this to him and bring him to justice.  

Lawyer

People of the jury, Mark Smith was a good man.  He was a devoted father to his two kids, and a wonderful husband.  This grave crime committed against him had no remorse or sorrow.  Mark fought back according to the coroner, and the assailant still was able to end his life.  The security cameras in the garage show Mark walking to his car when an unidentified black sedan, the same car that is registered to the suspect.  It then shows a man that is about the same height as our suspect exit the car, and run up to Mark and stabs him several times in the torso.  The suspect does not have an alibi for the crime and has physical, violent priors.  He also had a grudge against Mark since they worked in the same office and Mark had just received an award for his great work.  All of the evidence points to this man.  It would be a shame if Mark and his family never received the justice they deserve, so I ask you to please review the evidence, and bring this man to justice.

Discussion

1.) The easiest scenario to write for me was from the perspective of the Lawyer.  It was easy because I had already thought about the situation a lot, and it is easy to just lay out the facts.  I was able to include something from each prior perspective to prove to the jury that the suspect was guilty and that Mark and his family deserve the justice of putting someone behind bars for this.  

2.) The hardest exercise to write was the coroner.  I’m not very good at writing with that jargon, so it was hard for me to find the right words.  Another reason it was hard is because I don’t really watch shows like CSI or anything like that, so while I could guess how they talk, I wasn’t sure.  It was also hard because once I laid out Mark’s condition, I couldn’t think of anything else to add to the report from the coroner’s point of view.  

3.) The rhetorical situation in academic requires that we understand our topic, audience, and genre.  We must understand the topic because if we don’t know what we are writing about, how can we properly write.  Academic writing can be hard to do, and the more we understand the topic, the better we can write.  The audience is also a key thing to know when writing academically.  If we don’t understand the audience, we won’t be able to properly relate to them and help them understand it.  My eighth-grade teacher always would remind us that he is the audience for our essays, so we should write how he would like it.  The genre is the final thing that we must understand.  Genre determines the format and jargon of your writing, which are crucial elements to any type of writing.  For each of these, the tone had to be formal, and serious.  Since we were writing about a murder, we had to use formal language and the correct terms each profession would use.  

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Sunday Something

This week we debated how writing should, or shouldn’t be a required class for first-year students.  It was so funny to me that we were having this conversation while in a required first-year writing class.  This type of debate is interesting to me because there is already an answer, but we are talking about how we can change the current rules.  This type of debate came to mind as I keep hearing and seeing all of the news about the recent school shooting in Florida.  All of these people are coming out and saying that we should have stricter gun policies, but there is already an answer to that.  So while this debate seemed interesting and almost odd in class, I realized that nearly every debate or argument that we have is just like this.  So while there already may be an answer to a problem, it can always be changed with a little bit of rhetoric.

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Peer Review

Lauren:

What is the writer's argument? How do you know?  Security cameras are a safe part of the community.  You use a very detailed story and show how security cameras kept the community safe from a criminal.  

She establishes ethos by sharing a very sad story of a man abusing a woman.  This is ultimately wrong and not something that is accepted by the community.  She establishes pathos because she tells a very sad story and I was actually getting sad as she read the column.  It is a very interesting story and it is a great column.  Logos is established because it logically makes sense that the security cameras helped catch the bad guy.

She shows audience awareness because she includes important details, but does not get too caught up in the detail.  She also adds pretty gory and sick details to get the point across to a more mature audience.  

She fulfills genre convention by telling a story in the voice that she would tell it.  It does not sound very academic, but instead just like she is telling a story as it should be.  

You could maybe emphasize the security cameras more to get your argument across.  Also, you could add more ethos involving the security cameras saying how they are widespread and maybe that multiple cameras were used to catch him.

I really like how you made yours a story because it is interesting and a good story.  I also like how you establish how the security cameras were the main piece in catching the criminal.

Her argument is that security cameras are a good part of society and help out a lot.  She tells a specific story in which security cameras catch the criminal.  

She establishes ethos because the story involves stealing which is against the law and not good in society.  She established pathos by telling a story in which a thief gets caught.  This is morally wrong and makes the reader agree with her.  She establishes logos because security cameras were the only thing that solved this case, so how could they be bad for society.

She shows audience awareness because she tells a real-life story that will catch the interest of an audience.  She keeps in details that make the story and follows the story from start to end.

She fulfills genre convention by telling a story which is a popular way to write a column.  She has an interesting story that will catch the attention of the audience.

Again you could work on better forming the argument and making it well known.  You could also add to the story how important the security cameras were in catching the thief.

One thing you did well was establishing logos since the security cameras were the main reason they caught him.  I also liked how you made it a story about something that doesn’t seem that big but is actually very important.  Most people think cattle aren’t important but it is a very important industry.

That security cameras are bad because it is an invasion of privacy and they can be misused or even hacked.  I know because she says that security cameras are over placed and not properly used and can be used against us.

She establishes ethos by showing that security cameras are all over and she is giving specific locations.  She establishes pathos by saying it is an invasion of privacy which makes people feel unsafe and on edge.  She establishes logos by logically explaining all of the different ways that security cameras can be used against the general public.  People obviously don’t like to be watched 24/7, which makes them logically side with you.

She understands audience awareness because she is making a movie which will keep the young people engaged and attentive.  She also gives specific details and facts which I think the children will like.

She fulfills genre convention by using a movie, and having a script for what she will say in it.

One thing you could work on is adding a specific story to show that cameras get hacked often.  Also, you could further develop your ethos by adding more facts or stats.

One thing you are doing well is the genre.  The movie is a great idea especially for your topic and argument.  Another thing I like in it was the opening how you will show all of the places where security cameras are.

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First Year Writing and Learning

Throughout our lives, we are always transferring knowledge from one time in our lives to now to better understand the situation.   This transfer of knowledge can be very easy to complete, or quite complex.  For example, if trying to add 2+2, your previous knowledge that 2 comes after 1, and what addition is, should easily transfer to the problem and know that the answer is 4.  This transfer can also be very complex and not go smoothly.  One main factor in how effective this transfer is is how well you understand the previous knowledge.  If you barely understand functions in math, to begin with, you will have a very difficult time learning derivatives since you need to fully know what a function is to find its derivative.  Another main factor as to how effective your transfer of knowledge is if you are properly using the correct previous knowledge to connect to the new topic. For these reasons, transferring knowledge is a crucial element to education because nearly all learning is subsequential and the previous topic is necessary to understand the next topic.  

As I said before, we are always transferring knowledge throughout our lives, and I believe that this process is automatic and we rarely need to think about it.  I think this because if you are properly transferring knowledge, you are transferring something that you already understand to something you do not understand, and if you truly understand the previous knowledge, you shouldn’t have to think about it.  It should already be common knowledge in your own head.  For example, when we began to learn in this class, we did not re-learn how to write a sentence because this is knowledge that we already have and understand, so it doesn’t need to even be thought about.  Nearly everything we learn or do in life relies on previous knowledge from us to complete, so we are always transferring this knowledge to our daily lives.  

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Sunday Something

"I have rewritten—often several times—every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers." —Vladimir Nabokov

This week, we learned a lot about revision in the writing process and how important it is.  One group of people that know this fact better than anyone are good writers, so I looked up this quote from Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian-American writer.  He wrote everything from poems to short stories, to translations.  His idea of revision is not to completely erase and change the writing, but rewrite it entirely.  This process of revision is good because you are able to have choices between different ways of saying the same thing and pick the best one.  Also, a great way to brainstorm is to just write, and by rewriting the entire thing, you are able to come up with new ideas to strengthen your writing as a whole.

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Revision Strategies

Revision is one part of the writing process that myself, and many other people according to the reading have neglected recently.  Revision is a part of the writing process that is often skipped, or lightly brushed over.  While they may often coincide with one another, revision and editing are two separate phases of the writing process.  Revisions are changes that you make to the writing to change it in a way that affects the piece in a whole.  While editing is changing your writing grammatically and will not have a major effect on the writing as a whole.  Revision is also not only one step, but something that should always be looped around to to connect the writing from start to end.  

As writers, we are often more prone to edit our work, rather than revise it.  Editing is pretty easy since it usually will make your writing better, guaranteed, while revising is often opinion base, and not necessary to be correct.  This is why the best writers revise their work, and not just edit it.  Another factor that could affect why we don't revise as often as we should is because in high school, editing is the only factor that comes into getting a better grade, where revising won’t necessarily boost your grade.  That is why it is so important for people to write with the goal of good writing rather than a good grade.

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Theory of Writing

My theory of writing right now is much different than it was at the beginning of the quarter, and drastically different than at the end of my senior year.  It is so drastic, because my senior year writing teacher was a very old fashioned man who had us handwrite at least an essay a day, but he actually did teach us how to write better.  The only problem with that class that I’ve now noticed after learning so much this quarter is that we only learned how to write in a formal essay genre.  He would never write in anything other than the third person, did not allow us to use contractions, etc.  He even would not let us write in pencil since professionals write in pen.  To say the least, I was a very good professional writer by the end of the year.  This very formal version of writing has now melded together with everything I have learned in this class.  The way I see it, nearly everything I learned last year will help me with mechanics and grammar, while what I have been learning this year will help my writing process and actually formulating my writing.  Some tools I have learned to use to achieve this goal are properly choosing, and writing in, a genre, understanding the context of the situation, and understanding my audience to name a few.  I also realized how important planning and brainstorming while reading and watching Johnson’s video on where good ideas come from.  I have also learned how to properly adress a rhetorical situation as MLK did in the letters to Birmingham Jail.  These tools are crucial elements of good writing, and now that I am learning it, my writing will be better.  

--

This year and last are working together

All to make my writing better.

I follow the rules to stay in line,

And make sure my rhetoric, that it is fine.

Now when I write I use these tools,

These tools that I have learned in schools.

One major part of my writing theory is planning what you are going to write, and I think that Michael Gary Scott puts it best in this meme.

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Entrenchment

Good writing cannot exist without brainstorming and forming a plan.  

Writing is an intricate art form that must be properly approached and planned to be good.  While it may be a step that is taken for granted or often overlooked, brainstorming and preparing is a crucial step in the writing process.  These beginning steps are where you find your genre, topic, argument, and so much more depending on the writing you are composing.  For example, we have been working on our projects for over a week now, and we are still forming our ideas and arguments.  

Almost all good writing in history comes from an extensive planning process in which the author lays out their ideas before actually writing something.   This just shows that we should also do the same if we want to write well.  I am very glad that this class has been able to teach me so many different parts of the writing process, and I am happy that there has been such a long brainstorming process for our projects so that they can be the best they can be.  

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Sunday Something: Week 5

Fly Eagles Fly!  The Superbowl was today and the Philidelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots in a nail-biter.  And, we all know that with the Superbowl come some great commercials.  While watching all of these, I kept thinking where they come up with these funny ideas, which relates closely to our reading for this week.  What I kept thinking was how much time, energy and money are put in just to make commercials for us.  It was just cool to see a collection of good ideas that were individually brainstormed and fomed.  

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Reflecting on Reflection

Ever since I was a kid, reflection has always been a part of my reading/writing/language arts class, so I have never actually thought about why I do it.  Reflection, in itself, deeply thinking about a topic.  This usually is thinking about the past, and about yourself and your actions. The goal of a reflection is to come out overall a better person, or have a better grasp on something than before.  When connected to writing, reflection is a useful tool to collect your thoughts, and be sure about what you are writing.  Authors can never properly write their thoughts in one sitting, so why should write without properly reflecting on our thoughts.  

When I write, reflection often is present both at the beginning and end of the writing process.  When I first develop my ideas, I will reflect on them so that I am sure that that is what I think, and that it is a fully thought out idea.  I also will reflect on my writing near the end of the process as I make the final touches.  I will make sure that my ideas were properly, efficiently and clearly conveyed to the audience.  One way to more frequently reflect on my writing could be to stop after each paragraph and re-read my work and think if that is how I want it.  This way, my work is more reflective of my own thoughts and ideas since I will deeply think about it more often.

One major way that we reflect in this course in our Sunday Somethings.  We have to sit down and deeply think about what we did in class that week, and how that lesson can properly relate to the outside world.  This is a great way to reflect, because we not only think about the class lessons, but also how they connect to the world outside us and how we can use what we learn in our everyday lives.  This specific example of reflection forms me as a writer and thinker because it is literally exercise my brain.  I am actively thinking which will build my overall knowledge and thoughts.  

Reflection is rhetorical, because while it is usually only between you and yourself, it causes discourse between your thoughts.  Just as rhetoric as we know in other ways forms the  best solution, reflection creates the best thought for you.  As you reflect on your ideas, the best,  most logical thought will emerge and be the solution for your reflection.

Writing is a form of communication that we use to relay thoughts and ideas to one another.  It is an art form that I don’t think can ever truly be mastered by one person.  It is a very complex form of communication, since the text can be interpreted in many different ways.