Please Don't Call Me

Though Chapter 8: Writing on Screen in Baron's A Better Pencil had may great things to say, the point that caught the most of my attention would have to be when he wrote about Rudy Giuliana, a 2008 presidential candidate. This politician answered his wife's phone call-- while he was giving a speech to the NRA. Might sound strange, but Baron writes that "what was most amusing about the incident was just how ordinary it seemed to everyone in the audience" (137). Giuliana was not ridiculed by anyone in the audience and Baron does not state if he was criticized by the public.

This got me thinking about texting, which is probably the most common digital writing in the world. Everywhere you go, there is someone texting or reading a text. Walking on campus there are few students gazing at the changing leaves on the trees; they're staring at their phones. While I do not text as much as most of my peers, I believe, I do have my nose in my phone quite a lot. Sometimes it is legitimate for me to read a text and text back while I'm walking or with friends, but others times I'm just fiddling.

Older generations, though many members have joined the texting revolution, worry about millennials and generations after them. They refer to instances such as these:

 

 

 

 

 These are rather funny, especially since all of us are guilty of them and it is mainly our pride that is hurt when we do these things. Even so, people have been hit when crossing the street when it wasn't safe because they weren't paying attention, and that isn't funny. I'm not going to preach that you shouldn't try to cross the street while texting, because we've all heard every warning from our parents or other concerned elders. As much as we youth want to roll our eyes at them, there are definitely issues.

What I really want to talk about is the word Baron used: "ordinary". It is not ordinary to actually call a friend now. It is ordinary for somebody to be texting in class, to answer a text while speaking with friends, texting at work, and I have even heard of people texting while in interviews.

 

I mean, just take a look in our class. We all have our laptops or phones or both out while our professor is speaking. What's even crazier is that he doesn't care. Even during presentations we're scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram--I do it too. And it's ordinary and almost not even seen as disrespectful as it was a few years ago because it's the norm. I might feel some guilt over paying more attention to Facebook instead of what my professor says, but then I look around the room and see everyone else doing the same, so I just shrug and continue.

 

I'm not calling out anyone or trying to demonize our generation and the generations after us, I am merely trying to bring attention to something. I am stating my opinion. Which is that maybe we should put our phones away a little more often; maybe we should step into a corner to answer a text instead of marching down a hallway full of students with our minds on the words we're typing. There is nothing wrong with texting, but when you do it while driving (yes, I am bringing that up), running, or even crossing the street, you are putting not just yourself at risk, but others too. Besides, if your eyes are trained on a screen, you may miss something or someone who will change your life. Take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Hgvw-CMUQ it's short and sweet.

 

Sources: Baron, Dennis E. "Writing On Screen." A Better Pencil Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print. 

 

I made the gifs from these:

CBS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXYY_ep5Nh0

 

From DigitalDelivery+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8-W6o8Eu7c

 

 

 

 

High School and Beyond

High school might be the only hell a person believes in, but at least it teaches us a lot--right? Most college students are still waiting to use the algebra they were forced to learn and the poems they were forced to read in their everyday lives or even on occasion. Many agree that it would have been nice to know how to do taxes, what a mortgage is, how to balance a check book, and much more. I would have liked to know all of that before I became an "adult", but I also would have liked to know that all the time I spent online learning how to write and connect within fandom communities and how to post things that got attention would open doors for me. I would have liked to have been encouraged to express my creativity on the internet instead of being made ashamed that I spent my down time online; I would have liked to have known that I could make a career on the internet doing something I enjoyed.

Okay, so maybe I'm just a teeny bit bitter. Still, it would have been great to have been taught how my fondness for technology would help me someday possibly get a job. In my high school we got iPads my last two years. You know what we used them for?

NOTHING. Other than email and to look up the answers we couldn't find in our textbooks, we used them for nothing. We were supposed to use them to access digital textbooks. The only textbook I had digitally for those entire two years was my algebra book and since I hate math, I basically hated it. It is important to point out that the years I was in high school, eBooks and digital learning was just becoming a thing. Therefore, it wasn't really my school's--and certainly not my teachers'-- fault we had technology we couldn't "properly" use.

What I did enjoy about the iPad was that I had finally found my people and place. I didn't participate a lot, but as Henry Jenkins writes in his article, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, about participatory culture online, "not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued" (7). That is one thing I appreciated about online communities: there was little pressure to contribute, unlike high school. If I didn't participate in high school other than class, I wasn't well-rounded, ambitious, or social.

 

If there is one thing in high school we all love but some days can't stand, it would be parents. I would venture to claim that they can be even more irritating when it comes to their involvement with us millennials and our online lives. It isn't their fault really because they grew up much, much differently. Still, in high school and now in college, my parents hadn't a clue about online communities, networks, and all the opportunities for my future. And they certainly have a right to be worried about the dangerous elements of the internet. I do not doubt that all of the millennials reading this have been asked by their parents why they spend so much time in front of the computer:

"It'll ruin your eyes staring at a screen for so long."

"Why are you wasting your time on there? There is nothing of much value on the internet unless your doing research."

"Online friends are not real friends; they're probably predators."

"What are you looking up? You are not on porn sites are you?!"

"Go have fun in the great outdoors."

 

 Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and there were days I was completely unproductive on the internet. Even so, I think it would have done greater good--or at least no harm--for my parents to ask out of curiosity instead of fear and suspicion what I was spending so much of time. Especially now. I've become much more confident online and I have made a small audience on all of my media platforms. I network and learn something new everyday that helps me have a greater presence. My career as an artist, or "media creator" as Jenkins calls it (6), has begun and I plan to continue to grow it. No surprise then that I spend more time on my laptop and the internet than I ever have. And a little shocking but at the same not shocking that my parents still don't get any of it.

 

This leads me to Jenkins claim that "schools, afterschool programs, and parents have distinctive roles to play as they do what they can in their own spaces to encourage and nurture these skills" (4). These skills meaning multitasking; rapid, clear decision making; connect and work with people of diverse backgrounds; and "navigating information landscapes" (10). I am learning those skills in college. I am behind high schoolers of today and while that isn't a crisis, I think it's important to support people of all ages, but especially those in school, in their online endeavors. I hope grade schools and high schools will spend more time teaching kids how to create and benefit from their online innovations instead of scolding them for spending time on something useless. I hope schools will encourage growth in participatory culture and include them in their curriculum. Of course, schools should also teach caution and safety online--just not in the way that scares kids and parents away; in ways that teach kids how to think before they post something and how to learn from experiences, which Jenkins also speaks about.

 

Take this opinion of mine with a grain of salt. I am not an educator and I do not plan on being a parent for a long time. So, this is merely my thoughts because I like my voice being heard.

 

Bibliography: Jenkins, Henry. "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Centur." (2006): 3-18. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.



Who Do You Trust?

In A Better Pencil, Chapter 7: Trust the Text, Dennis Baron discusses how society has evolved from distrusting anything written down to trusting nothing unless it is written down. I certainly believe this. If I read an article myself instead of just getting the rundown of it from a friend orally, I am more likely to trust the actual article than the words coming out of my friend's mouth (whether or not that says something about my relationships, I don't know). If I do not fully understand or think that what my friend claims is accurate, then I will look up the article and see for myself.

Baron has something that I disagree strongly, however: "while a handwritten text is as valid, legally, as anything typed or printed, today we are more likely to accept the writing of strangers if it's machine generated" (131).

This is not at all true for me. As Baron points out, it is much easier to forge something digitally than manually. He uses the example of photoshop, stating "computers allow us to manipulate images in ways that make forgery undetectable" (117) and "it's easy enough for an amateur to produce a fraudulent document, even a complex one, on a computer" (118). For me, I am much more likely to be skeptical over something on the internet than in my grandmother's chest in the attic. The reason for this is that it is more difficult to forge by hand. You have to be extremely skilled to paint a replica of the Mona Lisa that looks nearly undiscernibly like the original. As for handwriting, most people do not pay much attention to each other's. Even so, it is difficult to write the same exact way as someone else. Typed words look all the same; there aren't any loops, certain letters that connect, varying spaces, or anything else quirky and unique as an individual's handwriting.

 

Of course, this does not mean that everything handwritten is reliable-- quite the contrary.

"We still run into handwritten texts that may not record the past as it really is" (Baron 130).

You don't have to look deep into history to realize that many documents, even those written by those who experienced an event first hand, are littered with sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, ignorance, prejudice, limited knowledge of scientific fact, and much more. These documents do, however, teach us something about the time in which the author lived. That does not mean they are accurate, though. Baron is correct is claiming that handwriting can be deceiving, but I personally do not trust typed and/or printed documents over handwritten.

 

Here are some reasons (some of which I have already listed)

• It is much more difficult to copy another's handwriting precisely enough that professionals will not detect the forgery.
• When people write things down, they are doing so to say something. Facts can be checked. This, of course, can also be a downfall since lies abound on the internet.
• While the content of a document might be biased, it can reveal a lot about the "truths" of the time in which it was written.
• The "truths" of that time might be seen as obvious lies today, but in the historical period they are accounts of how people thought and what they believed. In regards to society's beliefs, structure, and worldview, this makes the document accurate.

So there's my spiel. Hope I got you thinking!

 

Bibliography: Baron, Dennis E. "Trusting the Text." A Better Pencil Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 113- 134. Print.  

My Wheelhouse

Henry Jenkins article, Why Heather Can Write, is right in my wheelhouse. Fandom and fanfiction are two of my favorite things--don't worry, I'm not one of those fangirls who kidnaps the artists she loves.

I loved the entire article, but I mainly liked how the students proved that something "adults" render trivial and immature can be quite beneficial.
Wait, what? Do my eyes deceive me? I mean, a scholar said that social media and digital writing is good, so it must be.

Do you know how much this would have helped me in high school? If I had known there were online writing communities as some of the students in the article are a part of--with a community I could write, edit, publish, and learn with--I may be more skilled and farther along in my writing career. I knew of Wattpad, but I didn't have the guts to write anything on it until college.

I also loved how the article proved that books are not dying out. Have you heard of this? With the wave of new reading technology such as eBooks and Kindles a few years ago, publishers and older generations were freaking out. They believed that the book industry as we know it would die out. Well, the world proved them wrong--big time. If anything, reading and book access has increased. In addition, there are more opportunities than ever for budding writers because of technology: self-publishing the "traditional" way through Amazon, for example; writing fanfiction on Wattpad or other sites; Nanowrimo; writing on social media; and many others. Some wish that we could go back to good old days where only solid books were published and writers were made after years and years of turmoil. Hate to disappoint, but digital writing, fanfiction, and young thriving authors are here to stay.

And, I would just like to add, there is no shame in writing fanfiction or being heavily involved in an online writing community. This article proved it can be great! Go nuts!

Sounds Interesting

So, my classmates and I had to pick a career and google it. The two options we had were Content Strategist or Experience Architect, which are apparently two careers English majors and the like are qualified for. I chose Experience Architect. This is how my exploration went.

Brainstorming about what it might be:

 

Reading on Wikipedia what it is:

 

Investigating further:

 

Then I thought about it some more and came to this conclusion:

 

Honestly though, this career sounds like a millennial's dream. I looked at a few different websites, some of them academic, and they pretty much all said the same thing: experience architects use all sorts of different mediums in order to create satisfying, creative, and significant experiences for customers/users. According to Tom Kelley, author of The Art of Innovation, 

 

"The Experience Architect is that person relentlessly focused on creating remarkable individual experiences. This person facilitates positive encounters with your organization through products, services, digital interactions, spaces, or events."

 

Basically, they can, according to Michigan State University's College of Arts & Letters, have "many types of careers in XA, including user experience architects, interaction designers, information architects, usability specialists, content strategists, visual designers, and web developers".  If you are a student at Michigan Sate, you will study "writing, design, philosophy, and computer science". How cool is that? You can be a book nerd and a techie!

 

While the careers listed above are not anything I want (not that I know of), I would definitely love to be able to use my writing and technology to create a memorable experience for another person. In a sense, that is already a reason I am an English major and want to be a writer; I want to inspire people and get them thinking while also enjoying themselves.

 

 

Sources:

 

Michigan State University: http://xa.cal.msu.edu/xa/

 

Tom Kelley: http://tenfacesofinnovation.com/stories/archives/10

 

 

 

 

 

Guys, I Just Joined Tumblr

I broke. After several years of evading the temptation, I gave in and made a Tumblr account. The only popular social media account I do not have is Reddit, and I will NEVER get that. The main reason being I do not need and cannot have any more distractions.

Anyways, I joined Tumblr and . . . I'm a little nervous. I mainly joined so I could follow some blogs and join in fandom community (aka, rabbit holes that never see the light of day). So, the reasons aren't terrible. But I'm still nervous. I mean, I don't even know how to work Tumblr. I get the general idea from carefully observing far, far away through Pinterest and links, but actually make a blog and connect? Uh, that would be a no.

Newbie butterflies are not the only thing that have me wringing my hands. When I was signing up, Tumblr suggested a username. I already had one picked out, but the site seemed to think I'd benefit from something more . . . shall we say, high schooley and hardcore fangirl/fanboyish. I love nerds and fangirls--I'm one of them--but I'm not in high school and I prefer not to sound like a teen. I like teens, but I'm not one of them and I am glad that I am no longer one. Plus, I want to make my blog, ahem, a little more professional. Is that ludicrous? I feel like I just said something absolutely absurd. What I mean by professional is not like a work blog made by a CEO, rather, a blog that is polished and that I would not be mortified to have a future employer to look at. I am not ashamed of being a nerd, but I prefer not to seem like an immature twenty-something with nothing to do but browse Tumblr all day.

Another reason is the same question I've had for every social media account I have: how do I get people to follow me and how do I become known? I mean, I'm great at freaking out over awesome stuff strangers put on the internet, but I'm not so sure I elicit the same reaction from people looking at my accounts. I have an idea of what I wish my blog to be about and the audience it might draw, but I'm not certain. Honestly, how to you get people to like you?

One more reason I'm nervous is that I'll fall down a rabbit hole, then another, then another and another until there is no hope of getting out. When I first started Pinterest, I went down a few rabbit holes. The moment I got out, I felt like a vampire (NOT the Twilight ones) going out into the sun; I asked myself what day it was. When I logged out, Tumblr had a little pop up that said "Sign up! You'll never be bored again." That's what I'm afraid of! It took nearly a month for me to get bored on Pinterest; a month before I could sign out without feeling like I was missing out on something. How long will it take me to get bored on Tumblr?

Good Lord, I think I need help.

Despite my worries, I am excited. No really, I am. I am excited to meet new people and have another audience and be part of another audience. I just have to make sure I don't get too close to the edge of a black hole and I got my discipline cap on. So, without further ado

When to Lie

It's been a week since my class watched Citizen Four, but it is still in my mind--vaguely, not freshly. I was struggling to come up with what to write for a post, when an awesome classmate (hi Natalie!) recommended I do another on Citizen Four. Well, here we are! I went back to Twitter to see if I could respond to some tweets we did on the movie. Shamefully, I'm going to respond to one of my own tweets.

This was one of my first tweets, and it was made the first week we watched Citizen Four. It says, "The judges look so unimpressed", referring to the scenes where the NSA director is being interrogated. He blatantly lies to the judges over and over again when asked if he and other members of the NSA were aware and if they were than why didn't they do anything. The judges he was lying to, meanwhile, looked completely, utterly, and absolutely unimpressed. The director continued to try and pull a fast one on the judges, much like someone who makes a joke that isn't obviously racist in a diverse room but turns out to be the only one to laugh.

 

Honestly, how dumb does he think those judges are? I don't even have a college degree yet and I could tell just from his rhetoric and body language he was lying.

 

Anyways, this got me thinking about lying on the internet. It's more difficult, I believe, to lie in the real world (the world outside of the internet) than on the web. For one, on the web you can choose pseudonyms and, usually you are encouraged to. It is safer. Unless you want to make a professional presence on the web, you shouldn't give out a full name (except on Facebook). Two, you can hide behind an endless supply of false info that can support your lie. Google and Wikipedia have some good sources, but there is a TON of crap out there too. Often, people who suspect you might be lying are too lazy to really investigate and put your claim through a fact check (I am one of those people). Three, and possibly the largest reason, you are just one liar out of millions. 

 

It could be said that everyone is somewhat of a liar on the internet. It's not a secret that most of us put on a different mask--or take one off--when we log on to Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Most of us make our lives appear like one big adventure. In reality, we're ordinary people with completely normal lives devoid of swashbuckling adventures. Unfortunately.

 

 

I suppose the question is, though, is it bad to lie so much on the internet? It was stupid and a crime for the NSA director to lie under oath, but what about the rest of us who just want to have fun on social media? I think it's alright to have a pseudonym: it's for safety, not to be deceitful. The last thing you want is to meet a creeper online. What I do NOT think is okay is to lie about serious things, such as global warming, refugee crises, wars, and other terrible things that happen in reality. You can be snarky or ironic--heck, I'm those all the time. But to say that there really aren't any refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries and that it's not really a crisis, well, sorry (not sorry), but I do not like people like you. And I will not listen to you.

 

Sadly, some people will, and this can create problems. Denying something like the refugee crisis is like denying the Holocaust ever happened. It's wrong. It downplays a serious issue that must be addressed and continued to be addressed until it is resolved. I'm not saying you have to donate half your income to charity or fly overseas to help (please don't do this unless you have special training); I am only asking to spread the truthful word around. That's all!

 

Whoa. That got really serious and a little ranty. My apologies. I leave you to your thinking that hopefully I initiated.

 

 

 

 



Type, Type, Type

It took me thirty minutes to come up with a topic--until I thought, Oh wait. I can read another's blog and come up with an idea! I mentally patted myself on the back. So, I read Tarah's blog post, "Learning to Write" (link below). It was perfect for sparking ideas!

Tarah wrote that she never liked how writing, especially typing, was taught in school. I have to agree. Tarah wrote that she enjoyed handwriting, which I did to, however . . . Learning cursive was fun, though it has proved to be obsolete. By the time you reach high school, most people either do a combination of cursive and print, or just print. I do the former. I could use cursive only, but I'm not going to. It would take too long to write anything and would not look pretty.

I am all the way with her, though, on how schools teach typing. At least, how it was taught a few years ago. Education is rather slow to change, so it would not be shocking if they still did. Anyways, basically, how schools taught typing was just repeat and repeat typing the same words or nonwords under a timer.

For me, at least, learning something with the seconds ticking by before the horrific alarm sounded taught me nothing except that:

 

I did not think that for long, but when all of your friends are typing way more words than you, it feels like you can't do anything right. I suppose what I'm trying to show and agree with Tarah in is that learning to write--in any medium-- should not be painful. It should be fun.

 

I believe it can be more fun, specifically because the internet is a lot better now than what it was when I was in grade school. Dial-up, I will never, ever miss you.

 

I am not going to college to be a teacher of any sort. I don't have any plans to be an official educator, and I also do not want to sound like a snob or that I know it all. I just have some thoughts on how learning to write, as a child or adult, can be fun and exciting.

 

One, whether a teacher of grade school kids or someone in college and older who wants to type quicker and effectively, get into social media! It can be scary and downright perilous, but go with caution, do not post what you would not want your grandmother to see, and you'll learn tons. Two, take your time. Do not rush typing. You'll end up with more red lines that haunt you than actually how to type quickly. You need to start slow. When I first began tweeting, I had to think long and hard about what I posted. In not too long a while, I learned what got reactions and what was ignored, and what I liked to write about. Three, and this is the last one, I swear: just type! Practice on Word, social media--heck, even writing something in the comments section is writing.

 

Learning to write for the first time is a huge step in life, but we never stop learning. The internet has provided more opportunities that are much more fun and possibly effective than the traditional method, so use them!

 

Tarah's blog post: http://tarahblogs.tumblr.com/post/131024175576/learning-to-write

What's Snowden Up To?

Like most people who at least skim news headlines, I heard about Snowden and the NSA scandal. I did not investigate it very much; I hardly read any articles. But I knew it was bad; the NSA freaked out, citizens of the US and other countries brought out their pitchforks, and Edward Snowden, the man who started it all, was either hailed as a whistleblower hero or despised as a traitor. Personally, I saw him (and still do) as the former. That's not to say there are not some security concerns with his huge revelation. In general, however, I think most people agree that at the very least, he did a good thing.

Like most news and national/international crises, the NSA scandal and Snowden's heroism/notoriety faded. Anxiety and anger lingered, but for the average citizen the issues of privacy and gov't surveillance were pushed aside for more immediate issues. Whether you see that as acceptable and natural, or just plain foolish, that's up to you.

Until recently, I had not heard much of anything else about Snowden. I frequently heard things about privacy and the corruption of gov't institutions, except not about the NSA or it's whistleblower. Like most people, I preferred to not acknowledge that our gov't was slimy sometimes. Then, I took a class that centers on the digital age, with a heavy focus on writing online and social media. It's only natural that Snowden and the NSA would come up: we made Twitter accounts and blogs that can be viewed by anyone. Even before the class, most of us were already active on social media. It brought up a lot of questions about what we post online and the effects it may have us in our offline lives.

To really bring home the conflict between privacy as a right and gov't spying as essential to national security, we watched Citizen Four. I was disturbed when I heard about the scandal and skimmed articles, but this movie kind of terrified me. Despite the fear and anger I felt, I kept mentally giving a thumbs up to Snowden for what he did. Still, there was the question of, "Where is he now?"

The answer is in Russia, on Twitter. Half of the stuff I saw on his Twitter feed I did not understand. Or, I got the gist of but couldn't find the interest to actually investigate further. In general, Snowden tweets about gov't corruption, privacy issues, and free internet. One article I found that he retweeted, "Social Media Self-Defense" by Ella Armageddon on the blog Totally Not Malware, sparked my interest.

In this brief but very informative article, I found one of the things that I believe Snowden would like us to take away from Citizen Four and his whistleblowing: take precautions on the internet to protect your privacy before it can be stolen. That's not to say that every innocent thing you post will be used against you, or that you have nothing to worry about if you are really, super careful. But, at the very least, it is less likely something will be used against you if you follow some of the advice in the article.

Some of the advice includes using passwords that even your soulmate would have trouble figuring out; be very aware of the pictures you post; do not put the same information on every account if you do not want others to make connections between the different accounts; and for the love of God (my words), do not get cocky and be discreet. From Rob Ford to Michael Phelps, arrogance in and disrespect for sketchy situations evidenced on social media has brought more than one reputation and career crashing down.

It seems like Snowden is still trying to be the champion of the people's privacy. He follows the NSA on Twitter and tweets about serious issues that should be discussed and recognized more. So, what's Snowden up to? Defending privacy rights of the people and demanding transparency of institutions.

Here's the link to the Self-Defense artilcle: http://blog.totallynotmalware.net/?p=15

What Started It All

This is going to be a bit of a cheesy post. The main reason being that it's going to be me mainly claiming how wonderful the internet is and how it had helped my life in a positive manner. As if no one's already sung the praises of the internet or how it changed their life.

My class was asked to write, in relation to Kathleen Blake Yancey's Writing in the 21st Century, what impacted our writing life positively. There was no specification to whether it was writing digitally or not. My "inspiration" that I am going to write about is one of many, but it can easily be related to Yancey's article. Ready?

I had just become an English major and was very much in love with the discipline (I still am). Most of my classes were part of my major, but there was not a whole lot of writing--specifically creative writing, which I was dying to do and share my work with others and read their work, too. Long before I was an English major, I was a book nerd.

 

So I knew a thing or two about not just the book world, but the publishing industry and the craft of writing. I knew enough that I realized that if I ever wanted to become an author myself (among other bookish things), I needed to get my work critiqued. Where did I go? Drumroll please . . .

 

 

Shocker, right? I searched on the amazing internet and guess what I found? A wonderful writing group just out of town! I contacted them by email and wala! A response came within two days and the next week I entered a room and became part of the group. The people were kind, experienced but still very willing to learn more, excited I was there, and quite versatile.

 

Despite all of the members being a whole generation ahead of me, they had different mediums they wrote, edited, and read on. When a member wanted to submit a work, the leader of the work sent the entire piece to all the members by email. To critique, we could either edit on Word using track changes, or we could print out hard copies and mark up the piece in actual pen. I chose to read on my laptop then print out a copy and mark it up with pen.

 

The truth is, as I'm sure you've already realized, that the easy contact between members of the group and the amount of writing we can bring to a polished end was greatly impacted by the use of the internet and digital writing. Without Word or another word processing program, we could not so easily and quickly share our work and critique it; we would have to wait to meet every other week to exchange work. And considering I had no idea this group existed until I googled for one, I never would have found a writing group. Okay, maybe I would have, but the internet made it much, much quicker and less stressful.

 

I've learned a lot since joining this group; including what format to write and edit in works best for me as an individual. I fiddled with writing a rough draft by hand; I used track changes for a while to critique; and I rewrote a story by hand without touching a keyboard after revising the same draft on my laptop. I also came to appreciate the different ways people write. I learned how to accommodate their preferences, such as if a member preferred a hard copy so she could pour over a draft without having to stare at a screen or be distracted by the internet.

 

Being in a writing group helped my writing and interactions with other writers in ways I never would have learned by remaining by myself in my room. As Yancey writes of this new age of digital writing, "we are writing to share, yes; to encourage dialogue, perhaps; but mostly, I think, to participate" (5). I want to share my work and read others, then discuss the writing, but I also want to feel I am not so alone in this frightening endeavor we call writing. The writing group I am part of has encouraged me in my writing while helping me hone it by sharing my work and other digitally and then discussing it through email and face-to-face.

 

There is no right or wrong way to write. There is no best way to write that first rough draft, edit that third draft, or publish your polished, perfect final text. All you have to do is write. On a computer, a blank notebook, amongst your class notes, or grocery lists. Just write! With a group, by yourself, or near other people but not collaborating. Just write! By tweet, fanfiction, novel, poem, or short story. Just write! 

 

 

 I found the best way to write for me (I think, anyways). The best way for you to write may be completely different, and that is great. Just freakin' write and see where it goes. You'll learn a lot.

 

P.S: If you want to know what writing group I am part of, send me a direct message on Twitter https://twitter.com/dreamwrit

 

Bibliography: Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Writing in the 21st Century. Rep. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2009. Print.

Lying Liars and Spineless Spying

So. We've started watching Citizen Four. From the moment the subtle music and the flat narrator's voice began, pretty much everyone began to tweet that they were already freaked out. Ten or so minutes in, and it was common consensus. Despite my usual snarky tweets, I was, in all honesty, a little creeped out too.

It's hard not to be. When you're raised in the USA, you are told you are in the best, most free country where your rights are protected by not just your fellow citizens, but the law. However, I think most of us, especially those coming from more conservative families (that's a guess), were raised to know that the government isn't as good and noble as we'd like it to be-- or pretend it to be. It's not so much hating or being terrified of the government, it's more being suspicious of it. Unfortunately, the gov't had the same idea about us.

I've read 1984, and let me just say it put the fear of the gov't in me (dreadful joke, I know). So when the NSA scandal and others came out, I wasn't as surprised as I wish I would have been. I'll admit I didn't investigate the scandals as much as I should, but now, whenever the gov't tells us that they did this and that which infringed on our rights for our own protection, I go:

I know that seems to be making light of the situation. But if I got super involved in these fishy politics and constantly thought about how the gov't was stabbing us in the back, I'd be nothing but an angry, bitter person.

The question is, what to do about this lying liars, spineless spying club we call the gov't? I don't have an answer. Not yet, anyways. Perhaps I will after watching Citizen Four. I hope I will, because I am fresh out of ideas.

Do Pictures Count?

In Yancey's Writing in the 21st Century, there is a lot of speculation about how to reform the teaching of writing. It includes models, entry-level courses in college and how children learn how read, write, and compose at the same time. Yancey poses several questions to bring about ideas on how to go about reforming writing education. One of these questions is "How and when do we decide to include images and visuals in our compositions, and where might we include these processes in the curriculum?" (Yancey 7). This got me thinking about how much I use pictures and other visual communication in my writing and how I learned to.

The most I have ever used pictures and videos amongst my writing would have to be Powerpoint. Like most teens, I found it easier and much simpler to just make a slideshow instead of a poster or a speech for a project. It was, essentially, a crutch. Pictures and videos were additional content to elaborate on a subject in high school. They were there to detract attention from a nervous speaker who was usually unprepared. In college, things changed slightly. Powerpoints and Prezis are discouraged. You could still use them, but instead of being the main project, they became an outline. Pictures and other visual communication became memory jolters and representations of key points. I remember being a little freaked out over being told that no words were allowed in a presentation; only pictures to guide thought.

Other than slideshows, I never drew pictures or included them in writing. I certainly did not use them solo to tell a story. I am not an artist, so I have no skill to illustrate a story, and doodling is frowned upon on academic papers. My papers are crisp black and white letters. A few numbers may be sprinkled about, but other than that, nothing very visually enticing.

In regards to Yancey's question, it seems that students are not allowed to use visuals unless it is for a project. Of course, there are exceptions. In my rhetorical theories class, to analyze a text we can use visuals such as photos and videos because they are included as texts. All of my professors use photos and videos as teaching tools, but from what I can gather, there is little room for visuals in full out papers. I have read huge academic papers by scholars that contain diagrams and black and white pictures, but have never done something that in depth or scholarly to warrant a visual, I guess.

As Yancey asks, when do we incorporate such things? As children, we learn how to read with the aid of picture books. As adolescents, we use them to fill up hastily constructed slideshows. As college students and young adults, they are supposed to be used as guidelines-- and possibly as elaborations in final papers and research projects. Is it when we are in the last few classes of our college careers or starting careers that we are suddenly supposed to know when and where visuals are acceptable? It seems that way, because I do not recall any lesson throughout my entire school career teaching me what situations are appropriate for visuals in writing. I learned how to display photos and gifs by googling it. Nobody sat me down; I winged it. Maybe that's what students are supposed to do until educators figure things out: wing it.

Bibliography: Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Writing in the 21st Century. Rep. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2009. Print.