uwrtportms
Let's Talk Rhetoric
14 posts
Welcome to my collection of work. Diverse studies in rhetoric and language, discourses and culture. Transgender. He/Him. Lover of all things.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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About Me
My name is Morgan Smith. I am a student at UNC Charlotte and I’m still figuring out myself and my career path. Throughout my life I have been conflicted, depressed, in between, and hurting. I have always been scared to admit to myself who I was or what I wanted. When I started this class, I was lonely, I had no one to talk to about what I was going through and what I wanted to be. When I started using this class and my projects to understand myself more, I found support, and I found confidence. Being a transgender male is not easy when you can’t pass as one, not many people understand the problems and conflicts we go through in the trans community. Most of my work in this portfolio is centered around the Transgender community and activism projects to help us. I want the world to know who I am, and that I will never be afraid to show myself.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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Capstone Reflection
             Research in writing is much more than diving into the topic and returning your thoughts. Instead research is the constant growth of your opinion, developing strategies, and using the information you found to turn it into something greater. This is one of the things I focused on strengthening my research habits and forming well rounded opinions behind my writing. With most of the academic writing I do, I try to focus on something I’m passionate about and that means something to me. I want my audience to connect to the words I’m saying and have a purpose. I feel it's much more effective and engaging to be a part of something greater, perhaps in writing or speaking through your discourse community. Throughout this semester, I was given the opportunity to research more of  my interests in my discourse communities and share them with my classmates and peers. I am very excited to be able to talk and write about the findings I came across in my research and that was a big part of my growth this semester. All throughout my schooling prior to this has been focusing on my grade, topic or class without any deeper meaning to the words I was writing. However, going onto any other platform of media such as poetry, personal writing, social media or any others, I realized I had a much deeper, personal connection to my words than If I had done them in school. Recognizing my potential through my powerful writing has opened so many doors in my mind; motivation, opportunity, expansion and- growth.        I have already seen a significant change in my writing for my other courses. I have shown an incredible increase in class participation, engagement and interesting all of my assignments, projects, and homework. I feel like writing is much more than a tool used by humans. I feel, instead, that It is an extension of yourself, your community, your language, your identity. Doing these exercises and projects in UWRT 1104, I have built up confidence about my writing, but more importantly, my ideas and thoughts behind it. I am now confident enough to share with my classmates my work, but to be proud of it when my work reflects my true self. I used this class as a doorway to my motivation in my classes and school, to push me to break my own barrier between identity and self, language and community, but also to understand all others as well. I started understanding the importance of being respectful and open minded to ALL other communities discourses and identities, in order to allow my self to grow. I am very happy with myself and my growth so far this semester. This class allowed me to know things about my self I never may have known, or encourage me to speak when I would have been silent. This class made me feel proud the be who I am, and I can finally feel my identity when I write. I know who I am as a writer: I am powerful, I am strong, I am willing, I am humble, I am loving. And I am willing to share all of this with you through my words.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
Link
(Click title above, or on link in sidebar ->)
This is a link to my groups Critical inquiry project. Here, we focused on Transgender individuals and ethical issues regarding their rights. I personally find this to be by far, the most important project to me. As part of the trans community, I find that this was very helpful, in ways to benefit myself, but also an excellent way to express my knowledge about this discourse. I was super excited to share all I know about this topic to my classmates, and spread awareness, open their minds, and get them thinking about ways to help. I want to use this project to help me with my activism project and do as much as I can to educate. I had a great experience working with my group on this project.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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An Analyzation of an Analyzation- From Mary to Morgan
To help me understand my writing as part of my identity as a writer and understand my discourse community, I took my paper from my 11th grade English class and analyzed my writing.
Throughout careful analyzation and attention paid to my original paper on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (attached) , I noticed patterns in my writing that I have seen in other samples of mine. I find that although I have a creative mind, I catch myself at tight deadlines and allow my quality to decline. Most often, I find myself making statements without detail or support with impaction. For example, one quote from my original paper being, “ In this novel there are many moments where one character tries to overpower the other, only to be returned the favor. This theme helps create a balance between the idea of physical and mental power and how power may corrupt an individual's mind and life.” (Morgan Smith, 2014) When looking back on this quote, I see a very bland, unsupported idea, however I understand the same thoughts I had while originally reading and analyzing the book. This leads me to overlook the reasoning behind the lack of support, and rather dive deep into purpose. What was the original purpose behind the writing? Most definitely to complete an assignment. Yet, even through moving quickly through this assignment to earn credit, I still had to jump into a discourse I was unfamiliar with, textual analysis. Likely to be a cause of the obvious disinterest in the subject, insecurity on content or understanding, and the inability to grasp and explain main concepts in the reading and analyze them in full. Another terrible example of my lack of uniqueness is portrayed in this quote… “To continue with the comparison between their sources of power, one could say Frankenstein has the power of creation, and the creature has power of destruction. One cannot be without the other. They are intertwined.  They are two halves when together create wholeness.” I mean, this hurt to read. I could see the pattern of binary opposition throughout all of the novel, however is painfully described them in my own writing as if I was trying to capture the understanding of a fifth grade student. I would absolutely enjoy going back and rereading the novel, once again formulation a better, well thought out analyzation of the concepts. I used a lot of descriptive language, but Frankenstein has so many layers that could be delved into and unfolded, which I would go back and support with my understanding and personal statement on. Another major aspect of my paper that was different compared to most of my other writing is that I did not pull in much of an argumentative side, due to the context of the analyzation factor, I normally prefer writing papers that include wild argument, support and reasoning. I noticed many statements on observed oppositions, tensions and conflict, yet did not take sides, express opinion and explain impact by them much. I am a very opinionated person, and it is very hard for me to express myself in any way without being passionate about it. Therefore, looking back on this paper I can see my growth within my argument, reasoning and motive. This writing of mine makes me feel like I was definitely trying to portray an understanding I did not actually have, taking part in a discourse I explained above that I was wildly unfamiliar with. I applaud myself at the usage of quotes and samples from the original novel, however I did realize that I was pulling out quotes like darts and throwing them, and simply describing the landing position…basically filler-space. I dived deeper into how this is seen in many papers amongst amateur writers and came up with a good analogy. Consider an exponential function: 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2. (2^6) This starts of with a small amount of information, however, without including the previous 2’s from your function as you move forward, you remain throughout the function without exceeding the value of 2. Flowing through the line while taking into consideration the rest of he values and how they add together, you get 64. This is a prime example of how to write your paper. Reading a text without including every other piece of information, arguments, points and ideas from before, you will start and end the paper with no more information than the first sentence. I see this pattern all throughout my writing, and I feel like it is a huge area of growth for me to connect my writing and my support to my thoughts. I also can relate this to another bad habit of mine, repeating much of the argument over and over again. A quote towards the end of my writing, “Power hungry people often fall apart. It also shows the difference and importance of intellectual and physical power, and how even though they contradict, they cannot assert over each other.” I stated this in the first quote I sub-quoted from my paper, and apparently have made no progress in between the first paragraph and the last. Although I can see my ensue of thought towards this subject, I did not make much of a true analyzation of this concept in my original writing effectively. As a writer, it is my primary goal to inform, introduce ideas, and convey emotion through my writing and captivate an audience. My dragging on with poor use of language that sounds bored, tired, or lazy. The original reading of the novel will always have different impacts on people, and I am getting the second hand impact from my analyzation itself. I am seeing the unseen layers from the original, with the way it affected my thinking, critical understanding and also viewpoints in other works after reading the novel. I want this to continue on to the reader of my take on the novel, and so on and so forth with future readers. I took a lot of good points from my writing and will use them to better shape my upcoming papers, analyzations, opinions and personal statements, no matter what context.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Patrick Nobes, and Lynd Ward. Frankenstein. Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2008. Print.
Frankenstein Analysis, Morgan Smith (2014)
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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Observing Discourse Communities
When asked to observe a specific community and relate it to my knowledge about my own community, I decided to observe a group of ladies in the gym...
I noticed that this group was mostly women aged 30-50, and didn't seem like trained athletes. In fact, most of them weren't very in shape. However, as I was doing my own thing I watched this group do different exercises and workouts together, and I saw so much teamwork and motivation. I could tell that exercising on their own may not have been something they could have kept up with if it wasn't for the other women and the bond they had doing this together. I could see a lot of friendships and connections, even if some of them may not have known each other before this, they for sure were able to work together and build something with each other. 
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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Capstone Critical Reflection
When I came into this class, I went in with the mindset that writing was something that fell into very specific categories. Academic, personal, storytelling, poetry, music, anything in between. I felt as though formal and informal could not mix, and trying to merge them would be a disaster. I have always been a more creative, artistic, animated person, rather than academically formal, and I have struggled finding a style of writing that was an extension of my thoughts, ideas and language that I could also use in any setting. I felt as though writing with rhetoric language was more of a "let's see how fake I can sound writing this paper, maybe it will sound so professional and grammatically correct that I will get an A." Throughout high school this idea led me to think that It was nearly impossible to create any kind of writing without feeling disconnected with the meaning. After starting this class, I started cresting a new way to express myself with my writing, with any kind of audience. I now feel confident to use rhetoric language, animated words and ideas to convey my own message to my audience. An example of my growth is through my rhetorical analysis paper, where I analyzed and examined me previous writing with my new style and expression, and it's crazy how much I look at my old self's words. They seem incredibly fake, and to me, authenticity and control is the most important aspect of writing. Monitoring my growth has allowed me to take my subtle changes and make them stronger, increase my impression, and start using writing as a key way to allow myself to be connected with everyone and thing around me, with my own words. Link
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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My Knowledge and Practice of SLO’s
Rhetorical Knowledge- I used a lot of my own knowledge about tone and content to reach my audience with the way i presented my information- (Studio 2, Studio 1)
Link, Link
Critical reading- With these two assignments, I spent a lot of time analyzing written text and focusing on breaking down its contents and understanding- (rhetorical analysis, critical inquiry)
Link, Link
Composing process- I always tend to switch back and forth between very formal writing and incredibly informal, and they both seem to work out for me equally and reach my respective audience effectively. (Studio 1, Forum 4)
Link,Link
Knowledge of conventions- I always ensure that my academic assignments are mostly formal writing, due to the popularity of research, inquiry and analyzation papers required by courses, I use proper grammar to use as support for my credibility. (Rhetorical Analysis) However, using various social media and audiences as such, I follow a more informal set of rules to allow my point to be accepted easily.
(Activism site- Link)
Link
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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The REAL Question....... What Would I Do After an Apocalypse??
I took a break from my activism project so I could focus on creative and deep thinking about my interests, my community and my personal discourse. What would I do after experiencing a zombie apocalypse?
After experiencing an apocalyptic crisis (as in 86 zombies)   the world would undoubtedly drastically change. Right now in this world, there are billions of different communities, discourse groups, and identities. After an apocalypse, this number would reduce exponentially, because most of the discourse communities we take part in now are secondary. They are unimportant in regards to survival, and they are existing because of our interests/wants/ocassi0nal needs. Perhaps after establishing the essential roles post-apocalypse, we could start to see groups and communities that extend past these key roles (doctors, farmers etc. But until then, these are the most crucial and its the only thing we would focus on. Not to mention, the amount of people who may have survived would be nowhere near the amount of people there are now, so these different roles would be even more impacting and crucial for these smaller groups. I would most definitely be a farmer, because I absolutely wouldn't want to be any of the rest of them. And I feel like farming is a way to help everyone, but I would want to be alone. So I wouldn't always have to worry about everyone. I can help them, but in the end I would only have myself to worry about.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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MY ACTIVISM PROJECT!
Here, you can see the beginnings of my activism project and my ideas.
I want to change the way people view and treat the LGBT community for the better, to promote love instead of hate and to create a more inclusive world for us all. These people are always among us in high numbers, people you may know, love and care about but may be unaware of their identity. I want to help change the hearts of many towards a world where we all respect, love and make an attempt to understand each other without judgement, fear or hate.
I’m focusing more on Transgender individuals, where gender identity can be a complicated thing, it's something that is a part of us all. Transgenders face many problems already, with transitioning and dysphoria, cost and fear of society. It is hard to do, to live in a life you feel trapped in. I want to bring awareness to the necessity to allow these people to express themselves fully, and while some peers can be hateful, sometimes its the parents or immediate family that makes the situation worse. This can lead to depression, suicide and self harm, or emotional/verbal/domestic abuse, as well as being in a home you can't be yourself in, and feeling the pressure to be something you're not. My audience is focusing on those on the other side of the trans* person, the parents, the children, the brothers and sisters, and friends. To help educate them, inspire empathy and compassion, and help them through this so that those trying to transition can do so in a loving, caring, helpful and most importantly, safe environment.
I am going to use ethos and pathos to help my cause. Ethos I will use to inspire the connection and unity created by those who go through similar things, creating a space of love and help, as well as resources. It truly is inspiring, have you ever been to a LGBT Pride event? Its beautiful, and incorporating things like this into my argument will definitley help. I will use pathos to connect more with how those around may be feeling, perhaps helping them cope, understand and be there for support for their transitioning friend, parent, child or spouse. Maybe using stories of others, good and bad, and things that could happen to those who cannot go through with their transition, or those who are uncomfortable in life as their birth-gender (depression, suicide, etc.)
Here are some outside sources to help you:
http://dullesmoms.com/ask-dr-mike-my-child-thinks-she-is-transgendered/ I picked this article to use because it is a mother asking a forum about opinions for her trans son, and the answers and replies are very though out, helpful and understanding.
http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/exc_110911.shtml This site is a good resources to find family therapy to go through a child's transition, and help them gather information, ideas and also therapists to talk to.
https://www.dailystrength.org/group/spouses-of-transgender This source is a support group for the spouses of transgender people online, to find community and cope with the changes you may be going through.
These sources are part of my argument in the fact that there really is no reasonable excuse for you not to be able to attempt to understand transgenders, and they may be a convincing factor that transitioning isn't as weird and scary as you may think. Remember, awareness, help and support saves lives.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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This photo represents me, and what I care about. I started focusing more on my personal interests in my writing and projects in this course, specifically the transgender community, and issues they face.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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Jamila Lysicott: 3 ways to speak English
Delving deep into language, dialect and impression, I came across several Ted Talks that helped me learn more about culture and its ties to these things.
When I watched Jamila Lyiscott: 3 ways to speak English, I noticed a lot of important messages in her story. She really brought to attention how the impression of the specific dialects/ and language she displayed portrays a negative image in America, and why. She addresses this by calling out the language stolen from her, and her history stripped from her with no dignity. HOW CAN WE EXPECT HER to adapt her language to our social norms? Language is a part of identity, history and culture, and the action of trying to push dialect norms, patterns and language upon other groups to whom it does not belong is perpetuating the white washing of other cultures. It is important to value language, as communities, values, and relationships are built upon it's foundation. To have something like this tried to be stripped from you, and then after, another culture tried to be enforced upon you. We need to recognize the importance of all types of language and dialect, it is much more than the words the use to express our feelings, it is the way we communicate with those around us. It is poetry, it is song, it is truth. We use this to strengthen our relationships with others, within our civilization and ourselves.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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Authenticity In Communities
Nas is my favorite artist. I fell in love with his sound, his style, but most importantly, his message. Here, I share my thoughts on his work.
Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones, known as Nas, produces meaningful, pressing, influecning music while remaining one of the most authentic artists I’ve known. Here’s a look into one of his songs, “I Can”, and how it connects to Authenticity, Representation, and Performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvVfgvHucRY
“That was one of my real human being records right there, for my daughter. So yeah, that’s one of the most important records I ever made.” Nas, Rolling Stone-A Track-By-Track Journey With the Pride of Queens-2007
For daughters, for sons, for children everywhere beat down by any sort of weight- social status, financial, location, stereotypes. How often do we find them falling under these trends, with little to none encouragement, uplifting or strengthening? So much potential lies in the hearts of children-and Nas is trying to start the change in the communities he has lived, seen and witnessed these kids being pushed down and suppressed by the outside world. Nas is trying to not only stand by these people, but represent them as people of his own and push for greatness. The artist is specifically speaking to these children- as motivation and inducing determination from a highly respected artist who believes in them, and he wants them to know we all believe in them too. The artist also is speaking to many others other than young black children suffering from this suppression, and this extends to black men and women as well; validating grand civilizations and empires filled with knowledge, wisdom and power. He educates and inspires these men and women to know the truth about their ancestry, and he encourages them to shape the globe through themselves and their children to become the kings and queens they always have been. The meaning, intention and authenticity of the message behind Nas inspires many to this day and is an important theme to remember and be spread.
Authenticity has a few definitions…. most defining though, would be: (According to English-Oxford Dictionary) (in existentialist philosophy) relating to or denoting an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human life. As well as: Based on facts; accurate or reliable. Nas does a great job representing this authentic figure as the speaker behind these messages in his songs, his words come from the heart, the experience, the love he has for his daughter. He does it not for the image of himself, but for the audience. It is significantly powerful that he can create a record without trying to gain anything for himself, rather what he could give instead. He also does not try to perpetuate any false image of the world: in verse 3, his line “There was empires in Africa called Kush, Timbuktu where every race came to get books” He is specifically trying to educate about real life things. Many artists now use false images of life and success, and ignore much of reality to enjoy a false sense of wealth. That is a huge reason why much of todays music represents inauthenticity. 
 Representation can be defined as: The action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being so represented, or; The description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way (English-Oxford Dictionary) This is important because not only is he representing his community/ies by standing up for them, encouraging and pushing for their success as his own, but he is bringing to light the current and past representation of these groups and why they have been suppressed in the corners at all. This is a major factor in authenticity, and as most now would call it “being real.” He understand the system and he would like to break it, he isn't concerned with his career being a motivator of this. Another example is his explanation of how some of these things many Black men and women are cornered into is in his line : “If the truth is told, the youth can grow
They learn to survive until they gain control
Nobody says you have to be gangstas, hoes
Read more learn more, change the globe" This line is incredibly significant because it shows how he thinks the representation of these men and women is absolute BS. He knows they can achieve so many things, that the current image of them is causing them to believe they can not do it…which then passes on to their children. He is willing to stand by them and motivate them until he's gone. Performance is An act of performing a dramatic role, song, or piece of music (English-Oxford Dictionary) Nas performs this piece with as much heart as he does soul, with every right intention. His message he spreads with his lyrics touch not just adult fans, but children who hear it. A good message heard by millions of children will be kept sacred to them, and they will have it motivating them for a long time, even to this day. He not only plays the part of an educator, but he insists these children play the role in any path they want to take; he says in verse 1 “You can be anything in the world, in God we trust, an architect, lawyer, maybe an actress. But nothing comes easy, it takes much practice.” Here he is describing different discourses. He doesn't create an image of faking any of this, however it plays its role…. Motivation and practice may come from applying yourself to a discourse you are not already an expert in. However, this doesn't mean you're faking, it just means you are following a good path with a leader. He wants these kids to follow there dreams and know that THEY CAN!!!!!
 What’s this??? There’s a deeper meaning??? YES! It seems to be about X……..Nas is encouraging and uplifting these kids to do great things. But what is he really saying? he is saying that Black children, black men and black women can do great things. You are kings, queens, princesses, princes. You hold the key to wisdom, power, love, success, beauty, knowledge, soul. He intends to break down any social norms and constructs others have seen for them and allow them to push through the obstacles into a beautiful world of success and happiness.
Nas absolutely represents authenticity. His image, his message and his inspirations all are pure, with good heart. He focuses on the benefit for his listeners, rather then the benefits for himself. His real content can be spread without false image, and can allow growth and a world of truth. I believe more artists should follow his example; his message is educating, meaningful and absolutely more valuable than some of the things artists say today.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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An impact......A Look Into Discourses and Communities
Voices from StoryCorps- https://storycorps.org/
1. Diversity in discourse; a much deeper meaning than the small groups we categorize ourselves in, in terms of communities. Rather, discourse broken down into fragments and further observed leads us to seeing differences in behavior, mindset, and personality. We all know and understand that these differences need to be celebrated, due to the creation being caused by millions of small worldly details in ones singular lifetime. What causes these differences? A question that many people try to answer daily, even casually noticing and noting them, perhaps not always with analyzation. Some answers might include broader things, such as family, friends, school, jobs. However, much more is included when broken down further; seeing things such as capacity to understand and empathize, or natural compassion. How do these things truly combine in your external life to create your internal self? Through self-progression I, myself find that I am a completely different person today than I was at say, 12. What has happened since then that made such changes? How many influences must have impacted me to create this drastic change? Many of these external influences can impact everything you do. How do these things affect your life, and anything you put your mark on? You may be able to recognize this in any type of output you have in the world: your actions, your speech, your body language, and especially your writing, in any form of media. They all have a signature from you, and your individual personality.
2. Looking closely at some of the personal interviews on StoryCorps, I found one interview interesting. A father and a daughter, conservative and liberal respectively, coming together to discuss their differences and try to understand the others side of the story. (StoryCorps 486: The Other Side) Now, I wasn’t particularly interested in what they were actually saying, I paid more attention to the fact that this woman, a liberal, was the daughter of someone who had very different views from herself. This is a good example of outside-impacts, when it comes to mindset, viewpoints and beliefs. Many form these beliefs and opinions outside of the home, rather than when immersed in immediate family. Through this example, we can discuss the idea of power between influences. A father may be a powerful figure in ones life, but in this situation, outside impacts overpowered her fathers way f thinking to mold her mindset into something very different, no matter the imbalance of tension it may cause. I found another great example of influencing one’s path through girl scout cookies- Weston Williams discusses developing literacy in his article Girl Scout Cookies at 100: How Financial Literacy is Built with Thin Mints. This is a great example of influencing a young girls mindset, path, and experience. Learning financial background through this organization, girls globally are being exposed to a literacy that shapes their lives. This is also an example of a major hobby as a child, which affects behavior, actions and mindset in later years. Many children find these areas to excel in, these young girls specifically, finding community-driven events and financial practice. Other examples being art, math, sports, dance, singing, music, etc. Finding these areas and exploring them, strengthening them and honing them creates a literacy that can impact your future. These literacies appear later in your writing, your discourse groups, and your natural style. You should embrace them, and turn them into a strength and a platform for your voice to be heard.
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uwrtportms · 8 years ago
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Morgan’s Declassified School Survival Guide
Be the exceptional student you didn’t know you could be- A guide to mushfaking
1. Have YOU ever felt defeated by your academic career weighing on your shoulders? You aren’t alone. In fact, many students can agree that in a sea full of students trying to apply their knowledge towards everything you do, you get a little lost. How do you apply yourself and make yourself seem, you know, smart? Here’s a tip. Not everyone is an expert on what they talk about. Sometimes, you can’t even tell the difference. How do you write in a persona that’s still you, just, a smarter version of you? Yes, you guessed it. It’s time to Mushfake. 
2.  Now, onto the basics. WHAT on earth is MUSHFAKING? Is that even a real WORD?!? Yes! Good, we are asking questions! Mushfaking is the means of making do with a set of information available to create a meta-knowledge archive to pull from and present any sort of information your little heart desires. Whoa there, ok, I’m sorry. I’ll start off with an example.  You enter a class centered on Health and Wellness, a class most would take towards an exercise science or Human Health major. You take the class for a month, and your professor asks you to present to the class a 20 minute powerpoint on why health is important. Ok….just one thing. You're a business major! NOW what do you do?? Well, your first thought would be to take the information you have gathered tis far, do a tad bit more research on the topic to back up your opinion, and put together a little presentation. You could consider yourself to be acting as an expert, and you may even come off as one, but are you? Most likely not. What is this called? YES!!! You are doing so good, this is MUSHFAKING!
3. This is a huge part of your academic career. Chances are, most of the classes you take will not be a part of your main interest or major. Sometimes, it will be hard to overcome your disinterest just to write a paper, or pass a class. However, this is a 10/10 way to get you working towards a great GPA, and great confidence in your classes as well. YOU ARE THE MASTER! You TAKE that subject girl and you OWN IT!!!!!!!
4. This now leads me to a point in which I discuss Discourses. These are basically, simply put, groups in your life in which you categorize your identity. What are you outside of class, who are you? Well, it must be a lot different than who you are when you enter an important class related to your major, or especially, a job in your career field. You might be very different in different aspects of your life, but you already know what to do. You become the person that you need to be in order to be most successful where you are- at a job, during class, with family. Do that same thing with your assignments, be the most successful person in your mind so it can show up in your grades. James Gee states himself that throughout different discourse communities, different approaches on identity arise. He states that you may be the same person, but you have a different….aura about you. WHICH is GOOD! In school, your aura can be confident, successful, proud. This will lead you to a very bright confident future.
5. Will I ever be a true expert in my discourse community?!?! The answer is, maybe! But what does that really mean? Think about it this way. Compared to Isaac Newton, your physics professor may be not so up to par on his knowledge. However, compared to your Physics tutor, your professor may as well be the brightest ever. But your tutor compared to you? A genius. I consider expertise not only the extensive knowledge and understanding of a topic, but the ability and willingness to continually grow in that subject. Being confident in a class is great, but knowing you have so much more of an opportunity to grow and learn from the class is true expertise. So my best advice for you is to mush fake as well as you can in order to come off as knowledgeable about any topic. But most importantly, allow growth throughout your discourses while maintaining that appearance of expertise through mush faking in order to see the results you aim for. I KNOW you will be successful!
6. GOOD LUCK!
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