11/26- Artist’s Statements

You’ll begin your portfolio with an artist’s statement (see the assignment sheet for more details). Click here for samples from another ENG 1121 class. Keep in mind that the professor was asking a slightly different set of questions, but I think that seeing what other students produced can be useful even if they’re not writing about the exact same thing.

11/13- Rhetorical strategies for portraying people

Rhetorical strategies for portraying people

Close-ups vs. long shots (close to the person vs. far)

Frontal vs. oblique angles (taken with their body facing toward you vs. away from you)

Demand vs. offer image (looking at you vs. away from you)

^These strategies make us feel social closeness vs. social distance. Close-ups and frontal angles make us feel socially closer than long shots and oblique angles. Demand images are when the person in the image looks right at you–they’re demanding something from you. In an offer image, the person is looking away from you, so you can gaze at them without them looking back at you.

10/21- They say/I say

This link has some great templates that show how you can integrate sources (they say) into your call to action paper and build your own argument (I say).

9/23- Discourse community

Basically, discourse communities are groups of people who communicate to achieve shared goals.

There are six features of discourse communities:

Goals: “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (471).

Intercommunication: “A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members” (471).

Participation: “A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback” (472).

Genres: “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims” (472).

Lexis: “In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis” (473).

Levels of expertise: “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (473).

*Note: you won’t need to define these terms in your call to action research paper. They’re useful in helping us understand what discourse communities are, though.

9/5- Notes from reading homework

  • Rhetorical situation- having purpose; thinking about your audience
  • Purpose- the reason that you’re writing something
  • Audience- intended reader and who will end up reading your work
  • Rhetorical Appeals- how you get your reader to listen to you or believe you (ethos- credibility; pathos- emotions; logos- facts and evidence; logic)
  • Modes (written, visual, audio) and media (how you choose to present- example- paper book vs ebook)
  • Genre- response to a rhetorical situation; type
  • Common elements- what is similar in a bunch of different samples
  • Style- writing choices (tone, detail, voice)
  • Design- visual choices (color, illustrations)
  • Sources- where you get your information

9/4- Technology thoughts and technology policy

  • Using our phones is nice for looking stuff up, translating, taking pictures of notes, doing research, and working on essays
  • Respect each other with phone use–it shouldn’t be going off in class

8/28- What makes a good class discussion?

  • Debating between 2 or more sides- makes us discuss, research, and interact
  • A lot of things to talk about and relatable and interesting topics
  • Teachers and students should be involved and interacting with each other- collaboration
  • Different points of view (expressing ourselves, learning more, being comfortable speaking)
  • Background knowledge- everyone has it so that it creates a bigger discussion