Responses to Class Texts

Response #1
Jim Porter "Why Technology Matters to Writing"

So going by Tuesday's consensus that design and text is one and the same, I approached Porter's article on use "as the human and machine working in concert" in a very matter-of-fact way, but one does not necessarily realize the actual significance of this technology until one is at the other end of the spectrum, not as a student where you are taught to use default, practical notions, but in an outside setting as I have encountered in the business side of writing. I completely relate to Porter because he legitimizes the present use of the computer as a writing tool by strongly advocating on behalf of professional writing and computer-based publishing, which strongly reflects the stage of my career in publishing, online publicity and strategic operations, including freelance writing, hence the focus throughout is “on publishing practices…on document design, and on technical and business writing in the workplace” (381). However, I disagree with his polarization of publishing practices and the actual process of composing, when he discusses how the pedagogy in teaching professional writing majors differs from that of first-year writing practices. This statement conditions the two as separate mediums and entities. Publishing is integral to the art of composing because audience, demographic and market is key in developing oneself as a brand and household name, so style and voice (as it relates to the barebones of writing) is extremely intuitive with page layout and editorial control, which are properties of publishing practices and processes. The rhetoric between the technologies involved with writing is what effectively exacerbates the product for distribution and delivery.

Secondly, book publishing and the writing industry as a whole is very impingent on the digital landscape; all the print mediums have either moved solely online or have exclusive companion editions available online because it is far more cost-effective and practical as far as actual margin space and accessibility (immediacy) is concerned. I have edited actual magazine layouts and articles via the web, so design and text become very functional in the "nature of composing" (384). The way a paragraph breaks alongside the margins of a page does not necessarily translate to a text box accurately, especially when audio, video and photos are concerned, which is the scenic/contextual view of writing that Porter is distinguishing from the formalist/textual perspective, where the level of the sentence and the paragraph is more central than web-based tools.

Furthermore, Porter emphasizes the importance of social networks, email conferencing and discussion groups/topics/threads as revolutionary because it highlights the computer as literacy technology. I disagree with Baron’s point that computers are just another change to aid the writing process and that “writing, language, and communication remain pretty much the same as before” (384). That is very untrue because computers have enabled a whole new language and discourse as virtual interfaces to facilitate messaging through the inclusion of html tags, abbreviations, codes, characters, symbols and key strokes.

In addition, Porter clarifies Baron’s misconstruing of the role and purpose of the computer because he views this as just another instrument—focused on physical and tangibility aspects of the writing tool—which again separates the publishing aspect from the composition (highlighting the tool as stand-alone—isolated—instead of the relationships between such and the writer). Porter counters this analogy with identifying the actual experience of the computer through the contexts of personal/professional/social and rhetorical networks that of which is established, maintained and streamlined through use as opposed to basic functionality that supports the diminutive view of a writing tool as object and accessory because of surface value, general authority and consensus.

Response #2
Anne Wysocki “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media”

Wysocki presents a very interesting premise of how the visual presentation of a page or screen is affected by standardized notions of genre that adhere to convention, tradition, generic sensibilities, western teachings and academia, including societal expectations and demands alongside to personal preoccupations and objectives. This becomes the focal point in web-based publishing as print publications cease; others attempt to ford the duplication costs by shrinking columns and sections at a time. As coverage is reduced drastically because of low demand, supply and stock is in turn downsized to remain available to mostly local and regional supporters. Therefore, online presentation becomes key in placing value “on the quick and efficient transmission of information” as a means of gaining memento in popular culture (125). With the emphasis on writing in the digital age, content and design become closely interrelated in page/screen display, so old world practices and strategies are challenged by new world approaches and techniques for interpreting movements/dialogue/data across space and canvas.

As the author goes on to discuss in depth, “visual arrangements can be analyzed in terms of the genre work they do” so certain designs of any given web page can suggest a niche audience/demographic as well as the custom goals in mind for the material at hand. This made me think of huffingtonpost.com and jezebel.com, because these websites have opposing methods of constructing argument for the reader by incorporating different layout strategies, typefaces, color schemes, including the geometric arrangement and appearance of media clips “to create a variable surface that can look playful or create a sense of…order” (132). Though both sites are very subtle with color, “Websites that want to give the appearance of being serious tend to use muted colors and a limited number” (132), their overall shape of text is on two opposite ends of the spectrum. HuffingtonPost resembles closely a newspaper because of its clean format and evenly toned surface: you are greeted on the front page/home screen with a big header for the lead story and then straight below are all the stories situated in text boxes with photos, horizontally and vertically in three columns, to fit that of a newspaper page layout. Jezebel, on the other hand, reads like a chat thread/interactive forum/discussion group because all the articles are organized directly below one another, narrowly shaped and on the middle of the screen. Drawing attention to the visual elements, which are aligned sporadically because the images vary by size, the text appears to be swallowed up by the design. With these clear distinctions in properties, one can determine which web platform is intended “to sell you something,” in this case Jezebel is selling the reader gossip and commercial fluff, “or present you with news” ergo HuffingtonPost.

Also, a few things to note when surfing the web and browsing through selections is to decide whether or not the design is obstructing the content? How successful is the decorative composition? Is it conducive in relaying the desired message and is the reader able to analyze the text without feeling overwhelmed by illustration, animation, video transition and sound?

Response #3
Craig Stroupe “Visualizing English: Recognizing the Hybrid Literacy of Visual and Verbal Authorship on the Web”

Stroupe is very didactic when it comes to dissecting the text/media dichotomy within the realm of English studies. I really appreciate the fact that he delves into the inner workings of the departmental studies’ bureaucracy as it pertains to doctrine and pedagogy for the promoted literacy of verbal and visual cultures—“Visualizing English.” Very few times does anyone ever take the time or courtesy to examine the politics behind English course work and course load, including the overall curriculum on campus; because there is an overwhelming amount of redundancy in genre and methodology, Craig artfully points to the core of these issues, which is “to recognize the mystified status of the privileged genres, discourses, and cultural narratives on which…inequalities rest” because of the challenging hierarchies between traditional and modernist modes of scholarly and teaching interests (609-10). This begs the question as to who is making such decisions in education, thus confirming a “problematic combination of verbal and nonverbal features in texts conceived for or in electronic environments” which indulges in the idea that such distinctions prove detrimental to reading, composing and teaching 608).

I completely disagree with this much voiced about separation of visual and verbal, because they are one and the same. Labeling such processes as a hybrid, which “can function as a singly intended, if double-voiced, rhetoric” feeds into the colonial, cosmopolitan ideology that bi-anythings are fetishized and eroticized objects (609); “others” that are in need of a counterpart to legitimize their purpose in society, so in order for visual and digital literacy to thrive, this culture must retreat to Western notions of thinking and “wisdom about words” for one to be considered high and the other low (610). This only serves to further connote that the head honchos of the English-based fields, which Strouple coins as the “prestigious center,” are dire conservatives, elitists and bigots, so race, class, and sex become negotiating factors in assuming the popular culture’s point of view that students are manifesting in the classrooms.

Response #4
Elaine Childs “Using Facebook As A Teaching Tool”

I love the pedagogical concept of using social networking programs and applications to make education relevant on both personal and professional levels because through these online platforms, one is able to generate and maintain an online persona/presence/profile while simultaneously learning how to carry out an effective and incredibly appropriate rhetoric between users and group members. Though there are millions of people on the web, nearly half of them are not aware of productively creating and managing social profiles and pages and/or how to cultivate and engage correctly with anonymous contacts over the web. There are so many trends and opportunities for those who are still resistant to this gradual transition from the classroom to the computer; many members of the younger generations are already carrying out their day-to-day activities on the web (they spend most of their time playing games, shopping and chatting) so why not hone in on this familiarity with technology and teach students that there is more functionality to the internet than simply commercial and frivolous use; Childs furthers this notion when she says “Many students have also told me that they check Facebook more often than their email and that they spend a lot of time there, so I expected an arena with a high degree of attendance.”

Furthermore, the job market is changing tremendously day in and out, so many of the incoming graduating students need to display self-motivation in knowing how to work independently with web tools, navigating confidently and comfortably through email, instant messaging, chats, discussion groups, twitter, fan pages and profiles, blogs, web coding and managing sites. Using Facebook as a teaching method is a perfect way to catalyze the employment rate because when you present yourself with such skills and services that are presently high in demand, one then markets himself as a brand and commodity. When employers are aware that they do not have to train you, because such implications suggest taking time out of their busy schedules to do so and time is money, than you are well on your way to outsourcing the fellow competition.

Response #5
Writing as Collaboration

As a writer myself, I feel slightly ambivalent to the idea of writing as a collaborative act, because then it comes down to means of credit and accomplishment. How can you pride yourself when you have to share the praise? I am very territorial with my work and ideas, even though technically there is not a very clear line concerning copyright and propriety around other people’s creative process and artifices, hence when can someone call something your own, when so many of us borrow from literature and the establish canon of writers/poets. Collaborative writing exacerbates this strenuous and tedious task of deciding what is original. However, even that is ironic because how many of us can reinvent the wheel when everything has already been paved for us by our Pulitzer Prize novelists and Poet Laureates?

Writers have immense egos so this is a difficult concept to grapple with. However, to answer the question posed by the authors in the intro of the article, I do concede that many more universities and curriculums are encouraging collaborative writing—
Undergraduate courses implement this pedagogy with physical presence and interaction in the classroom. I remember having to form groups in my science and composition classes to create and share content as a model for progressive rhetoric and revision. Graduate courses, on the other hand, encourage this collaborative literacy through engaging online in discussion with your peers; however, I disagree that “The collaborative wave, empowered by social networking communities that democratically construct and create knowledge, is today challenging the traditional notion of the solitary writer” because technically, the writer is isolated by its audience and co-authors online, since there is no tangible intimacy between one another except the impending computer screen and keyboard. The actual writer remains the isolated object whereas the figurative writing space becomes materialized before one’s eyes and accessible for pick and choose so “people can act illogically, capriciously, and in some instances viciously.”

Response #6
When the Cell phone Teaches Sex Education

One of the hovering fears about technology is the lack of control and censorship by third-parties outside of the individual, because the use of information is accessed on a one-on-one basis and crafted by solicitation. This can be especially dangerous with children and adolescents, because there are no parental controls on cell phones, unless one blocks messaging all together. Adults are unable to filter cell phone use as one can easily do with television and internet, which furthers Brooks’ central argument that “When it comes to the Internet, parents are advised to put blockers on their computer and keep it in a central place in the home. But kids can have access to this on their cellphones when they’re away from parental influence — and it can’t be controlled.” In addition, the anonymity and invisibility between sender and recipient is another frightful aspect of digitalization when concerning personal safety and the relaying of case-sensitive data.

As with most digital devices and services, overall technology and tutelage, pros and cons are always available for peer review and crowd scrutiny. On the positive side, it is wonderful that teens are being educated about their gender and sexual orientations, health and hygiene, particularly when there is a STD and AIDS epidemic, not to mention teen pregnancy is at its highest. Coming from a much older generation that prides itself in being semi-conservative and traditional, certain resources were not made available for my age group and sex was inevitably a taboo subject in the household. No one took time to counsel the surrounding youth of my school and neighborhood on the pressures and anxieties of puberty, so there were a lot of hormonal teenagers experimenting with each other, being passed around in a group of friends in an attempt to reconcile the changes in their bodies. The article brings up an excellent point about comprehensive sexual education. Yes, we had health classes but the knowledge provided was more of regurgitated text: academic definitions and biological processes but such things were not made relevant so they were abandoned outside of the classroom. Sex education seemed more of a chore in fulfilling the subject requirement than an actual conversation about real life situations and experiences, because the information was not made competent, as brilliantly stated by the news piece, so such innovations as the texting application can be helpful as long as it is done carefully and moderately, as with everything else in life.