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I agree with Matt that this was a relatable article. I really like how she addresses that she is aware most students think these first year courses are a waste of time and do not relate to their major. She makes some good points about this FYC, but I still do not think in my future career (training of horses) I will ever use this type of writing. I know she says writing is incorporated into many careers but for me personally, the most writing I have seen trainers do is about a description of a horse. Though my major does not really relate to these first year english classes, I still do not believe they are a waste of time. I just believe they don’t benefit my major. I do think however, they benefit me in a way of broadening my knowledge and improving my writing. Like she said, these courses are designed to help us in any writing situation, so maybe it may even help me when applying for a job or something like that. She also said that these courses should make writers critical thinkers. I think it may possibly also make us think critically outside of writing. This then would benefit everyone. I think these writing courses are good to know and create good skills. Also, people change careers all the time. It sounded like this author did not think she was going to be teaching one day, but she ended up doing that and using what she learned in her writing courses.
I feel like most of us can agree Gladstone’s form of writing is very appealing to us. She uses lots of visuals with typically less words on the page. This makes it easier for us to stay focus and interested. For me, I will never complain about reading Gladstone’s work. My only complaint which I don’t think is really her fault is I sometimes don’t understand what she is saying. There may be a speech bubble of an old quote or a uncommon word that throws me off. I can always see the big picture of her work but ready page to page, I sometimes get a little lost. Still though, not complaining! I really like her work. For example. the poem of page 59 threw me off a bit. It’s really not her fault though because it is not her words. Maybe she could have gone into more detail about what she was getting at, but maybe it is just me and others understand it.
Besides that, I really liked this piece. She went over all the different types of bias that reporters can have which is very interesting. Typically when I think of bias I think of someone preferring one side over another so they portray the news to support their side. While this is true, it gets more specific and deeper than that. I never knew about narrative bias, Access bias, fairness bias, etc.I love how she starts off this article. It is interesting and grabs my attention right away. By saying “I blame a rattlesnake for my career”, I don’t see how the reader would not want to keep reading and learn what she is talking about. I really like her style of writing. It makes it enjoyable for the reader. Like Morgan said it is reading a personal story which is different from what we have been reading this year. Though it was a personal story, it still seemed informative.
She uses a lot of descriptive detailing. I felt like I could picture it and feel like I was there as well. Once she said that the people around the snake were really fascinating her, I initially thought she must be an ethnographer.When I think of science writing, I like of something boring that would not interest me at all. This piece on the other hand makes science seem so much more interesting and relatable. I really like how she said the writing “best at expelling complicated things with maximum simplicity and maximum accuracy.” Science writing makes me think of the opposite. All the science pieces I have read are really hard to understand but she says that is not how it should be.
I love how she ends this piece bringing it back to the night in Arizona. This is something I picked up on from a different author and like to incorporate it into my writing as well. Overall, this piece was well written and enjoyable to read.
While Reading your response, I completely agree that the statement, “Most reporters are celebrated or condemned not because of the importance or truth of their story but according to whether their story suits the public’s mood,” caught my attention. When I read this, I made note on it because it holds a lot of truth. People tend to get mad when the news does not agree with their opinion. For example, if the news shows a candidate doing something very unprofessional, the people who support that candidate will say it is all fabricated and lies. All the reporter may have done was report but since it wad not what some people wanted to see they will get hated on for it.
When I saw this was by gladstone, I was very happy. I like her style of writing and the comic theme. It keeps my attention. I also agree she will throw in some humor here and there to lighten up the mood which is nice.
One of my other favorite parts of this reading was when she started talking about the news reported during hurricane Katrina. There was so terrible things that happened that I didn’t know about. Oh…wait… Those things didn’t happen! I was shocked when she said they didn’t happen but why should I be? The media lies, right? Well it was pretty upsetting to see the lies that the media made up about such sensitive topics. After reading that, it was clear this is the real the media gets a bad reputation.
Another line of this comic that grabbed my attention was “The press is a bunch of blackbirds on a wire. One bird will fly to another wire, and when it doesn’t get electrocuted, all the birds will fly to that other wire.” I love this analogy and it is also very true. Once one reporter does a report and doesn’t get hated on, the rest will follow.When I first opened up the article, my first impression was that it was going to be a long read. Then as I began to look at it, the font was a decent size and his writing style made it a lot easier to get through. I know a lot of professors hate when you use personal pronouns like you but I love it. I loved how he stays out by saying ” you may be wondering…” I love that because it feels more personal. Also right away he addresses his audience. I think this is very important because if you are not the intended audience it makes reading so much harder. After learning he is a teacher, I knew this would be informative but he would know how to present the information so students like us would understand.
What I really like about ethnography from what he has said is that it cannot follow a strict formula. He also goes on to give steps of the writing and says that it is incomplete and doesn’t have to be in that order. I like this because it keeps the writing a little more fun and not so strict. I always struggle to write essays with strict expectations because it takes away my personal writing touch and is boring. I also like how ethnography is about learning from experiences and not what you read in a textbook. Hands on experience is so much more fulfilling than to read a textbook. He also mentions how ethnographic writing is like personal narrative writing in some ways. You are reflecting without a hypothesis or conclusion which is my favorite kind of writing. Sometimes I like to be able to write without trying to prove something to my reader which is what ethnographic writing is about.
Ethnographic writing sounds very interesting ,but also very hard after reading this article. I feel like it is very hard to account for everyone’s perspective and to not offend anyone by making observations. Like in the author’s example of his first ethnographic project, he caught the student’s perspective but not the teacher and offended him. A lot goes into these papers and so much detail is necessary.
I really like how he worded his conclusion at the end. It reminds you the whole point of his article in a very understandable way. I agree wit Brittany that his paper could have been shorter, but I think this is a great article to read for someone who may want to go into this field. He gives you almost every aspect of what you need to know and what to expect.The second I clicked on the reading, I could tell this was not going to be one of my favorite pieces. I tried my best like you Alex to understand what Gee was saying but I was very confused for the most part. In one of the first sections called “Getting ready to read” it said to look up the term, mushfake and see what comes up. This led me to a website about Gee’s article that goes over the terms. This was a lot more helpful and helped me make sense to what Gee was saying. Though this helped me understand some key terms, I do not know how to apply them to my writing. I understand this is obviously a very educated, scholarly writer, but if he truly wants to help his readers to accomplish something, it has to make sense to his audience. If his audience is college students, he has failed for the most part seeing as the majority of us do not understand it. Maybe if his writing was more intriguing, more relevant examples, and even a bigger font, I would have been able to focus more. With it being single spaced, small text, overall a boring read, it was very hard to concentrate on what he was trying to say.
The only thing I really liked about this reading was the idea of discourse: ways of being in the world. The only issue is that I don’t know how I can now use this new knowledge of discourse and use it in the way I write. I feel like this could have been a great article if it was targeted more to a college student audience.Here is the website with the key terms for anyone who is interested: https://queerstrokes.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/gee-literacy-discourse-linguistics/
I liked the points that the author made in this piece, but I definitly agree it could have been written in a much more entertaining way. To me, it looked and sounded like a textbook which makes it harder to read. I had to take a little break from reading it so I could stay focused.Though it was not as intriguing as prior readings, it was very informative.
Besides the writing style, I did like what the article is about. I feel like most of us think of english class as strictly writing and use words to describe things, but photos can be very useful. I liked one point the author made about visual arguments. I see before and after photos all the time but I never thought of it as making a claim. They also talk about the similarities between visual and written arguments. They can be complex or simple. They showed an ad that used juxtaposition to make their position clear but they also show an ad that used irony to get their point across. Just like in writing, for visual pieces there are different techniques used.
My favorite line in this article was “The pictures help us see what the words say” on page 50. I am also a visual learner like Danielle so I completely agree with this statement. Sometimes I will read an article and have no clue what it is talking about. I will read it again slowly but it just doesn’t click in my head. That is because I need some kind of example of it to really understand it. It is so much easier to see something in order to do it yourself. For example, I bought myself a desk and had to put it together. It has written instructions as well as pictures to clarify it. I think that is a great idea because it clears up any confusion I may of had from the writing. This relates back to visual analogy that the author talked about.
