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ePortfolio

I used Weebly for my ePortfolio. Click the link below to be redirected to my homepage. 

brodygardn.weebly.com

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Final Sunday Something

Throughout this quarter I feel that I have learned in a way that is unlike most courses in college. Specifically, reflecting is a process that I have developed and transferred into other parts of my educational career. Being more willing to take a step back and not only look at the work I’ve done, but the way I did it has helped me to evolve the way I work. In addition to improving my writing skills, I believe that this class and the self-reflective processes we go through daily has also helped me grow out of old habits in both school and my personal life. 

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EXTRA CREDIT ADVERTISEMENT 

Group: Lauren Blais, Brody Gardner, & Luke Butler

____________________________________________________________________

EXTRA CREDIT BUSINESS LETTER

February 27, 2018

Lauren Blais, Brody Gardner Luke Butler

Anderson Publishing Firm

4321 First Street

New York, New York 1001

Dear Zariah Zaka

We are so thankful that you choose our publishing firm to promote your new book, “The Ten Ways to Succeed.” Everyone in the firm has said nothing but good things about the book itself and how impacting this reading could be. I, along with Brody and Luke are very ecstatic to publish and promote your book.

To promote “The Ten Ways to Succeed,” we plan to release copies to stores of all sizes, from department stores to small business. We feel this book can help anyone of any age, therefore, we want this book to be easily accessible.  The next step to promote this book is to hold book signings and chapter readings. We feel this will be a rewarding experience for you because it gives the consumers/ readers the opportunity to tell you how your book has positively impacted their own lives. Interaction in person from the author also benefits the sales of the book because they get to know you on a personal level. Consumers on average, tend to buy products after they have met the producer. The last step we will take to promoting your book is creating advertisements to be posted upon social medias such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Tumblr. By doing this, we present the book to people across the world. This will give you publicity in the North America, along with other continents.

On behalf of Anderson Publishing Firm, we are very thankful that you choose us to promote you. We are very excited for the release of this book, along with the promoting process. If you have any comments, questions or requests, please contact us, and we are happy to work something out.

Sincerely yours,

Lauren Blais, Brody Gardner and Luke Butler

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The Unveiling of a Writer

Jay Kelly was a painter. On most days he sat in his studio and would create art for his work. He worked at a company with many painters however and as a result, he would have to compete to get raises and promotions. Jay loved to do art, but he never liked the competition, because he was never naturally a good artist. His skill came from years of practice and tedious work. Once in a while, he would get a raise or a promotion at his job, but for the most part, nothing. This didn't bother him much though since at the end of the day he still got paid. One day though after working at the company for 2 years he became dissatisfied with just a paycheck and strived for greater achievement. So, he started to develop a perfectionist complex. His art had to be perfect in order to get ahead of the competition. However, no matter how many minutes, hours, or days he spent making his work, it often was never “perfect”. As time went on he started summiting his art late or maybe even not at all, because it wasn't good enough. This lead Jay to not only be demoted in his career but lose a portion of his pay as well. Jay was upset, but this realization helped him to understand that trying to make something perfect can sometimes make things worst.

I picked Jay the painter because I view writing similar to creating artwork, such as paintings and his job is a representation of how I view school. The competition for grades and college essays in high school was intense and often used as the primary indicator of a student's academic potential. This competition is the main force that lead me to a perfectionist writing mentality I have had in the past. One experience, in particular, came from my junior year English class when we had to write an 8-page short story. I spent the entire night before the paper was due, rewriting the story because I was never fully satisfied with it. In the end, I had near 8 complete drafts, but as a result, I turned it in late and my grade was deducted. My experiences that I have had with college writing so far have taught me to finish first and reflect later, rather than this “reflect-change, reflect-change” cycle I can get caught in. Specifically, my experiences writing about myself in class has helped me, since I'm not writing it for a grade, but rather for myself. My identity as a writer has been one of “tedious perfectionistic nature”, but over these two quarters has evolved into a more “comfortably efficient” writer and that has made me better at getting things done on time.

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Maps : Take 2

1. 

a. All writing starts with the development of ideas. Creative and unique are some of the key characteristics of good ideas. However, ideas must be recognizable to the audience. Keeping my ideas creative without added too much, destroying my main points, is the goal of starting my writing process. The graffiti in (location #1) represents this necessary balance of creativeness and clarity that goes into illustrating ideas.

b. Flow is the second factor essential for good writing. Flow is like the glue that holds my ideas together. It is the tool that allows me to, at least in part, control the rhythm and tone of which the work is read. The sculpture in (location #2) represents this connectivity that flow allows. The structures balance and sturdiness embodies the essential role that good flow takes on in my written work; without it, my ideas wouldn't bind together and the work would become unorganized and frequently incoherent.

c. Passion is the third factor when it comes to developing my written work. Oftentimes, the greater the passion, the greater the rhetoric. MLK’s letter from Birmingham Jail is a great example of using passion to persuade. At one point in the letter, he writes, “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights” (King 3). King’s use of pathos and straightforwardness in his writing brings a certain intensity to his writing that makes it more of a lively read. Also, the fact that he wrote it in jail is pretty extraordinary. The “Lips” in (location #3) represents passion in that they are a large symbol of romance, being a well-known catalyst for passion. Lips are also symbolic of our speech and tone we use to create discourse in everyday life.

d. Finally, revision is the last and arguably the most important factor when it comes to improving my work. Conceptual reflection is the process of reviewing the collection of all your ideas / analyze, looking for reproduction and determining whether your rhetorical situation and tone fit the intended audience. In one of our readings called “Revision Strategies”, the author Sommers wrote, “… students are aware of lexical repetition, but not conceptual repetition” (Sommers 382). This is important to understand that review/editing should not just be a process of correcting linguistic and grammatical errors, but a census of the entire work. This picture was taken off the road (and my reflection) below the Driscoll bridge (location #4) is symbolic of reflection mostly in the literal sense, but also an analogy for “looking backward” in order to “go forwards”.

2. Visually there are very few similarities between my two maps. However, conceptually they are very similar in the path I try to follow to produce my best writing. In both of maps, flow is considered the “glue” that holds together the passion and ideas I use to create influential rhetoric. Also in both maps, good ideas are the start of the journey and without them, my writing holds no real value. In contrast to my first map, where I represented revision/reflection as more of an outside force making it easier to reach the top, I have discovered that this process is actually an essential component to finishing the journey, thus why I have it placed as the final location in my second map. These maps show my writing process in how they are both expeditions that use different elements of writing throughout the process in order to create my best work.

3. In conclusion, the design of creative, but coherent ideas is the starting point for any work. These ideas are cradled and carried through this rhetoric-developing process with the use of support provided by fundamental writing factors, such as flow and passion. However, if I have learned anything new from this second map it is that all of these factors are mostly frivolous when I do not conceptually reflect on my work overall.

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My Theory of Writing : Take 2

My original theory of writing revolved around the idea that rhetoric can be endlessly persuasive, which I still believe holds value. However, after reflecting on my writing on this theory I have come to understand two things about my writing and one alternative theory. I’ll start with the theory though. My new theory is that writing is an endlessly imperfect. What I mean is that the process that goes into writing something has no true ending. In a sense, you are never truly “done” with something you have written. This theory ties into the two things that I have learned about my writing and the process of making my work “good” and or “influential”. My idea of perfect writing is impossible. Something that I have started to understand is that it is basically pointless to try and perfectly please both myself and the audience with each sentence. In order to create good rhetoric there must be good discourse, thus the conflict used should at least be displeasing or even hated by some portion of the audience so that they can truly reflect. In my first theory of writing, I used MLK’s letter from Birmingham Jail as evidence of his rhetoric creating a lasting response years after his assassination. But, what I see now is that one of the main reasons his work was so influential was because the discourse he highlighted was very unpleasing to a lot of his audience or in other words “imperfect”. The second thing I have learned is that reflecting on your work is a great way to help create these sought out “perfect imperfections”. Meaning to write in such a way that is not so displeasing to the audience that they simply tone the meaning out, but just enough to get at least some of the audience to think/reflect on the topic and how it relates to them. I believe that the impact/persuasiveness of my writing is in a large part determined by how much I am able to make the audience reflect on something that may be very displeasing to them. Overall, there is no way to make my writing perfect, at least under my beliefs of what “perfect” means, but using reflective processes may allow me to find the right balance of perfect-imperfect rhetoric that will, in the end, make my writing more influential.

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Sunday Something : Week 8

Reflection is an important part of our lives inside and outside of the classroom. Taking the time to reflect on the things we’ve learned and skills we’ve developed throughout this quarter will help us to carry and in the end, transfer that knowledge into helping us solve problems later on in our lives. I just thought this picture was a cool way to show reflection in a literal sense. 

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Let’s Have a Moment

My first moment would have to had come after we read Yancey’s work. In the text, he states, “Procedurally, reflection entails a looking forward to goals we might attain, as well as casting backward to see where we have been” (Yancey 6). This quote meant a lot to me in how it applied to my educational life, especially pertaining to my biology lab. Before I started my lab that very next day, I took a look back at my previous labs and didn't just look at the grades and or what I got wrong. Instead, I began to look at the mental processes I must have gone through to arrive at those answers and reflect on how I could change the way I thought about the labs in an effort to improve my work. I ended up getting a better grade on that lab and thus it really helped me to understand the importance of the reflecting process not just after writing, but in how it applies to the rest of my academic career. I believe that developing this ability to go back in time in terms of my thought process has allowed me to become a better student and overall learner. 

My second moment would have come from the “Murder! (Rhetorically speaking)” work we read on Tuesday. Before this work, I still had a hard time simplifying what rhetoric meant in my head, even after all the discussions we had in class about it. However, everything became much clearer to me after Boyd wrote this, in efforts to describe the concept to his students, “...making decisions about which words to use and what tone to establish as you order your thoughts based upon what is appropriate for your intended audience in that context” (Boyd 2). The full quote also contained all the words we had used to describe rhetoric, all in one sentence. Just about as clear as you can get. Later during that same writing portion of the assignment, I was able to clearly understand what rhetoric I was creating and how it applied to my audience, which before was very difficult for me to do, often becoming very confused by my own writing. I believe that now I have a clear understanding of what rhetoric is and this will help me to reflect on my use of it in my writing and even notice it in the world around me.

Finally, my third moment would have come from the discussion we had in class about the purpose of liberal arts education and how it differed from high school. Talking about this and hearing everyone's thoughts, including an actual teacher part of the liberal arts program, helped me develop deeper thoughts about my education and what I want to do later on in my academic career. Also, it was interesting to hear people having the same thoughts I had about the reality of ‘taking your time to pick your major’ line that everyone feeds you in high school. It helped me to understand the importance of developing my core understanding of writing class and that there isn't just one type of writing being, of course, academic writing. Additionally, that this kind of educational skill is used everywhere and in almost every job we might pursue. Overall, getting to hear the different opinions that people had on this topic helped me formulate what my liberal arts education meant to me and how these ideas might later influence my path to picking a major/career. 

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Murder! Rhetorically Speaking

Detective report:

On June 6th, 2010 at 10:37pm Mark Smith was murdered in a parking garage. White, 5’11, 165 lbs with blue eyes and brown hair. It was difficult for me to tell the color of his hair for what little he had was covered in blood stemming from stab wounds in his chest. A call was made to the police department at around noon when a couple parking their car had come across the man. They stated that no one else was in the garage but it looked like he had just been murdered minutes before. Upon further inspection, it appeared that was they had thought was true and that the killer couldn't have gotten far.

Coroner Report:

Date, June 6th, 2010, 11pm. Time of death, 10:20 pm. The victim appears to have 5 non-fatal defense wounds lacerations, 2 and 3 on his left arm and right arm respectively. The cause of death came from the final stab wound entering from the posterior and penetrating the left ventricle of the heart and finally exiting through the pectoral region. Through further analyze it appears that the death occurred 3 min after the heart was punctured. Due to the depth and motion of the laceration on the arms, it appears that this was not a random killer but rather executed with intent. Observing the curvature of the wounds on both arms it appears the murder weapon was a 6-inch stainless steel kitchen knife.

Eulogy:

Mark Smith, a great friend, father, lawyer, and husband among other things has had a deep impact on many lives within the community. Whether it was donating to the local school, volunteering at the homeless shelter or hosting the everyday community barbecue, he was always a selfless man, whom always put others before himself. Making sure that everyone was having a good time was part of his quota and it is a shame he won't be here anymore to make that magic come to life. I think it is clear that he will be deeply missed by the members of this town.

Lawyer Statement :

Mark Smith a father, a fellow lawyer and husband among other things was found slashed to death on the cold cement of the Saint Mary's parking garage. Evidence from the corners reports shows intent as the lacerations were vicious and deep. Also included in the report, the murder weapon, a 6-inch stainless steel kitchen knife. Which just so happens to be the same precise cutlery found in Jason McCormick's car on June 7th, 2010 by an on-duty officer after being stopped for running a red light. In the car, a bronze 1996 Lincoln town, which was reported by multiple eyewitnesses outside the parking garage 10 minutes after Mark Smith's was found dead. Further inspection of our culprit's car shows multiple faded blood stains on the front seat and steering wheel, giving the appearance that happens after someone tries to wash leather with bleach. Finally, I have documents here that prove the DNA found in the car is none other than Mark Smiths. In light of these facts, I ask you to sentence this man to the punishment he deserves and in turn bring justice to the loved ones of Mark Smith.

 Discussion Questions:

1. I found that the easiest to write, by far, was the detective report. It required few details and it didn't need to be persuasive, so it needed no flowery language or tone of voice. Simply, just the facts.

2. I found the coroner's report hardest to write because it requires the use of medical linguistics and deeper analysis of the details reported in the detective's report.

3. Rhetoric in academic writing is determined by our understanding of what we are writing about and what kind of audience we would like to inform or persuade. The audience is often those who desire information or analysis on the topic presented in the work. For the most part, the tone in academic writing should be confined primarily to being direct and persuasive. Technical terms related to the topic should be included as well as language that can be understood by the audience. Information that is not important or relevant to the topic should be discarded. In addition, your feelings or emotions about the topic should not be included if not necessary for persuasive purposes.

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Sunday Something : Week 7

“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.” -  Steve Maraboli

After what we talked about in class, I feel that this quote encompasses the truth that our book highlights in terms of the reality of happiness. Along with that, I think that as we grow older, we become better at dealing with our problems using the transfer of knowledge from our past problems/experiences to our new ones. The longer we live, the more we will learn from solving our problems. 

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Pete

Peer Review for Pete 

Argument 1 draft 2 :

1. Yes, technology is making adolescent kids depressed because we compare our reality to our peers “fake realities”. I can tell because he continuously illustrates the reality behind social media post and follows them up with statistics on young adult depression.

2. He establishes pathos by using himself as a character in the video relating to a situation he has personally been in. He establishes logos in the organization of the scenes throughout the video. Lastly, he establishes ethos by using statistics about teenage depression later in his analysis.

3. He shows awareness to the audience by utilizing slang, common amongst the demographic and relatable scenarios that most young adults have encountered in our social media-driven society.

4. It follows the visual genre by providing all the elements found in video formats, such as scenes, a dialogue between the third person and distinguishes between characters in the plot.

5. Revision Wise, the writer could look into how he is going to smoothly transition from a video format to illustrating statics on depression. Also, the writer could look into filming the “post social media post-reality” from a third person perspective in order to better demonstrate the reality behind the screen. He establishes great pathos in how he relates to generation slang and relatable social scenarios. In addition, the writer utilization of a visual format, similar to that of a youtube video, will likely keep this specific audience interested in his argument.

_______________________________________________________________________

Argument 2 draft 1 :

1. Yes, technology is important to efficiency in the business world when it comes to making connections and getting notoriety. It is a pro argument for the usefulness of technology in the new age but does not touch on the negative side effects among teens alike the first argument. He has topic sentences in his columns that define his main points in proving the usefulness of technology in future careers.

2. He establishes pathos by relating the common reality that most people desire to be successful in their careers and illustrates how technology can and is already helping most people. He lacks ethos for this argument, however, it would not be difficult to uncover studies that help prove the usefulness of technology in today's economy since it is mostly common sense. He establishes logos in separate the different careers that can be influenced by technology and then elaborates on how they do specifically.

3. He demonstrates audience awareness in that he uses broad business scenarios that can relate to working class people. He could provide more awareness if he again put embedded more of his own personal voice into the column.

4. He loosely follows the genre type in that fact that his writing isn't particularly academic and tries to relate to the common public. However, this could be improved by adding more of a personal voice to the writing.

5. In revision, he could work on the logos in his work, by following the format of a “series” when it comes to the column. In addition, he could apply more personality to the things he is asserting which would help him with his pathos to the general public. On the other hand, his arguments are very clear and straight to the point which is also good for his logos. And lastly, he does a good job of providing various examples of technologies effects in the modern business world, proving that there are a lot of ways that technology is used in today's workforce.

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First Year Writing and Learning

Knowledge transfer is the process of utilizing knowledge between various past subjects and experiences to influence future learning. In this case, the transference of writing knowledge and beliefs through different educational courses. This process of transference is catalyzed by one's past experiences and beliefs. It is important to understand that transference happens almost everywhere in our daily lives. Per example, running a 100 meter may allow you to pick up on information that you use when jumping hurdles. This transferring process is important because it allows us to make connections between our learning, which in turn allows us to be more creative and innovative since most problems in life contain multiple variables interacting with each other. It is a process that is mostly demonstrated in everyday life as something of second nature or unconsciousness, though it can be used consciously with focus.

In the summary of responses from the study, Zepernick writes, “Students think of this personal writing (that is, the writing they do in English classes) as a “natural” act--like engaging in conversation” (Zepernick 129). I believe this illustrates the idea that learning specifically in English courses is involuntary and primarily happens without being noticed. Though working on being aware of where your knowledge is coming from is a good start to understanding transference. A reflection on your past experiences and educational instituted knowledge in a sense. The more we continue to practice our writing as first-year college students, the more we will learn and in addition, the more we will be able to transfer said writing knowledge into our majors later on.

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Sunday Something : Week 6

The theme for our last class was centered around the fact that life is hard and you will always have problems. The goal as per the book we were reading out of was to make those problems good problems to have. I think though the goal was to understand that even in our social media “everything is good” model world, that the truth is everyone and everything is not as good as it might appear to be. 

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Revision Strategies

After you finish a whole paper or even a paragraph, why would you even consider rewriting it? The idea of revision here is that its the process of reflecting and analyzing your work as a whole and not just looking for grammatical errors or rewording opportunities, like in editing. In the Sommers work, she states, “... students are aware of lexical repetition, but not conceptual repetition” (Sommers 382). When revising in writing we often just look for the words we repeat that make our work sound redundant when spoken but don't take into account the repetition found in the ideas and arguments we use in our writing. This is primarily due to the fact that it is just a lot of work and in school, we often view a paper in the same genre of other homework in the sense that once it is finished, it is finished. However, one of the biggest parts of writing that I have learned throughout this course is that it is a continuous process and is never truly complete.

For me, as a writer, i believe that revising is a process that takes a lot of discipline, while editing is more fulfilling and easy. For me, editing is more of a tedious process of looking for replacement words in a thesaurus and revising requires more brain power, which by the end of the paper I often lack. However, here lies the key to improving my writing, the importance of starting earlier so that I can allow myself the time to recover and then revise. Revised writing usually leading better-written work.

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My Theory of Writing

My theory of writing is that it is endlessly persuasive.

Rhetoric is persuasive, which is created by a situation in a given context that affects an audience and may change their perspectives differently. Since writing can last forever there are an infinite number of contexts it can be put into and an infinitely expanding audience it can affect differently. An example of what I mean is in MLK’s letter from Birmingham jail. In the writing, he states, “We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied” (King 3). While this rhetoric applies to his situation in the 1960’s and was able to create discourse there, it also is able to create rhetoric in today's society in the context of movements like black lives matter. The writing can continue to persuade an audience when you change the context and/or situation. To further elaborate, Crowley and Hawhee work states, “..because opinions are intimately tied up with individual identities, there’s not much hope of changing them unless the person changes her identity” (Crowley and Hawhee 14). The important take from this quote is not that a person needs to change their identity to have their perspective changed necessarily, rather that oftentimes one’s opinion is a reflection of their personality, being their past experiences and relationships. Since everyone has different identities based on their different lives, there is an infinite number of ways they can be influenced by one’s rhetoric. The readings made me understand that all writing can be persuasive, but the perspective change that persuasion invites can be infinitely different given an infinite audience.

Dr. Seuss (part 2):

Persuasion

Endlessly persuading

Some will read

Some will lead

Others will be left as only a sneed

Am I being persuasive?

Perhaps a little abrasive

Not that it matters, we all can be endlessly persuasive

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(En)Trenchment

Reflection is necessary for understanding.

When you first write something, if you don't read over it, you'll miss errors, gaps, and lacking information. This kind of peer editing is necessary to improve your writing. When you are simply spilling ideas on to the paper you don't really recognize how they all connect, until you reflect on all your ideas and main topics. This is the same when you are trying to understand someone else's writing, you oftentimes to need to reflect on it in order to fully grasp the rhetoric they have created and how that truly affects your perspective.

Good writing is often persuasive writing and it is impossible to be persuasive if you as the reader/writing don't understand the central claim of the work. Reflection is the tool that allows you to better understand writing, since the repeated intake of information allows of the brain to form better connections between the topics, noticing things you might not have the first time around.

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Reflecting on Reflection

Reflection is the process of taking a minute to review your thoughts in reality and in writing. The process of composing. Reflecting in writing is used to observe the logical order and sense of your main ideas. Figuring what makes sense in context and what doesn't and proceeding to correct that. “Procedurally, reflection entails a looking forward to goals we might attain, as well as casting backwards to see where we have been” (Yancey 6).  In writing it is important to look back at the information already given and use that to analyze the information that is to come forth.

I often reflect at the end of my writing, mainly meaning that I re-read my work to make sure that it makes logical linguistic sense. I do reflect on my ideas, but after I put them into words, I usually don't look back. Doing this is a process of understanding my understandings in my work. Reflecting on each of my topic sentences and thesis after every paragraph would likely help to formulate better writing. I do often re-read sentences after I write them just to see if they “matter”. Different reflecting processes such as, reflecting the knowledge and/or reflecting on your thoughts will result in a better illustration of the “big rhetorical picture”. An example of what I mean is seen in MLK’s letter and how he reflects on his experiences and the audience in 1960’s America, then allowing him to draft a meaningful argument that will change perspective.

Reflection is rhetorical because it creates a situation that causes discourse. Reviewing the differences between what you write and what you mean is a process that can cause you to change your perspective. Your perspective is what you understand about your arguments and/or ideas. Reflection can connect all of these concepts in writing because it is the process that makes you consider how they all connect to make sense. Furthermore, reflection a tool that allows you to analyze the connections between these topics so that you may further increase your understanding of good writing.