From Pencils to Pixels

According to the article, the computer is said to be the gateway to literacy. I agree because for people to be digitally literate as well as being able to read and write on paper, then they need a computer. Writing itself is a technology, a way of engineering material in order to accomplish an end. A pencil is a technology because it is a tool in writing. Plato disliked writing because he feared it would weaken our memory. While writing cannot replace many speech functions, it allows us to communicate in ways that speech does not. Writing lacks such tonal cues of the human voice as pitch and stress, not to mention the physical cues that accompany face to face communication, but it also permits new ways of bridging time and space. Thoreau honestly thought pencils were better for writing than electrical impulses, and he simply kept his business life and his intellectual life in separate compartments. Telephone communication combined aspects of speaking and writing situations in new ways. The telephone and writing were both shaped in the same way because people had to learn how to compose and converse. Technology has impacted fraudulent writings and activities because digitized text is easy to corrupt accidentally, or to fiddle with on purpose. Baron's conclusion talks about how the computer has indeed changed the ways some of us do things with words, and the rapid changes in technological development suggest that it will continue to do so in ways we cannot yet foresee. The article implicitly defines literacy as being able to keep up with the latest technological advances.

Yancey's Writing in the 21st Century

The 3 challenges of writing in the 21st century are developing new models of writing, designing a new curriculum supporting those models, and creating models for teaching those models. Yancey explained writing as a technology that exists "in spite of" because of the challenges faced. Only certain people could write because there were prohibitions against females, colored people, and young kids. Yancey's main argument is to get students to compose often and become the citizen writers of our future. Writing hasn't gotten as much cultural respect as reading because society could control it citizens through reading whereas when writing, citizens can exercise their own control. Reading tends to produce feelings of intimacy and warmth while writing was associated with unpleasantness. Some negative associations people make with writing is that it required a good deal of labor and it has been associated with testing. Process writing is a curriculum composed of inanition, drafting, peer review, reflection, revising and rewriting, and publishing. Self sponsored writing is a writing that belongs to a writer, and not an institution, with the result that people want to compose. I do self writing in text messages, emails, and on twitter. The 21st century is the age of composition because it is a period where composers become composers not through direct and formal instruction, but rather through what we call an extracurricular social co-apprentenship. This article matters because the meaning of literacy has changed and educators need to become serious about helping students become citizen composers. Literacy is described as being able not only to read and write on paper but also on social media.

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Thompson's main claim is that people can connect to many more people and actually keep up with their lives. Zuckerburg first introduced the News Feed to keep up with friends easier. He claimed that to know what was going on people had to actively surf different users profiles. It is so much easier now that Zuckerburg developed News Feed because by simply logging in to Facebook a person can see everybody's posts. I think that the News Feed is a good thing in terms of literacy because in order to to be digitally literate, people need something that is quick and easy to access. Ambient awareness is defined as incessant online contact that is very much like being physically near someone and picking up on their mood. I experience ambient awareness because when looking at people's posts and tweets I can tell how they are feeling. The paradox with ambient awareness is that we are not actually physically with our friends and we did not look at their body language to determine their mood. The downfall is that we may not want to hang out with certain friends as often because we will already know how they are doing and what they have been up to. However a benefit could be that a friends posts or tweets could lead a friend to wanting to hang out with them because they are curious and want to talk about the types of things the friend has been posting. An ambient update is frequent, tiny updates on what a person is doing such as "eating lunch in the student center with Kate". Because so many things are posted or tweeted, most people skim through their news feeds and pick and choose what to read. But by doing this, this proves how people cannot stay concentrated long enough to actually read everyones posts and think about what they really mean. Thompson says that our weak ties and acquaintances actually help us out on social media. He talked about how they are not as similar to us as our close friends are and that they can answer many of our questions that our close friends cannot. But certain people in their 20s feel pressured by social media. They do not want to be involved but they feel like they must in order to maintain a positive image. They do not want people talking about them negatively or posting old pictures of them that could ruin their image. This article defines literacy as the ability to increase the number of people you stay in contact with and keep up with all of their lives.

Gin, Television, and Cognitive Surplus

1) The article is about how the industrial revolution transformed society and how people should take advantage of the opportunities of cognitive surpluses and deploy it in more engaging ways.

2) Literacy is defined as being able to participate to create a new resource intend of just sitting around watching something such as TV. This definition is somewhat different than the one in the Wolf and Carr articles. In the Wolf article, literacy is defined as being able to think deeply about the information that you read. In the Carr article, literacy is being defined as being able to actually read an entire article and think for yourself. In the Shirky article, literacy is being defined as being able to participate, produce, and share information.

3) A cognitive surplus is a person's free time to produce knowledge and share it.

4) It matters because it calls people to start producing and sharing knowledge with the world to make it a better place.

5 and 6) Cognitive surplus is used a lot. It is used as a call to action to get people to gain knowledge and share it with the world.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

The article's main argument is that our minds are changing. Carr thinks that we are no longer going to think for ourselves. He talks about how the Net is becoming this universal medium that is reprogramming us. Carr says that the Internet has affected his thinking process by chipping away his capacity for concentration and contemplation. He says that deep reading, that used to come naturally, has become a struggle for him. Literacy is defined in this article as being able to pull information from a text. It is similar to the Socrates article because both deal with getting facts from a text, but the article on Socrates focuses more on being able to think deeply beyond face value while this article focuses more on just being able to think for yourself and actually read a whole article. The Internet has changed the thinking process and mental habits for many people by making them unable to concentrate. People now skim passages and bounce from one site to another. The author backs up his claims by providing evidence. He talks about Google, brain and cognitive studies, and research from other scholars. The evidence is effective because he has so much of it to back up his claims. The reader can take away that the Internet has an effect on their brains. If one is not careful, they will no longer be able to concentrate long enough to read a long article or book.

Unit 3 Brainstorming

I decided to pick Beth Moore's twitter account to analyze. Beth Moore is a Christian speaker. By looking at her tweets you can tell that she is also a mother. She frequently posts pictures of her children and tweets about them. She also posts random tidbits and inspirational/positive tweets along with occasional tweets about a conference or a person that has blessed her. Beth Moore does not have anything negative on her page because she wants to glorify God and to do so she needs to maintain a positive image. I think she will be a good person to analyze because she keeps her profile up to date.

Social Media: What does your tattoo say?

By looking at my twitter you can tell that I am a student who goes to Auburn that occasionally complains. Some of my tweets that show that I am a student say, "Got out of class 10 minutes early" or "done with lab an hour early." You can also tell that I go to Auburn university by all of my tweets that say, "War Eagle" or " so excited for the game." And every once in a while I will complain by saying, "can I just stay in my bed all day" or "I just want to go back to my apartment and take a nap." But I do not always complain, sometimes I post positive things such as, "God has put such amazing people in my life" or "getting things done today." I think that by looking at these tweets, you see a Auburn college student who has good days and bad days. I think that my tweets show an accurate representation of me. I do not tweet a lot and half of my tweets are retweets so there is not a bunch of information about me. I do feel like I need to maintain a positive social media identity because I do not want to put anything on twitter that would cause someone to have a negative perception of me. I do not feel pressured by trying to have a good image because I have always tried to maintain a positive identity. If I were interviewing for a job I would still get it even if my tweets were printed out because there is nothing wrong with what I post. I do not post things that would jeopardize my reputation.

Interpretive Leap

I decided to change my song to Lana Del Rey's song "Young and Beautiful". The main question of the song is to her lover. She wants to know if he will still love her when she is no longer young and beautiful. She answers her own question by saying,"I know you will" repeatedly. But her face does not reflect that. In the video it is dark and dull. She is somber throughout the video and does not always make eye contact with the camera. It seems as if she is asking for a confirmation of his love for her. This song is also used in a scene in The Great Gatsby. However, in The Great Gatsby, the scene shows a different story. The scene is very lively, bright, grand, and cheerful. The people in it are smiling and laughing and having fun. During the scene, Jay Gatsby looks at Daisy and remarks on how splendid she is and how he did not want to forget a moment of their day together. This is a confirmation of his continual love for her. Even though the lyrics are the same in both videos, two different stories are revealed.

From Flappers to Rappers

“The Great Gatsby” used a blend of contemporary music and 1920's jazz because they wanted to "weave" in music from different eras. When F. Scott Fitzgerald used jazz music he was criticized because it was said to be of the moment. So, it makes sense for the new Gatsby soundtrack to have modern day music as well. Even though the new soundtrack has modern day hip-hop songs, the songs still fit in with the mood of the movie. For example, in the song "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody", contemporary beats and elements from the jazz age are "weaved" together. The song fits in with the mood of the movie because it is played during a party scene.  Just like a party is lively and upbeat, so is the song. I think that the music was a successful rhetorical choice because it meshes well with the scenes in the movie. The original movie had modern music from that era so the new soundtrack should have modern music as well.

Process and Product

Typically when I start an essay I start the night before and I just write. But, this time I made an outline of everything that I was going to write about. Then, once I had my outline I started writing. I do not like to jump all around. I start with the introduction and work my way all the way down to the conclusion. I think that this process of using the outline helped me stay organized with my ideas. I was not as overwhelmed because I knew what I was going to talk about. Also, I actually like having required drafts due. By doing this I did not wait until the last minute to write the entire essay. I also like that I get feedback from you so that I know if I am on the right track. The writing process is much easier when I write a little bit at a time and then turn it in. If we did not have required drafts I might would have started about three days before it was due. I am glad that we had required drafts and writing workshops because it makes me feel more confident about my paper.

Crossfire

Notice and Focus + Ranking

Step 1: no debate, biased opinions, discredits each others shows, emotional argument, Jon Stewart wears a sweater while other men wear suits, democrat supporter wears American flag pin, Jon Stewart remains unbiased, Jon Stewart tells the men that there shows are "hurting America"

Step 2: bias opinions, Jon Stewart is unbiased,

Step 3: The bias opinions were very revealing because the men flat out stated who/what they supported. Jon Stewart's neutrality was interesting since the other men did not seem to care who knew who/what they supported. Jon Stewart's outfit was strange since the other men were in suits.


The Method:

Step 1: best x5, stop x5, confront x3, bad x2, hurting America x2, please x6

Step 2: bad, hurting, confronting, not honest, fail, painful, kills (politicians)

Step 3: love/hurt, funny/smart, good/boring

Step 4: The most important repetition is "hurting America". This repetition is Jon Stewart's interpretation of the two mens shows. He claims that their shows are just bad. The two mens jobs are to inform the people of the news so that American citizens will be better informed and make better choices. But the two men are biased and want people to know what they think and just go along with them. So, the two men are essentially trying to convince people that they are right.

When I first get an essay assignment I tend to procrastinate because I'm not a very good writer. I brainstorm my ideas by just typing. Since English isn't my strongest subject, I tend to pick the topic that is the easiest to write about. I work best in a quiet environment whether I am at home, the library, or a computer lab. If music is playing I can not focus. Normally I will proof-read my essays and then have someone else proof-read them as well. I probably go through about 3 drafts before my paper is complete. In high school I took AP English but did not do well on my essays. My biggest weakness when writing is starting the paper. It is hard for me to write the introductory paragraph. I also tend to get my point across quickly and then run out of things to say. Sometimes my high school teacher would tell me to write more and elaborate on my ideas, but by doing so I essentially ended up repeating myself so that my paper would be longer. The easiest part of a paper for me is probably the grammar. Normally I can structure my sentences well. In this class I hope to elaborate more and create well rounded papers.