The last post

I am interested in applying the skills I learned studying technical writing to any job I decide to take, but I am not sure about pursuing a technical writing career. My immediate plans including teaching English as a Foreign Language Language to Chinese students for the next year. I start working at the end of December. I also want to study Chinese. I will consider law school or grad school over the next year. 

If I decide I want to pursue a technical writing career, I will need to develop proficiency in programs that I struggle to work with: In Design, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator. Sometimes I struggle to work with technology, but I enjoy writing and communicating. The weakest aspect of my technical writing skills, aside from navigating technology, relates to my organizational skills. I will also have to improve, in regard to organization. 

Thank you to everyone in class and my groupmates. I have enjoyed working with you, and I have enjoyed conversing you over the blog posts and at school. Thank you for your calm competence and kindness. I am grateful to collaborate with a great group of people. 

Scholarly article #5

Before reading What Do Technical Communicators Need to Know about New Media by Anne Frances Wysocki, I did not know anything about ARGs. I googled “World without Oil,” and I am fascinated by the concept of an alternate reality game that encourages people to consider ways to live without depending on non-renewable energy. However, by using the computer, players will use a product that people made from petroleum. I read this scholarly article on my phone: my phone is made out of nonrenewable materials including crude oil. The creators of “World without Oil” gave people an effective way to add to the conversation about how the world can stop depending on oil. However, gamers depend on products made from oil to play the ARG.

I did not know about the Halo 2 ARG “I Love Bees” either. I enjoy playing the Halo series with my brother-- partly because of the soundtracks: the musical themes change when the player hits a new checkpoint or setting in the story. The people who promoted Halo 2 probably significantly benefited from offering gamers an ARG. 

When I read that the "I Love Bees" players visited payphones to interact with other players, I thought about how the designers of the application Pokémon Go created the game with the idea that players would have to interact with the game outside of the typical application. Players have to catch the Pokémon in various places, instead of just online. The people who created the game catered to a large audience by providing a new way for players to interact.

Anne Frances Wysocki suggests that game designers make games interactive intentionally; therefore, players may forget about immediate surroundings and get lost in the game (437). In Halo 4, the player’s perspective differs from earlier versions of Halo. Instead of the player looking at the back of the character’s head, the player views the screen through the character's helmet visor. The designers probably change the view intentionally to meet gamers’ expectations of a realistic experience. However, I struggle with Halo 4 more than other Halo versions because the view does not seem as user-friendly to me.

Likewise, readers have expectations about new-media interactions. Wysocki says, "audiences using computers regularly expect multimodality." People often expect videos alongside articles on websites. Gamers expect music and multiple user settings. Since a majority of people interact with the web, audiences demand more than when people started using the internet. The webtext project from class demonstrated that writers have to appeal to an audience with increased and increasing expectations.  

Scholarly Article #4

I read Cynthia Selfe’s article during a car ride to see/hear Joshua Bell--a famous violinist-- play Brahms with the LA Philharmonic. While reading the following quote, I thought of one of Joshua Bell’s narratives, which he shared in an interview:  “an individual’s relational positioning vis a vis their own and others’ literacy practices and values is not simply a detail within their narrative but, rather, a specific form of personal and political rhetorical agency,” (Selfe). I use Bell’s story to encourage students to calmly approach performance situations.

            Bell explains that, when he was a kid, he completely botched the beginning of his piece during a competition. After he messed up, he played with reckless abandon because he thought he lost. I tell my violin students this story before they perform, for the sake of helping cope with performance anxiety. I also use this story before I present information or perform because I think that giving the audience a sincere moment is more important than a flawless delivery. This is an example of how I use other peoples’ narratives politically and personally. I am including a link of Joshua Bell's narrative here. 

            Violinists shape narratives while they perform. Most violinists have heard the Mendelssohn violin concerto, but we all keep listening to it because every violinist plays it differently. Even though all of the notes are the same, violinists nuance phrases; therefore, every violinist plays differently because each violin student has had different life experience and different music-learning experience.

The same is true for responding to text. I will not have the same response to this article that my classmates will have because I have a different background from each classmate. Selfe says, about students, “Our own professional commitment… encourages us…as Bruce Horner has observed, to objectify students as interchangeable learning subjects, as if they come to us without context, without histories, without culture, and without their own personal narratives.” This quote reminds me of the symphony.

            Similar to a teacher and his or her students, symphony conductors generally do not know the background of the musicians in the symphony. However, similar to the teacher and students, the conductor does not need to know the musicians’ backgrounds. The musicians bring music-learning background to rehearsal. Likewise, students gain experience in the classroom and add to their personal and political narrative.

 To the left is a picture from 2010 of me and some violin friends outside of the Walt Disney Hall, which is where I saw Joshua Bell play with the LA philharmonic over Fall break. 

Both of my parents are music teachers and created a youth symphony called Zion Youth Symphony Orchestra. I was on a Zyso tour, during this picture. 

Scholarly Article #3

When I read the section about word order on page 291, in the article by Gunther Kress, I thought of the image to the left. This is a picture of a coffee vending machine, from my university's cafeteria, in Spain. The person that created this sign meant to say, "You choose how your day is going." Instead, the Spanish translator lost the meaning by saying, "you choose how is going your day." My classmate and I laughed, when we found this sentence. I have empathy because I am sure I make similar mistakes with Spanish grammar.

Although the author argues that images are less likely to have as much ambiguity as words do, images can have open-ended interpretation as well. I mean, look at the pistachios in this picture. Oh, wait, the pistachios are probably coffee beans. Without "coffee" underneath the image, I would probably guess wrong about the theme of this beverage dispenser. Notice the green around the words. Does that not seem pistachio or related?

People process images and words similarly. A document designer has just as much influence as a writer who intentionally uses word order to influence the readers' response. Gunter Kress demonstrates this idea in figure 13-3, with an example of proximity, Even though Kress shows readers can interpret images similar to interpreting words, he discredits document designers' work by not suggesting that images have signifiers too (287). For example, taken out of context, the picture on the coffee machine does not seem coffee related. Based on my experience with cookies and pistachios, I have a different perspective than a coffee-addict would have.

Gunter Kress, and the author of the first scholarly article, agree with Derrida's theory of words as signifiers (287). However, Gunter Kress presents a muddled argument by indirectly referencing ideas related to Derrida's deconstruction and later introducing the idea that authors of novels have more influence on meaning than the reader does (296). The readers have the most influence, from a Derrida perspective because meaning of the text depends on readers' word association. Kress also claims that new media has created a shift from the author having meaning to the reader controlling meaning. Instead, the reader has always had control of meaning. Saying otherwise discredits the ability of people to process information before new media.

New media requires both text and image. However, the author says,"The decline of the book has been seen as the decline of writing" (284).  I do not agree with that idea because there are a lot of writing outlets online. The fact that I am writing this blog post would suggest that the new technology has not killed writing. If anything, people write more because of new media.

Scholarly Article #2

Over the summer, my classmate, Chloe, and I missed our flight from Madrid to Atlanta; so, we booked a hotel. While we stayed in Madrid, she said she wanted to see the Museo del Prado. We searched the museum website and read that the museum offered free entry from 6:00-8:00. We walked through the museum together, but I wanted to see different paintings than she did.

In The Museum of Me, Ellen Ullman says that the internet has replaced the desire for people to go to art museums because people can search paintings online (645). However, my classmate and I used the internet as a supplement for visiting an art museum because we wanted to see original paintings. Ullman also explains that people individualize information through internet searches (641). I agree that the internet allows people to surround themselves with personalized information. However, even without internet, people would find a way to filter information. For instance, people can purposely read different books or choose not to fixate on the same paintings that someone else might.

This summer, I also visited the Art Institute of Chicago. I purposely went alone because I had specific paintings in mind to see. I picked up a map of the museum, and went straight to the painting based on The Picture of Dorian Gray film. I read The Picture of Dorian Gray because it is one of my closest friend’s favorite books. Now, it is one of my favorites too. I searched for information about the painting, after I visited the museum, and I emailed my friend that likes the book.

 I think human interaction is important. I agree with Ullman that the internet can enable people to hermit or be antisocial (640). However, the internet allows people to talk, instantaneously, to each other from long distances. There is also a lot of content online to explore, and I read Ellen Ullman’s article because I used the internet. 

Scholarly Article #1

To the left is a picture of a Neanderthal and me, socializing at the Archaeological Museum of Asturias, in Northern Spain.

 In this article, on page 26, Reid explains that Neanderthals used symbols through cave art to communicate. Now, people use words as symbols to express thought.  Reid shows the complexity of language by alluding to Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, on page 33.  Derrida’s theory suggests that words are subjective; and content changes, based on the reader’s reaction to a word.   

Dr. Jasmine, in his Critical Introduction to Literary Theory class at Dixie State, introduces Derrida's deconstruction by explaining that 

words can trigger different mental images. I will have a unique image for bat, perhaps based on the association I used when I learned the word bat.  Also, bat could mean an animal or baseball equipment.  

In terms of Derrida's concept of binary oppositions that Reid mentions, Dr. Jasmine used the example of a zombie.  A zombie would not exist without the opposites, or binary oppositions, death and life. People grasp the concept of a zombie because of the contrast of two words.  

Writers have influence, socially and technologically through rhetoric shared through New Media, or the internet.  Reid's article is an example of a response to the dialogue about scholarly writing that accumulates because of people's access to the web.  Reid says, “We can regulate many of the external sources of information, though obviously they are not entirely within our control either (35).” External sources of information can mean the sources people use to research. 

New Media creates dialogue among scholars that will clash with other scholars' associations with words.  Since language is fluid, based on a Deconstructionist perspective, writers have to make text as simple as possible to communicate something without suggesting underlying meaning. Deconstructionists, and I'm sure Reid, will tear the text apart to explain that the text means something different than what the words say because of the way people cognitively respond to those words.  However, New Media provides a way for people to interact with society and act based on rhetoric, whether or not a text is able to have a concrete meaning.  

Digital Literacy Autobiography

My family gave me a computer for Christmas, when I was a kid.  My mom says I was 3. Do I seem 3 years old in the picture?  I learned to navigate my computer, with incentive to play games such as: Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin, Land Before Time, and Franklin the Turtle.

My first experience with the internet involved listening to the sound of the dial-up connection.  At the time, the sound seemed high tech.  I am not sure exactly when I started using the internet. I remember that I had typing class in 7th grade, though. I used the internet to play games, after I finished my typing homework.

I signed up for Facebook when I was 14.  My mom told me how to sign up. I signed up for Twitter, in college. My friends helped me stop being a noob by helping me change the egg logo to my profile picture.

Supplementary online support is convenient because students can easily find instructions, course syllabi, and class notes on canvas.  Students can message each other about homework-related questions. One disadvantage might include additional coursework for students because teachers and students have an accessible means of communicating outside of class via structures such as canvas.  Another disadvantage is the added screen-time of using online support.  However, I can allocate time spent doing homework online, in order to avoid eyestrain from screen-time and stress from course work.