Month: March 2021

Week 7

Zenayda Bonilla

“The More Writing Process, the Better” by Jimmy Butts. 

According to the author, the bad idea behind this topic is that we are more focused on the process of following the steps of creating a “good” draft than writing itself. 

  1. Prewriting
  2. Drafting
  3. Editing
  4. Revising
  5. Publishing 

I agreed with Butts, I understand that those rules or steps exist to give structure to the writer. However, when an assignment is given, they have to make sure to follow those schemes and add a lot of pressure. Sometimes you spend time writing what you think will be a good product and then you realized that you did not follow the process. Therefore, Butts stated, “In other words, we have so fetishized the creative process that we’ve forgotten what we can actually create: words strung out into beautiful constellations.” (Paragraph 2, page 109).  

According to the author the process of keep on track following the steps, we are wasting a  valuable resource that can not be renewed, especially the revising step. Spending such energy in the wrong direction. The best we can do is just write and write “We cannot follow a writing process, because writing is messier than that.” (111). 

Nothing feels better to be free, and writing is not the exception here. When we don’t have rules that limit creativity we see writing no punishment or like going to the dentist albeit you enjoy writing. “Like any creative practice, it is easy to make writing a ponderous sort of artistic practice.” (112). One thing that I enjoyed so much in Unit One, was the I was alow to write something that belongs to me, or that was so familiar to me. I feel free to write, and I did not feel any pressure about it. 

According to the author the process of keep on track following the steps, we are wasting a  valuable resource that can not be renewed, especially the revising step. Spending such energy in the wrong direction. The best we can do is just write and write “We cannot follow a writing process, because writing is messier than that.” (111). 

The reason I chose this topic because I always struggle with writing. Therefore, I was looking for a tip or something that can help me to become a better writer. 

For the Unit 2 Essay assignment, I will be switching my discourse community to “Sanctuary”. In Unit One I used “cooperatives” which I enjoyed so much writing about that topic. I think this will be a continuation because this new discourse came to my life as a consequence of being part or worker-owner in the cooperative. The connection between both discourses also is the immigrant community, which I belong and I have the opportunity to serve as well. I hope with the new essay, I will reach people and inform them, nevertheless be able to create awareness when they heard the word “sanctuary” too.

Khatuna

Tylor Branson’s article about  “ FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION PREPARES STUNEDTS FOR ACADEMIC WRINTING” was my choice to think about why this is a bad idea. when I enrolled in to college I was told that composition writing was mandatory for everyone in the first year of college. I was quite surprised in the beginning, because my major was vastly different that writing a composition. I followed all the instructions and started to write a composition. I strongly agree that is crucial to know how to write and read on academic level, but I don’t agree that one year can make a student professional writer to write research papers on high level. In many case if student is lucking accurate spelling and grammar rules, they are prone to make tones of mistakes. The author himself believes that first year is not enough to prepare students for academic writing. It should start in the high school. I don’t know what kind system of learning is in the high school in the U.S.A., but I believe the students should start to write correctly before starting a college, which can prepare them for next step in the education. College bombards students with different academic subjects. Therefore, every student should be prepared to handle numerous assignments, which they will be facing from every subject.  Spelling and grammar issues are lingering with me. I still struggle with this, because English is not my mother tongue.  academic vocabulary   is important to be a good writer and truly understand the subjects. In conclusion to write efficiently requires more than one year of training to learn how to write on academic level. I believe that brain storming is vital to writing composition, otherwise nobody will able to write a sentence. Majority of students if they were trained in the high-school how to write compositions on scholar level, they would be more successful in college.  Academic writing requires academic vocabulary and it is not a basic general writing.

Week 7: Eliminating Preconceived Notions on Writing

Arianna Liang Zheng

You Can Learn To Write In General by Elizabeth Wardle

Elizabeth Wardle mentions that there is no such thing as writing in general since many studies of writing are all done in workplaces, in school, and social, and civic settings. And they all tell us that every new situation, audience, and purpose requires writers to learn to do and understand new possibilities and constraints for their writing. Although, some want to believe that it’s possible to write in general but the idea that we can all learn to “write in general” is not just a harmless myth. It’s a dangerous idea that needs to die.

The author says it’s a dangerous idea because it hurts students and frustrates teachers and employers. In addition, those writers who believe the idea of “write in general” are easily discouraged because they don’t know how to learn what they need to learn in new writing situations. A better idea of writing is that we all remember our own experiences of learning to write in different contexts and then apply that memory to our expectations of our own and others’ abilities. We should all give ourselves time to anticipate new writing situations, look at examples, identify the values and expectations of people in them, and give ourselves time to practice and learn what we need to know to write successfully in new situations, rather than believing in the idea of writing in general because there is no such thing as writing in general. 

I chose this reading because I was drawn to the title. The title made me want to know more about what writing in general is, and how to write in general. But as I read it, it exceeded my expectations because instead of teaching or telling how to write in general, it told people not to think about writing in general. After all, there is no way to write in general. I can’t think of any examples to counter this bad idea because I believe this is the first time I know what it means by writing in general. 

Unit 2 Essay Assignment

In my Unit 2 essay, I will be changing the discourse community, so it will not be a continuation of the topic I wrote about in my Unit 1 essay. The discourse community I chose to write about in my Unit 1 essay was about Cantonese as a whole, and I have decided to narrow it down by expressing one type of Cantonese, but instead of the entire Cantonese population, it will be mostly about the older generation, and I will be discussing a social group about one of my family members. The question I will discuss is about the influence of one dialect and Mandarin, which I feel is important in my discourse community because it affects everyone within the community and even outside the community.

Unit 2

Anthony D Cuomo

I think I am going to stay with my discourse community I wrote about in the unit 1 assignment. The discourse community I wrote about was a guild I joined in an MMO I play. I think a problem facing this discourse community is I believe often time the people you are talking to online are using personas and you can’t really tell if this is their true nature. For example I had this really cool guy that I would raid with who was very left leaning, he seemed to understand the problems that were plaguing POC all over the country. Then he got mad at us one night for wiping in a raid and dropped so many n bombs and homophobic remarks I lost count. His left leaning personality was a facade I guess to try to fit in. I think this is an issue for a lot of communities that people want to be a part of but the anonymity you have from video games really amplifies this I believe.

Week 7 Discussion

Anthony D Cuomo

The article I chose to write about is “You Can Learn to Write In General” by Elizabeth Wardle. The bad idea that is touched upon in this article is people are not able to write in general and that all writing is very particular. There is no such thing as writing in general because everything we write has a purpose to it. Say you were to sit down and just start writing about nothing in particular, you as the writer are going to have to pull ideas from different areas and styles of writing to make a coherent thought. Elizabeth Wardle believes that this myth that you can write in general is dangerous. She believes this because this idea is harmful to the students who are learning how to write and frustrating for the instructors because it limits the students on how they can write in different situations. The thought that writing in general is harmful because people think writing is easy until they are faced in a situation where they can not recall a writing style or are not able to write to the intended audience. I chose this piece because I do not feel like I am a particularly strong writer. My grammar at times is almost non existent, it is hard for me to formulate ideas and put them down on paper. English is the only language I speak and write and I swear the language I am speaking in my head is not the same language that gets written down. So I thought maybe this article can steer me in the write direction on how to start writing properly and think about who it is I am writing for. There are still some things that I must work on and read through again but I think this is a good step in the right direction.

Week 7: Eliminating Preconceived Notions on Writing (Yailene Rodriguez)

Yailene Rodriguez

The text I picked was “You Can Learn to Write in General” by Elizabeth Wardle, the bad idea mentioned was that one can write in general. What is meant by this is that there a way someone can write that doesn’t go towards an audience or purpose. Also meaning that there is a format that can be applied to every essay, report paper, and journal.
The author says this is a bad idea because this makes writers and students underestimate how hard writing actually is. This is also a bad idea because like the text mention writing a paper for each subject is different because the context in which the teacher wants it is different. The text also used examples as a person writes in a personal journal differently than when writing a report paper for work. It is different because language might be more formal than another and the audience in which you are writing is very different.
The reason why I picked this piece was that I thought I would learn a good basic tip that I could use for all the writing do. I quickly learned that the piece was explaining why it is not possible and why it can be harmful to think that there is. Tips that the text gave that can help combat this are to be open to learning new writing techniques and understand that not all writing is the same. Another tip the piece gave way to get examples of what you are going to write before writing, to be able to see the difference than in other writing. This is something that I always like to do that I didn’t realize was apart of making on how to write for specific things. When the teacher or professor would assign me a new writing assignment format that I have never done before, I would always ask for examples to be clear on how the writing should be. A good idea that would counteract this idea would be to make sure to think and the purpose and audience for the writing and compare to your different writing assignments.

The topic I will be writing about for the Unit 2 essay is gentrification, but specifically in my neighborhood. My neighborhood is the Lower East Side, I have lived here my whole life and although I already know gentrification was happening in this neighborhood, over the past few years it has gotten worse. I think this topic is a continuation of gentrification because in my Unit 1 essay I talked about how Bodegas have become gentrified and now I want to speak on how my neighborhood has become gentrified. Although the broad topic didn’t switch my discourse community changed from just Dominicans to everyone who lives in the Lower East Side. This is an important problem to my discourse community because it is becoming harder to live on the Lower East Side and we are being forced to leave due to rent.

Week 6 Genre

See Minute

I chose to read “How Coronavirus Stress May Scramble our Brains” by Laura Sanders. This article makes me think of when the time I test positive for Covid-19. I feel very stress about it and my brain keeps of thinking the worst situation I would be. In this article I like the author gives image to show when people’s brain felt unstressed and stressed. I really like the sentences that the author used is “Stress from the COVID-19 pandemic might influence decision making.” I totally agree with this, as an example when Covid-19 is not happen yet you have a store that you very like it and it is your dream, at that time you want to continue to operate, but since Covid is coming and still here for a long time and you have no more money to pay rents and all the overhead. So, Covid-19 makes people felt stress about it and change decision.

Week 4 Discourse community

See Minute

My discourse community I will be talking about is food lover. Which is a “foodie” in other word. I loves food so much when every time I am off and don’t need to go to work I love to stay home and cook for myself or hang out with my friend to eat outside. Every time when I eat something I take a picture and post online in order to discuss with my friend on the internet.

Week 5 Reflective Writing

See Minute

Reflection is an act of looking back in order to process experiences. Metacognition is a way of think about one’s thinking in order to grow.

I think reflective writing is  very helpful because it helps me to look back in time and makes me understand and learn things I have done over time. Therefore, it can make me grow by reflective writing.

In Unit One essay I believe I have used lots of reflective writing. Based on Unit One essay I talk about things that I experience before.

 

Bad Ideas About Writing

Amauris Frias

Bad Ideas About Writing, by the authors Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe, illustrate a group of literature format that is considered, not necessarily bad, but quite pointless and as adjunct methods. These “bad ideas” are the five-paragraph essays, computerized essay scoring (gamification), and genre, which the authors described as the “most maligned” used by writers. These ideas are considered bad because they are blocking progress in the current understandings of writing.

I selected the Bad Ideas About What Good Writing Is because as an English student I would like to significantly increase my methods and techniques in my writing. I love to use rhetoric in my writing and learn more about it. A quote from the text I strongly like describing rhetoric is, “A person can speak the truth simply by using words that refer to true things in the world. If she chooses not to use sentences filled with words that refer to true things in the world, then she is engaged in rhetoric. Rhetoric, in this view, is something you add on to sentences (such as metaphor) that decorates and obscures communication.”. This quote describes rhetoric as being an art (in my opinion) because it is the ability to describe things in your writing in-depth and with deeper connecting with the content. Rhetoric is like a way of persuading the public with “wise” words which can make a difference in a debate. Just like the text says, “It’s harder to lie in plain language, or that lies are more obvious when the language is less complicated. Therefore, we can trust plain language and should treat complicated language with suspicion.”

I good idea to counter this bad idea is to just let people write what comes from their heart. For example, not everyone is good at expressing their ideas and it is very difficult for them to have a “poetic” way of writing. I believe the most effective way of writing is from what comes from your heart instead of what comes from the task or “correct” format of writing because you can’t change what is in a person’s heart on how they express. I believe everyone has their own unique way of communicating. They just need practice.