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).

10/16- Video about NYC subway

This is fascinating!! Enjoy!

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 today’s readings

  • Rhetorical situation- context you write in
  • Purpose- why we write; there can be many reasons
  • Audience- whoever will receive the information conveyed by the writer; primary audience is who you intend to read the text and secondary audience is whoever might read read the text
  • Rhetorical Appeals- how you get your audience to listen to or believe you (ethos- credibility; pathos- emotions; logos- logic and facts)
  • Modes (written, audio, visual) and media (the specific way you share the mode (example: blog vs. book vs. tweet)
  • Genre- the response to a rhetorical situation; type
  • Common elements- the main features that exist if you look at a bunch of samples
  • Style- written ways that we communicate (tone, voice, amount of detail)
  • Design- visual features (color, format, illustration)
  • Sources- citations, conversations, documents

9/4- Technology thoughts and policy

  • Phones are good for looking up words, translation, getting instructions, readings, and class discussion
  • Phones are good but we also like the opportunity to talk in person in a group

8/28- What makes a good class discussion?

  • Debates- different opinions about a topic
  • Everybody is comfortable with each other; everybody talks and participates
  • Everybody’s interested in the topic and the topic is relevant to everyone
  • Good flow- one person should have the floor; everybody respects who is talking
  • Everyone exchanging ideas
  • Conversation meets an objective and leads to a bigger project