link

If anyone wants to check out my portfolio the link is http://edwinner.weebly.com/

Thlog 9

It’s coming down to the final stretch of the quarter and this feels a little different from past quarters. As we finished up our last working project, I feel a little better about the coming days especially since there is no final for Writing 2.

This past week, we got to rebuild and peer review our WP3’s. I really am a big fan of these peer review sessions because I get a lot of feedback that’s crucial to my WP3 development. In addition to feedback, I also received suggestions for other possible genre transformations because I was still unsure of what to do originally. I ended up taking that suggestion and used it for my final WP3 so I am really grateful for that.

For my WP3, I made my scholarly article into a Wikihow article for a younger audience and first day lecture slides for my older audience. I ended up switching from my original proposal because I felt like both of my proposals did not fully grasp my article’s overall picture and was not obvious to the reader what I was trying to achieve. I also thought I would end up doing harder and unnecessary work. Again, I am really grateful for the peer review session because I ended up switching to genres that I had fun with. It was really challenging creating a Wikihow page but I still enjoyed the process. For almost every working project we are told to pick something that interests you because it will make things easier. I definitely saw this in WP3. Overall, I thought my WP3 turned out well I just wished we had a little more time.

Anyways, I really did enjoy WP3 as way to wrap things up the quarter – a quarter that’s rapidly ending. I can’t wait to develop our final portfolios and have some great writings.    

WP3

Summary: In Charles Bazerman’s article A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model, Bazerman introduces this connection between what a person reads and what he then writes and how that leads us to the conversational model. He believes that every reading should be looked as an ongoing conversation between the reader and writer. Bazerman also states that it is the teacher’s duty to implement techniques that helps students develop their writing and to make this connection clear. He emphasizes that students should have a deep understanding of what an author is trying to achieve and should know how to react to a reading as well as knowing how to evaluate a reading. Through techniques like paraphrasing, reading journals, and informal essays, Bazerman believes students can learn how to tap into their inner voice and become better writers. Bazerman concludes that if students are not taught the right skills teachers become “parrots of authority” and only offer students anecdotes of what a writer should look like rather than how to become one.

Younger Audience:

(link if its hard to read)

Older Audience: link 

Analysis: 

            For this assignment, I transformed Charles Bazerman’s article A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model into two different genres. Even though the new genres I made were completely different, they were actually very alike. The clear difference between the two was that one was for an older audience and the other was for a younger audience.

For my younger audience, I decided to construct a “Wikihow” article. From the Bazerman article, there was one sentence that stood out to me and served as my inspiration in creating this piece. Bazerman states, “By establishing the importance of the voice of the writer and the authority of personal perception, we have learned to give weight to what the student wants to say, to be patient with the complex process of writing, to offer sympathetic advice on how to rather than what not to, and to help the student discover the personal motivations to learn to write,” (Bazerman 576). Wikihow articles are all about the how to, like Bazerman suggests. Coming up through high school I feel like we are always told what not to do. With that in mind, I decided to target the age groups of high school students, specifically freshman.

There were many aspects from the Bazerman article that I could have included but I decided to focus on the “How to Respond to Reading” aspect part of the article. I did this because before any writing we should always focus on understanding the material first. I broke down my how to article into three parts - annotations, reading journals, and informal reaction essays. I did this because these three were the best to describe and show how to create them. These three parts were also in Bazerman’s main recommendations to teachers. He suggested that these techniques should be used to help students become better writers. For my moves in the genre transformation, I decided to use really calm and simple language. I was careful with the words I chose because I did not want to tell students what not to do. I made sure to address them in the second person point of view making it seem more personal. To keep the reader’s attention, I used simple pictures that were also a main convention in the “Wikihow” article genre. I feel like many students can find the article helpful. The topic I chose in my article will help students become better writers. I also feel like my article follows Bazerman’s main goal of wanting to help students.

For my older audience, I decided to transform Bazerman’s article into a college professors lecture slide - specifically the very first lecture. The main audience I decided to target undergraduate students in a writing course. For my inspiration in creating this piece, I looked at multiple professors’ first lecture slides and this is what I came up with. The first half of my slides were normal conventions that make up lecture slides on the first day. The slides may look plain but this was done on purpose. After looking at multiple power points from different professors, most were done with minimal effort and kept that same ‘plain’ look that I used. My first half of power point slides were these typical, normal slides. I named these slides as introduction, syllabus, and so on. I used these because these were the common slides I saw from previous professors. This also gave more a ‘classroom/lecture’ feel to the power point. The next half of power point slides were more content based slides from the Bazerman reading. Some slides that I used were “accurate understanding of prior comments”, “reacting to reading”, and “evaluating to reading.” These were direct concepts from the article Bazerman. I did my best to add talking points and not directly define them on the slide. I did this because a professor usually does not type out or read out from slides directly. This is why I kept my content on the slides shorter than longer.  

In Spaces for Writing by Losh and Alexander, they state, “Each writing situation has it owns demands…its own expectations…and its own sense of how writing is to be presented,” (Losh and Alexander, 9). Although each transformation had the same general idea, each demanded its own way of being presented. Thus, this lead to the creation of two different genres. This was because they each needed to reach a different audience. This can be seen first-handed by our WP3 and how we created one thing to another. Even though this specific WP required a more first-order approach to it, it cemented the idea of genre and wraps up the class nicely.

Pb3A

The article I chose to use was Charles Bazerman’s A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversation Model published by the National Council of Teachers of English in February 1980. The main point of the article stressed this idea that reading is just a conversation with the writer and that it goes both ways. According to Bazerman, when a reader or student responds to a text, he or she is participating and building off that conversation. As the text goes on, new material will shift the discussion. Bazerman goes on to say it’s best to prepare students and help them develop their writing by incorporating techniques to help them. One way to talk back in a text would be responding and writing on the margins. Other exercises he included were reading journals and informal reaction essays (sound familiar?). Each of these would create places for students to make connections, to argue with the writer, to relate to an idea, to react, to disagree, and to think about the meaning of the text. All three techniques and exercises can serve as tools for heightening student understanding.

              For an older audience, I was thinking of creating a lesson plan that involved these ideas. Im not sure if that counts for an older audience but I think it does, since you know teachers are from an older audience. A lesson plan comes to mind because I took a linguistics/education course last year where we had to write our own lesson plan with a group. We even took it the next step and presented to our section class. So I can use that as guide and take that ‘expert’ role. Some topics that I can include in the lesson plan are ‘Paraphrasing’, ‘Summary’ or I can go more technical and use something like ‘Ways to Enter the Conversation’ and ‘Analysis of Technique’. If the lesson plan doesn’t work out I can try making blog specifically for Bazerman’s idea with the intended audience being an up and coming teachers.

              For the younger audience, I was thinking of making a SparkNotes page that incorporated these ideas from the reading. Throughout middle school and even high school, I relied on SparkNotes so I'm confident that the younger audience still uses this resource. For me, I used it for other things not just novels and books so I feel like the Bazerman reading can still be applied here. I can include a breakdown of Bazerman’s reading and really condense the information or go another route. If the SparkNotes page turns out short, I can even include a sample students notes on the page/reading. This would take Bazerman’s ideas of paraphrasing and summarizing and actually apply them.

              Overall, I think that both of these ideas need a little tweaking before I can start on them. I decided to use the genres of lesson plans and SparkNote postings because the Bazerman reading revolved around teaching and students. At first, I was really intimidated by this working project but I think it’s not as bad as it seems. 

Thlog 8

After an eventful week, there were various things that stood out to me. First off, we watched some videos of a fella named Bob Ross. He was an old school painter who I thought was not going to be much help to us at all – but I was wrong. By watching and listening to Bob Ross explain his own painting moves, we learned how to apply those same explanations to many things like our final working project. Some things he explained were the reasons for including it in his artwork and what each piece or drawing meant to him. The next video we watched involved four Disney painters who – like Bob Ross – took the time to explain their own moves. Each individual painted the same tree but each finished with a completely different product because they took their very own path/approach to painting the tree. Like Bob Ross, they also explained their painting moves, provided their personal choices, and included any reasoning behind their methods.

Another thing that stood out to me was the frame theory. By zooming on one specific part of the classroom, we all looked at the same thing but with a different frame and a different point of view. Likewise photographers and even authors do the same thing. With framing, there can be aspects that are intentionally left out and others that are emphasized.

The Bob Ross videos, the Disney videos, and the frame theory will help us create our WP3. We can use the frame theory to emphasize one specific aspect in our actual genre creation. By using the painters as guides, we can explain the moves we used in our genre creation in the analysis part of the working project. Overall, the creativity that goes along with this WP is a pleasant change to what we have been doing all this time. I look forward to next class.  

thlog 7

Why is it week 8? Is it just me or is this quarter going by faster than usual. Even if it’s it true there was still a lot of valuable information thrown around in our one class this past week.

 To start things off, we were introduced to two helpful tips. One being “Know what you write” and the other being “Attack the page”. “Know what you write” to me sounds like the very first rule of writing. I really don’t think anyone completely b.s. a paper without having some knowledge or expertise. This helps us look at our writing through two different perspectives and such. I feel like knowing what you write goes farther with confidence. Most of my writings I have written thinking I was the worst writer in the world. But a while I got over and got the assignment done without inhibitions, maybe this plays into “know what you write.” Even though I haven’t tried “attacking my paper“ yet, I feel like this is very useful. In sports, a coach always preaches the “attacking” mentality almost all the time. Attacking a paper would probably boost our performance like an athlete.

After these tips, we jumped straight into business with our peer review. Like before, I always found this time extremely beneficial. I learned that I should focus more on the readings and incorporate them more. Long story short, I still have some work to do and I wouldn’t have known this if it weren’t for peer review.

It just looked at my calendar to make sure, it is week 8 of winter quarter. Our time may be ending but there’s still work to do. I look forward to class this week. 

Thlog 6

There were many little things that I found interesting and helpful from this past week. To start things off, I thought the finding a better word for “says” was really beneficial, especially for me. I’ve fallen victim to using “says” over the course of my entire writing career - I will be first to admit that. “Says” is very limited word. Anyone can “say” anything. Usually, I use that word when I am trying to use a quote in my paragraph and it sounds like “In Article A, author John Doe says…” This type of sentences I feel like I overused and only limited to what I was trying to say. There are many other words that can replace that word such as argues, illustrates, states, interrogates, counters and so on. By choosing a specific word rather than using “says” we can create a better understanding for the reader. Honestly, it just sounds better and adds variety.

Another really helpful tip was “Parallelism” or the similarity in a structure within a series. I have had my trouble with parallelism before but I found this writing tip extremely helpful. Having effective parallelism is easy on the eyes and simply helps the reader remain engaged. The biggest takeaway I got from the weekly tip was to keep the same tense all throughout the series. This is something I will lookout for in the future in my writing.  

As for this upcoming week our WP2 drafts will be due. I look forward to incorporating these tips into my assignment. I also look forward to the feedback from my fellow classmates.  

Pb2b

Five moves from the appendix:

1. Adding Metacommentary/Common used Transitions:

·       Navigating Genres - “In other words, Miller is saying that all genres matter because they shape our everyday lives.” (22). Dirk uses this to break down hard concepts and ideas. He simplifies what the original definition making it easier for the reader to understand.  

2. Signaling who’s saying what:

·       Navigating Genres – “Devitt points out, ‘Different grocery stores make for different grocery lists…Location is surely among the situational elements that lead to expected genres and adaptations of the particular situations.’ (Transferability 218)”. (23). Instead of following the old “Blah, blah, blah” – Author format, Dirk uses a different way to introduce the quote. Breaking from the norm keeps the reader interested and on their toes.

3. Capturing Authorial Action:

·       Navigating Genres –  “Carolyn Miller, a leading professor in the field of technical communication, argues…” (25). Dirk follows the authorial action structure, so he is able to cite an expert. Bringing in an expert gives his article more credibility by having a known name appear. Then we are more inclined to trust the reader and his arguments.

4. Introducing Standard Views:

·       Backpacks vs Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis – Laura Carrol starts her paragraph with, “Imagine the first day of class…at your university. The moment your professor walked in the room, you likely began analyzing her.” (56) This drops the reader into a relatable situation. It creates familiarity and allows the reader to feel comfortable making it an easy read.

5. Commonly Used Transitions:

·       Backpacks vs Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis – “Take, for example, a commercial for men’s deodorant that tells you that you’ll be irresistible to women if you use their product.” (57). Using examples and placing them into paragraphs helps, not only the reader, but the author as well. The author can elaborate and go more into depth by using examples. The reader also gets another understanding to build on.

Five moves I noticed:

1. The other Comma (Parenthesis):

·       Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking) – “In writing up the case (whoops, I have given you a clue), you may add…” (84). Janet Boyd uses parenthesis all throughout her article and even in the title. She mainly uses parenthesis when she goes off topic or wants to mention something unrelated. The extra information is beneficial to the reader since it would give us a better understanding on what she is trying to write.

2. The Ice Breaker:

·       Navigating Genres: “Q: What do you get when you rewind a country song? A: You get your wife back, your job back, your dog back…” Kerry Dirk starts off with humor. This creates a sense of casualness in the reading (breaks the ice). There can also be more humor here and there throughout the paper giving the reader something to look out for. 

3. The You

·       How to Read Like a Writer – “You are reading to learn about writing.” (108) “You could make yourself a list.” (109) Mike Bunn puts the situation on you where he gives you tips and instruction. It is direct and almost like a conversation that helps the reader improve.

4. The Cool Guy Font

·       How to Read Like a Writer – “And here is where we get to the most important part: Would you want to try this technique in your own writing?” (109). I don’t think Mike Bunn uses comic sans but he does use a different font from the rest of his writings. He does this to highlight the important things he tries to emphasize. By doing this, the reader will remember and retain the information.

5. The S-Bomb

·       Shitty First Drafts – “Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts.” (75). Annie Lamott uses the word ‘shitty’ to describe a really rough draft. She does this to give the reader some relaxed feeling. By using the word shitty, Lamott makes us think but not an academic way. This encourages our first order thinking while reading and understanding. 

Thlog

For this past week, we talked about a whole lot of moves. At first, I was just kind of lost and even asked myself, “How can a writer have a move?” I didn’t see that connection but after some thought and a helpful People’s Elbow video, I understand what the whole point of the class was. An author’s move can tell us many things like who is the targeted audience, the author’s motives and intentions, and any hidden meanings within the text. Over the course of our lives we have read several books and written so many papers. We may not see it, but those readings from long ago have probably shaped our writings. Basically what im trying to say is that we are probably using another author’s moves right now in our writings and we don’t even know it.

 This idea of moves carried over to the reading of Reading like a Writer. It was actually a pleasant read that helped me identify other people’s moves. By looking at his examples, we can develop and learn moves other writers and use and apply them to our own. We can create and start a new move all by ourselves.

 Overall, this past week opened my eyes to something bigger. I mentioned before about how I want to improve as a writer, I feel like understanding moves would be greatly beneficial to my growth as a writer. I can’t wait to see what moves come next class. 

Pb2A

I decided to do my PB2A on the scholarly article “Immortality and Boredom” by John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin of UC Riverside. After messing around with the library search, I put down some interesting words in the search bar and got an amazing result. Now, I don’t want to live forever nor do I have an obsession with eternal youth or something. But this was a topic that got my attention. By being engaged in the actual reading, I’ll probably do a better job analyzing it. By observing the rhetorical features and conventions, we can answer the questions posed and how concepts were operationalized.

First off, from a quick glance at the scholarly article, we can see some common conventions that can be seen in almost any academic article. There is a big bold title, an abstract, keywords, an introduction, long and multiple paragraphs, a conclusion, and several references. In the abstract and intro we get a sense of what the article will be about. The authors tone is scholarly as well as playful. From the last sentence of the intro the author throws in a short joke, “We hope that this exercise will be illuminating and we also dare to hope that it will not be entirely boring for the reader!” This actually made smile and made me want to keep reading, I was not expecting this especially from a scholarly article. The article itself was not solely on what immortality is and how to obtain it rather it was about what comes with it, which was boredom. From the last sentence the author includes irony that engages the audience and was executed nicely.

After reading a few pages of the article, we can see how the author structured his arguments and evidence to support his thoughts. He included both sides on why it would be boring to be immortal and why it would not be. This inclusion helped the audience essentially choose a side. His pros and cons can help us understand the topic clearly.

The author also posed several questions. For example, some of first questions he posed was, “What kinds of boredom can be seen through immortality?” “Is boredom the same for every immortal individual?” These were the types of questions that brought life to the article. The questions ultimately got the paper to be created and published. By questioning the claims of other philosophers and writers, the authors provided and added their own ideas to the bigger question of immortality. I thought the very important parts of the articles were these ideas of the authors. Where they looked at other works and reacted or responded to them. Their own thoughts have even caused me to wonder about something as abstract as immortality. Encouraging others to raise their own questions leads to new material being created and even published.

Overall, the scholarly article of Immortality and Boredom was an interesting genre. A genre that was quite different from the other types of works we looked at such as, comics, memes, reviews, and letters. From what I saw, there isn’t much separating the two aside from the obvious. Each one had a specific reason to reach an audience. To think, to persuade, or to entertain, are some of the concepts they had in common.

 Immortality and Boredom:

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=34&sid=31be01e9-e938-4c33-8207-bce879cb5a1a%40sessionmgr102&hid=106 

Thlog 4

Week 4 has come and gone really quickly. For this past week, there were many little things that I found especially helpful. One part I really liked was looking at writing and dissecting it, like dissecting a pig. By grabbing a paragraph, we looked for the most important parts of it. Writing basically came down to higher order issues (thesis, evidence, and analysis) and lower order issues (grammar, spelling, and sentences). These two might seem totally different but there are many things in between like tone, flow, and structure. Writing is made up of many things but these are just a few that came off the top of my head. Dissecting is a process much like writing. Another fun activity from last week was the “Murder!” rhetoric activity. In groups, we took on the role of police officers, coroners, and tenants. We assembled stories and pieces by identifying the conventions and genres that came along. We saw how something simple as word choice impacted who we thought wrote the piece. None of us may have been coroners or police officers but we still knew what a police report or a news report looked like. That is because of genre conventions and our growth of using and identifying them.

While it may not seem as much, we actually learned a whole lot of stuff through simple things. I can’t wait to see what’s next in class. 

Thlog 3

For week three, our one class mainly focused on our WP1. To start the class off we were given some tips on improving our writings. One tip was to not write in one sitting. I’ll be the first to admit that I have done most of my writings on one sitting and I think that might have contributed to my struggles and headaches especially in writing papers, assignments, and everything else. Taking my time and splitting my paper or writings to pieces makes things simpler and stress free almost. I did not do this for WP1 but I will for future assignments.

I really liked the concept of peer review. Our main goal last Wednesday was receive and give feedback. I felt liked it helped most if not all us understand the assignment more. Also, another set of eyes on our papers only benefits us. Criticism is a big part of the writing process. Hearing some good criticism/feedback is kind of a confidence booster. Even hearing some harsh feedback can lead to some better works and improvement. From what I was told, I know have a better understanding on my paper and what to write about. I wouldn’t have known this if it wasn’t for peer review and the art of criticism.

Anyways, there’s still more work to do on my WP1 and it’s only getting better from here. I look forward to the next class. 

Thlog 2

So it’s week two and that means thlog two. As a non-writer, I’m really starting to see the value of all these mini writings like this very own thlog. It builds me up for other assignments like the WP1 that is due pretty soon. I really had no clue what to write on at first. After hearing some wisdom from Z and everyone else, I now know what to write and how to start it. Most of my writing troubles come from not knowing what exactly to write about. Combining that and also not knowing how to flat out start the assignment always leads to me getting headaches. This time I hope it will be different but just in case I’ll keep some Advil close by.

In class earlier in the week, we were assigned the reading, “So What? Who Cares?” From what I can remember, the author showed us various ways to identify the reasoning behind our own writing and what its purpose it has to the reader. Answering who cares creates dramatic tension and makes the reader want to continue reading. By not answering the simple questions ‘so what?’ and ‘who cares?’ the reader will see the writing as irrelevant. The writer then loses credibility as well as the reader. The best way to maximize the effectiveness of our writing is by answering both of these questions not just one. The author also gave us templates that answer these questions. I can definitely see myself using these in some future assignments like the WP1, of course with some modifications.

I’m actually pleased with this class so far. I’ll be honest I thought this class would only be problems since you know it’s a writing class. Anyways, I can’t wait for what’s up during next week and continue this growth as a writer.

Pb1b

Technology has come a long way. With just a click of a button, one can randomly generate any genre through a plug’n’chug process. Whether it’s something complicated like a computer science research paper, a simple three panel comic, or a popular meme, technology probably has your back. In reality, the quote, “there’s an app for that” is an understatement. There are limitations when it comes to a genre generator but, each genre has a different set of conventions that creates the generator. Each difference, no matter how small in the conventions, contributes to the uniqueness of the generator that separates it from others.

The very first generator I examined was the scigen’s generating website that randomized computer science research papers. The hardest part of the generator might have been the part where I had to type out my name. After that, my very long name was attached to a complicated but impressive paper. I was able to see right off the bat that the title had been put in the center in bigger than usual lettering followed by the authors name (my name) underneath. Both of these features were meant to grab the reader’s attention with ease. As I continued to experiment with the website, I noticed that the format (abstract, table of contents, introduction, results, conclusion, references) rarely changed, meaning these were considered the fundamentals of these particular research papers. There are facts used throughout the paper making it even more scholarly. On top of the facts, there is at least one picture or diagram placed in the paper. This can be an example of visual literacy, which also increases the credibility while giving the readers more information. The aimed audience of this genre generator might be individuals who are skilled or at least familiar with computer science.

The second generator was the pandyland comic generator that randomized three different panels to make a story line comic involving Simon and Finlay. The creator of the generator had colorful eye catching scenes that made the reader give its undivided attention to it. The content itself involved short dirty jokes and aimless, out-of-nowhere expressions. After a short while, I noticed myself constantly clicking ‘generate’ so I can read comic after comic. The comics were quick. Some made me laugh more than others. This only made me realized that successful jokes were usually the ones with the 'out-of-nowhere' scenes and expressions. The intended audience for this genre generator are for individuals who want a quick laugh and nothing else. Being able to ‘generate’ constantly gives the reader more content and more laughter. The purpose of the generator is mainly entertainment. Visual literacy is also a factor in this genre, sometimes the facial expressions are funnier than the actual words. From the first box to the last, the author randomly creates drama and suspense that heightens the comic all together.

The final generator was the meme generator that randomized popular memes. Each meme followed the same structure and font followed by a witty joke or comment. The website even gave the option to allow personal customization such as uploading one’s own picture. The intended audience is anyone with access to the internet and social media. Most, if not all, of these memes can be found on websites like Facebook and Twitter giving anyone something to discuss and relate to. The purpose of the meme generator is for entertainment as well as creating trends that encourages online socialization.

A generator that I found was the rap name generator from myrapname.com. I couldn’t stop myself from trying it out so below are some of my rap names. The generator is somewhat random but there are many conventions. Each named involved multiple words (adjectives) added on to the original name. There were also some variations of former and current rappers. Most of these names are catchy and creative along with some slang incorporated into them. Anyone looking to jump into the rap scene might want to use this website. 

There are more generators out there on the internet with endless randomization and personalization. Every genre clearly has many conventions that make it up. A genre convention has no boundaries. Every time ‘generate’ is pressed the words might change but the conventions stay the same creating something unique. 

PB1A

Anything and everything can be broken down into a genre. One of the most influential and popular forms of drawings are comic strips. They have been a part of our culture since the late 1900’s and have continued to prosper onto today’s world. Comic strips, at the very least, are humorous illustrations set in sequences, often with captions and bubbles. A comic strip can be casually found in places like a newspaper, a magazine, and even online. Some other conventions of a comic strip include: the length (usually short and sweet), the point or punch-line, the intent to humor or charm, a subliminal message, several panels, a main character(s), an iconic font (comic sans) and so on.

            

Most of these conventions are used the way they are to grab the reader’s attention. With bright, colorful drawings to humorous puns and punch-lines, it almost impossible to overlook a comic strip. The author’s intention also plays an important role in the readers mind. The author might want the reader to think about an important social issue, spread a political message, or simple make one laugh his or her pants off. The role of conventions are endless when it comes to the funnies.

           

The targeted audience or reader of a common comic strip is anyone who has free time on their hands. The reader must have some knowledge of what the author is trying to portray. A comic strip is a boredom breaker. With the rise of technology and the internet, all one bored individual has to do is go through a quick search to get a quick laugh. Technology has made everything accessible, anyone with free time would certainly appreciate a comic strip.  

The purpose of comic strips can vary. They can entertain or stimulate. One thing that they will always do is ignite some reaction out of the reader whether it's laughter, confusion, or sometimes frustration. An author’s goal is to get everyone talking about his or her work because any publicity is good publicity. Also, every comic usually has a sequel or is part of a continuing series. This suggests that there is a large market and fandom for these comics. The author is writing while keeping in mind the needs of his fans and followers. Therefore, it’s the very people who read these comics that influence the content that the author produces. This benefits the product and gives people what they want, in a way, a new form of communication is created between the author and the reader.

Lastly, the tone of a comic strip is usually a joyous and carefree tone. Many of the comic strips first debuted on the Sunday’s newspapers, which means they are aimed towards people who simply wanted to relax. A comic strip is very easy to read and follow meaning they are used as relief from weekly stress.

Comic strips have become a genre of their own thanks to the stories they tell as well as the cheesy jokes used that make us laugh. The conventions that come along only strengthen genre of comic strips.

Thlog 1

It’s been an interesting first week of winter quarter especially with two days of Writing 2 with Zack and the rest of the crew. Our very first assignment was the ‘About Me’ blog and to be honest I had no clue what to write about. It looked like a harmless assignment at first but got harder and harder as I typed on. As a stat major, writing has never been my best subject and I never liked writing in general. But for this class and this assignment, I decided to let that way of thinking out of mind. I wrote what came to mind and found out how easily it was to finish the assignment. As I’m writing this, one reading that comes to mind is Elbow’s article on first and second order thinking. To finish my last assignment I used mostly first order thinking or what Elbow describes as, “intuitive and creative,” thinking. It certainly got the job/assignment done. I think it helps to think of writing as finding the right balance between ‘rules’ and ‘fabulousness’ or first order versus second order. From the readings and one week’s worth of classes alone, I have seen the importance of first and second order thinking in my own works.

Also from one week of Writing 2, I have a deeper understanding of the word ‘genre’. One example that made it very clear, were the ransom notes Kerry Dirk described. Each note had the same message but in a different tone that really didn’t fit the situation except for one. All three notes were part of the same genre but all had completely different meanings and interpretations. I’m barely scratching the surface when it comes to the word ‘genre’ but I know by the end of this quarter I will have better idea and beyond. What a week it has been, I look forward to learning more about genre next week. 

About Me

Hi, my name is Edwin Raya and I’m a rookie blogger. I’m not really sure what goes into one of these but I’ll try to give it my best. I’m currently in my second year as a Statistics Major. I have lived all of my life in Sacramento, California before coming to UCSB. Transitioning to Santa Barbara wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Every friend I have made in the past year has played a role in my life that I just can’t get over. I have a wonderful family at home as well as an awesome family here at UCSB. They are the ones who keep me motivated and on track with my studies. The ones who have shaped me into the person I am today. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to get up in the morning. When it comes to this class, I look forward to the challenges of writing as well as getting to know my fellow peers.  

Ever since elementary school, my favorite classes have revolved around the world of mathematics. That same passion I saw as early as in my childhood followed me throughout high school and has led to where I am today. I simply love math, inside and out. I don’t really want to get into any specifics about my future but all I can say is that I’m thinking big. With the help of my friends and some hard work, I will attain my goals. My experiences brought on by my school have undoubtedly shaped my visions. My friends, coworkers, and classmates are all part of the environment that is molding me into who I am supposed to become and ultimately preparing me to be a contributor to the rest of the world.

If you have made it this far, I’d like to thank you for taking your time to read my weird blog.