advice to future students!

My advice for ENGL 254 students would be:

• Bartholomae sucks, so don't stress too much about that reading. The readings get easier and the content is actually applicable.
• Don't drop the class after reading Bartholomae. This class is actually really great. and Zach is funny, sooooooooo.
• Take the opportunity to get to know the other students in your class because it makes dissuasions go way less awkwardly (and group work).
• When you get the chance to pick your topics for papers pick something that really interests you so that the research becomes less about homework and more about fun.
• Remember that you have 3 days to skip.

Blogging in the Classroom

"Given the fact that blogging exposes students to a wider audience for their writing, we can hypothesize that students might attend more carefully to online writing opportunities (as opposed to papers submit- ted to an instructor). In the case of the writing prompts that ask students to read and reflect upon specific texts, it might be expected that students will read these texts more carefully when they know their interpretations will be online and therefore accountable to a larger audience." - Blogging in the Classroom

"Grades are of course a superficial way of showing students what we value. Direct and immediate descriptive feedback does more than a single letter or number can." - A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs

I thought the readings for this week were really interesting. I really liked this quote from Blogging in the classroom because I think it proves a very good point: if our work is to but viewed by not only our teacher but the whole class, then I think it subconsciously makes students put more effort into their work. On the other hand, I think that having assignment for other students to view can cause some trouble with "borrowing" ideas if a student just wants to get an assignment done. 

My second quote I thought brought up an interesting point. We talked about this in class, but I think it is worth mentioning again that it is so hard to grade students based on if work is considered "good". I do like the idea, though, of how professors comment back on the blogs and provide feedback that way rather than just assigning a letter grade. I value this interaction and feedback more than nothing at all. 

Blogging trends

There are many different trends within blogging, and I feel that one of the biggest trends you will see are personal blogging and informative blogging. Personal blogging is more a collection of experiences and personal stories while informative blogs are tutorials on DIY projects or information being displayed.

I think one interesting "new" trend to blogging is the idea of Tumblr. I think this takes blogging to a new level. With the option of following people and having a news feed it has sort of merged together traditional blogs with popular online social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. I think that this is interesting because some of the blogs that I look at on Tumblr are just a collection of reposts and pictures and nothing really of their own writing.

I think the way blogs are evolving and changing into more of a public "friendship" site is interesting and it also seems to be taking off pretty well. It will be interesting to see what other blog sites start to follow Tumblr's footsteps. Times are changing and blogs are too.

Messy Rhetoric: Identity Performance as Rhetorical Agency in Online Public Forums

"Identity performances are understood to be a central part of the discursive practice of everyday life. As Charles Antaki and Sue Widdicombe explain, ‘‘Membership of a category is ascribed (and rejected), avowed (and disavowed), displayed (and ignored) in local places and at certain times, and it does these things as part of the interactional work that constitutes people’s lives’’. (Grabill and Pigg, pg 102)

I chose this quote because I thought this was very interesting to think about. I feel like this fits in to the discussion about Myspace and Facebook and all of the ways we are conditioned to prove our selves to others. For example, a person might put thought into their status updates (or it is assumed they do) simply for the fact that they want a certain person or group of people to "like" their status or think its funny or whatever that may be. Social media keeps making it easier and easier to prop yourself up, make yourself look better than you are, and to more importantly, make the people who don't know you personally wish they did. In today's world, there are many people who cannot go without checking their phones and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever it may be, at least every 15 minutes (I'm not saying that I do not fit into this category). But where is their identity? I don't know, but it's definitely interesting to think about. 

Myspace vs. Facebok

I thought that this article was very interesting because I haven't even thought about my Myspace in ages. As much as it was interesting, I also thought it was strange to read because I felt like the article was analyzing my "middle school self", and I started to see where I fit in with her assumptions. Where I live: "i like, Chad" is what gets me the most...gosh, what was i thinking!? ;)
One part that I thought was most interesting that she brought up was how parents were not as approving of Myspace and how a lot of children were not aloud to have a Myspace. I think this kind of thinking is different now with Facebook. I know many of my friends parents as well as my own mother (and grandparents!) have Facebook. Although in my family's case it is not for communication but simply for entertainment. Although, I know many "older" parents who do use Facebook to stay in touch with old friends and family members.

Freaks and Queers

"I learned early that words could bruise a body". - Clare

Retard.
At one point in history, calling someone mentally retarded was stickily a medical diagnosis. Now, it is thrown around in middle school hallways, jokes at parties, and has developed as a term that separates one person from another while not within its original origins.
You're so retarded translates into: "that was really dumb of you to say". Its a denotation of intelligence and separates someone by calling them into a different group.
Not that any kind of derogatory word is ever okay to call someone, but retard is one word that I can not tolerate.

USA Haters

UNL Haters is a website that specifically looks at tweets and Facebook posts said by UNL students that are considered racist, homophobic, and sexist. They are submitted through screen shots by other students and placed on this website to "expose tweets from haters, especially those which were deleted".
NoHomophobes.com is a website that in real time posts tweets that have the words, "no homo", "faggot", "so gay", and "dyke". The sites purpose is to be a "social mirror" that brings light to the fact that we use these words not always to be hurtful but to show how often we do it without thinking what we're saying.
After looking into both of these sites it is clear that both sites are not trying to bring out bashing on others, but are merely trying to shed light on a situation that is tolerated. On the UNL Haters website they state, "not everyone featured are haters, many are simply ignorant". I believe that both websites are doing their job as providing our society with a "social mirror", as NoHomophobes.com described it.
I picked the 10 most resent post from both sites and compiled my research from those. From the information from UNL Haters, their tweets and posts range a lot in time difference. Their most recent post was added a month a go and the one before that was added 2 months ago. The 10th post was from 3 moths ago. Out of these 10 posts 60% of them were tagged racist, 30% were tagged homophobic, and 10% was tagged xenophobic. 50% of the 10 were written by the same person, as well as 30% were written by another person. Although it is not known who submits these tweets to the website, one can assume there is at least a few "members" who monitor tweets and send in those which are offensive.
NoHomophobes.com is different that UNL haters in the fact that it is a live feed, constantly streaming in tweets the moment they are submitted to the internet and flagged if they contain any of the words mentioned above. From the beginning of today until I took this screen shot there had been this many recordings of these phrases.

Out of those tweets, I chose the 10 most recent tweets. Out of the 10 tweets 60% had "faggot" and 40% had "no homo". 100% of the sampled tweets did not use the language in the true since of the word. Because this is not monitored by a specific person who submits every tweet, most likely the people who are on this website don't even know that their tweets are being placed here. Not only that, but the sample size isn't limited to a small community, such as UNL, and is more broad and does not single anyone out.

Fan Culture

Gee suggests that there is a certain "identity kit" that defines a particular discourse as "a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group of 'social network". There are many discourses one can be apart of and one of those that I am going to talk about today is the discourse of fan culture and fan art. 

Fan artists create pieces of art based on their favorite characters using many different mediums. Fan artists use anything from painting, photography, literature, and photoshop to interpret and create their own ideas about a particular fandom. The artists, while maintaing their own ideas and understandings of their art still follow and stay within the "guidelines" of their discourse and fandom. 

Lothian states, "writings should be understood as a mode of performance rather than as literary practice, that fan culture is better understood through the acts of writing than by way of completed texts". I think that this is a good look at how this discourse of fan art choses to be seen. They pride themselves in the fact that they are anonymous and that they have the freedom to chose how they interpret a certain piece and that they are "judged" based on how they execute what they are trying to get across as their idea. 

The Need for a Better America - Online Discourse Community Analysis

The Need for a Better America

            When I heard about what had happened in Newtown, CT. on December 16, 2012 my heart broke. 26 people died that day, 20 of them children. Not only did this hit home because I want to be an elementary teacher one day, but I just thought of my niece and nephews and the innocent families. After this incident it seemed that American rose up and came together by supporting the families by donating money, sending letters of condolences, and those who are fighting for tighter gun control laws to be put in place.

I chose to look into #Sandyhook on Twitter because I wanted to see who was saying what and what points they were trying to get across. I looked at 40 random tweets on Twitter looking up “#Sandyhook”. I chose 40 because I thought that it would be an appropriate sample of tweets and would provide an accurate depiction of the people tweeting so that I am able to generalize all of the tweets attached to Sandy Hook. It was my intentions to randomly select tweets from the day of the tragedy, but to my surprise there have been far too many tweets for me to look up what was said on the day that this had happened, so I decided I would pick tweets that were tweeted in the range from just a couple of minutes ago to a few days ago. I thought this would be interesting to look about because I thought it would provide a more broad range of attitudes and increase the different categories.

I had expected the tweets to be focused on the families and the grievances that were still taking place, but the top four categories that I came up with were related with the Sandy Hook hoax, gun control/NRA, and supporting the community.  The percentages are: 

• ·      Sandy Hook hoax video: 60%

o   Believing the hoax video: 79%

o   Not believing the hoax video: 21%

• ·      Supporting the community: 28% 

• ·      Gun control/NRA: 12% 

 I had never seen the supposed “hoax” video over the Sandy Hook shooting nor did I hear about it, so this shocked me when I was looking over my sample. The direction of my research shifted after gathering this information. After seeing the overwhelmingly belief in the hoax, I decided to take a look at the video, “The Sandy Hook Shooting – Fully Exposed”, constructed by a YouTube account by the name of, ThinkOutsideTheTv. Snopes.com is a website that is devoted to uncovering the truth about urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other stories of questionable origin. Snopes.com is a well-known resource for validating and debunking such stories. According the Snopes.com the purpose of the hoax video is to reveal that “the Sandy Hook massacre didn’t happen and the people we see being interviewed are “crisis actors” hired to play the role of parents, etc., or it did happen but was the work of the government who used Lanza to carry out the massacre. The purpose was to move the anti-gun movement forward”. After critiquing and researching all that was brought up in this video, Snopes.com has concluded that the conspiracy video is false.

This isn’t the first time that America has come up with a conspiracy behind what the media tells us. It happens with almost every major American event. The moon landing, J.F.K., Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and many more this has been going on for decades. In Michael Shermer’s article, Why People Believe in Conspiracies, he explains how these theorists come up with such ideas. Shermer (2009) states, “Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias (which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) and the hindsight bias (which tailors after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition”. I think sometimes people get angry in these situations and keep looking for answers and can’t accept the fact that some people are just sick and wrong. A lot of the blame has been put on the government because it’s something still around that we can put the blame on, rather than the shooter who shot himself at the scene.

60% of the tweets I collected were about the hoax video, 79% of those believed what they heard in the video, stating things like:

I think it is really interesting that people are taking what ThinkOutsideTheTv’s video is saying for fact even though they have not proved his arguments sound themselves. Every point that was made in the video has been proven false by other sources, but this is not what is getting the attention. The people who are watching this video don’t really know what the facts are but they are jumping on the bandwagon and acting like they do, completely supporting everything that is stated in this video while prompting their friends and everyone who is “following” them on Twitter to jump on the bandwagon too.

As a culture we are driven by hoax and scandals. Not only has American questioned tragedies before this, but we also thrive for it. Take for example gossip magazines, they witness a couple talking, snap some pictures of it, and the next day have constructed a completely false story with little to no facts stating that one partner hit the other and are in the middle of a nasty divorce. Us as consumers read this and completely take this magazine’s word for it. And as a result start tweeting and gossiping about the scandal all the while the couple is more than okay and just had a disagreement over something little. Why does this fascinate us? Maybe because now, it makes us feel better about our own relationship.

I believe this is similar to the construction of conspiracy theories. Why is there a need for them, and why do people believe them so easily? Could it be so that American seems safer? If we deny that someone actually has the nerve to walk into an elementary school full of innocent people and children to kill them, then that means this was a planned event and that random people like Lanza don’t really exist. I guess the world seems safer in that aspect. 

works cited:

Shermer, Michael. "Why People Believe in Conspiracies: Scientific American." Scientific American 10 

          Sept. 2009: n. pag. Scientific American. Scientific America, Inc. Web. 02 Feb. 2013.

Mikkelson, Barbara, and David P. Mikkelson. "Sandy Hook Exposed." Snopes.com: Sandy Hook Hoax Video. 

         Urban Legends Reference Pages, 19 Jan. 2013. Web. 02 Feb. 2013.

Cochran

The internet is a powerful thing and on one hand it creates ways for people to fight and stand up for movements that they believe in more than they ever could, while on the same hand it helps us to pat ourselves on the back for "contributing" to something worth while. I personally thought that it was really interesting when we talked in class about someone can feel so involved in a movement, while not doing anything at all. I see it all the time on Facebook, one of my friends has liked a photo now claiming to have made a difference by simply clicking a button. First what runs through my head is, don't these people understand that literally nothing is going to happen by them liking a picture (except for me shamelessly judging them)? But this isn't just on Facebook, its all over the web. Signing petitions that might never get sent off to the right person and if it does they may never see it.
Do you think that the reason so many people do this is because we want to feel involved and to make ourselves seem better than we really are to ourselves and others? Or is it because society has placed this stigma that youths are naïve and can't make a difference at such a young age, so they do what they can while falling into that category, even if that means simply "liking" a photo. I wouldn't be surprised if even just a small amount of people have believed that lie.

yep.

Project 1-rough draft

THIS IS A ROUGH ROUGH ROUGH ROUGH DRAFT- just warning you. I just kind of wrote little paragraphs of what I am wanting to include possibly. Still trying to figure out the flow and what exactly I'm going to say. 

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When I heard about what had happened in Newtown, CT. on December 16, 2012 my heart broke. 28 people died that day, 18 of them being children. Not only did this hit home because I want to be an elementary teacher one day, but I just thought of my niece and nephews and the innocent families. I chose to look into #Sandyhook on Twitter because I wanted to see who was saying what, what points they were trying to get across or if this was a “24 hour news” type of situation.

I looked at 40 random tweets on Twitter looking up “#Sandyhook”. I chose 40 because I thought that it would be an appropriate sample of tweets and am using them to generalize all of the tweets attached to Sandy Hook. To my surprise there have been far too many tweets for me to look up what was said on the day that this had happened, so I picked tweets that were tweeted in the range from just a couple of minutes ago to a few days ago.

I had expected the tweets to be focused on the families and the grievances that were still taking place, but out of these tweets the most common hashtag that went along with the “#sandyhook” was #guncontrol, #conspiracy, and #fakesandyhook. I had never seen the supposed “conspiracy” video over the Sandy Hook shooting nor did I hear about it, so this shocked me when I was looking over my sample. The most linked media is the Sandy Hook conspiracy video attached with some version of “I can’t believe the government would do this just for stricter gun control. Watch this video and see for yourself”. Out of the 40 tweets that I randomly selected only five of them did not have to do with the conspiracy video. I think sometimes people get angry in these situations and keep looking for answers and can’t accept the fact that some people are just sick and wrong. A lot of the blame has been put on the government because its something still around that we can put the blame on, rather than the shooter who shot himself at the scene.

Although I am not for sure, it seems that more and more conspiracy theorist are joining in the conversation and are the backbone to this movement. It seems to be getting a lot of support from uneducated

All I can really relate this back to is the KONY 2012 video that was launched by an organization called Invisible Children. The days following the launch of this video to make Kony famous, Invisible Children did a really good job of convincing people that they needed to join this movement and so people did. It was a video that was shared to thousands of people and was backed up by them too. After a week or so however, the support for KONY 2012 declined significantly. The moment someone pointed out some flaws in their research was the same moment that everyone who had quickly stood up for what this organization stood for backed down. These people who chose to follow and un-follow the Kony movement so quickly are the ones who didn’t think for them and just did what seemed “right” or the popular thing to do. I feel like that is what people are doing with this video that has come out. They don’t really know what the facts are but they are jumping on the bandwagon and acting like they do.

I noticed that over half of the selected tweets have mentioned “@andersoncooper” in them, and I am very interested in looking more into that and seeing if he has responded to anyone and what the conversation looks like.

I’m not too sure what my two sources are going to be yet. I looked up articles that dealt with conspiracy theories and school shootings but didn’t find anything that looked promising. So I am still working on that part. Because I wasn’t anticipating this to be so focused around the conspiracy theory, I kind of feel like I’m at a loss and not really sure what I’m doing. 

Identity Kit

In the articles What Is Literacy and Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics by James Paul Gee, Gee defines discourse as "a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group of 'social network". Gee elaborates that discourses are intertwined with a term he coined an "identity kit".
One identity kit that I do no belong to is the sorority/greek world.

Now, don't get me wrong. A lot of my good friends are a part of sororities and this video is a bit of an exaggeration, but regardless this is definitely not my type of lifestyle. Not even close. Girls and guys who are involved with greek life can be easily defined and pointed out by the characteristics that Gee mentions. Gee says that this identity kit isn't just about the language a person or group uses, but that they are "forms of life which integrate words, actions, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes." These things such as clothes with printed greek letters on them define who is in and who is out. Only the elite, chose ones (who decided to rush), are a part of this Discourse. There are expectations that are to be held up by the pledge classes and a set of standards and rules that they have to meet (grades, philanthropy work, and dues). 

Conflicting communities

I would say that my two conflicting communities are my family and my close friends. It is really hard for my parents to understand that I am in college now and that I have more freedom, especially because I am not living at home anymore. This conflicts because I am trying to gain my independence and spend time with friends on the weekends and go out and have a good times but my parents are still expecting me to come home on the weekends and my mother is always calling before she goes to bed to (not so much) subtly hint at me that its time for bed.

Another example of how these two communities have overlapped is when I was in middle school and high school the "cool" thing to do was curse all the time. When I was with my friends we would drop inappropriate words every chance we got, but the moment I was around my parents or family members I would have to censor myself. Once I had friends over at my house and I didn't realize that my parents were home at the time and they overheard us cursing and at that moment my parents were so appalled that their daughter who, they thought, never cursed was indeed doing that behind their back. 

Bartholomae's Inventing the University

"When students are writing for a teacher, writing becomes more problematic than it is for the students who are describing baseball to a Martian. The students, in effect, have to assume privilege without having any. And since students assume privilege by locating themselves within the discourse of a particular community-within a set of specifically acceptable gestures and commonplaces-learning, at least as it is defined in the liberal arts curriculum, becomes more a matter of imitation or parody than a matter of invention and discovery."

- David Bartholomae

Although this was a hard article for me to comprehend and I may be completely wrong, what I got out of this article was that Bartholomae is more concerned with the creativity of a particular students work rather than the grammatical aspect. When a student is so focused on getting a grade by the work that he or she presents to their professor, they are more focused on creating fewer errors in their paper rather than making sure that they are involved with the audience and making sure they write in a way that shows their voice. When a person is not so concerned with how a professor or a University is going to be grading an essay, the student doesn't feel the need to act like they are trying to impress and then be judged by the reader on their performance, instead they are taking on the position of someone with authority and intelligence in the subject, rather than taking on the voice of a parent or teacher.