"Material, Literacy and Visual Design" by Lester Faigley

    Faigley's article confused me quite a bit initially, with the introduction showing examples of young teen's websites. He then went on to show an actual company, Time Warner's, website, right afterwards. I thought here Faigley was going to compare and contrast the two, but instead said very little about their differences and similarities.

    He then quickly moved on to describing how pictures and illustrations have been viewed as "for the illiterate" and how many, including William Wordsworth, condemn the use of such, and believed it would lead to the dumbing down of society. Faigley argues that the combination of writing and pictures, commonly referred to as multimedia, is being and in the future can be used to surpass rhetoric potentials set with writing being their only discourse.

    Faigley seems to be very optimistic and determined that with the growing use and unending possibilities of the web, people will realize that they have the ability to create rhetorical discourse with the use of multimedia that can surpass the limitations that writing alone entails.

    I personally did not prefer the set up of this article; the layout and order of ideas both seemed a little scattered. Especially the first website Faigley displayed, called “Phaedreus Media”, which held what looked like links, but really weren’t, gave the actual article a sloppy appearance, and didn’t draw the reader in.

    But even so, Faigley’s ideas are very enlightened, and commonly held among many writers, publishers, and composers of the present time.

"Understanding Composing" by Sandra Pearl

      I found Pearl's article to be very interesting, and many of the terms and ideas she discussed were new to me. When she began with the idea that writing is a recursive sequence, it automatically made sense to me, though I had never thought of it that way before. Pearl described the process, and included how some writers reread their work after every sentence, while others ventured back maybe every paragraph or so. I found myself to be one of the latter, as I usually skim over my writing once I'm moving on to a new idea.
  
       Another new topic for me that Pearl analyzed was the felt sense. Eugene Glendin described this as:

"the soft underbelly of thought ... a kind of bodily awareness that . . . can be used as a tool ... a bodily awareness that . . . encompasses everything you feel and know about a given subject at a given time.... It is felt in the body, yet it has meanings. It is body and mind before they are split apart."

Pearl discussed just how much this sense is present all writings, how it creates the essence of what the writer is trying to convey, how the audience, feels, etc. She goes on to say how an in depth understanding of the felt sense would allow writers to embrace their inner thoughts even more, and creativity and uniqueness would be much easier to harness. This sense, which originates as images and ideas in the writer's head, is, as Pearl puts it, probably the most important recursive component, because it is what moves the writer to compose something meaningful.

"Keywords in Composition Studies" by Peter Vandenburg

     I found Vandenburg’s article to be slightly overwhelming at first glance, and when reading the headlines of the different “chapters”, I was not sure how the author was going to relate them to one another. But as I actually began reading, I saw that Vandenburg was trying to explain the main ideas of each f the themes, which were audience, coherence, collaboration, form/structure, freshman English, process, revision, rhetoric, and style.
     One topic that was focused on in this article that I had not necessarily thought about previously was collaboration. Here Vandenburg states, “Collaboration refers not to a unified object but rather to a variety of pedagogies and practices, each grounded in somewhat different, and often conflicting, epistemological and ontomological assumptions.” This definition at first threw me for a loop, but as the author’s explanation continued, it became very clear. By including the history of collaboration, Vandenburg simply states that the assumptions of what collaboration really is can seem somewhat contradictory, and it cannot be defined in any simple terms. Some believe writing is an individually accomplished task, while others believe it is completed by the collaboration involved in the said writer learning to read and write the words he uses.

"What is Rhetoric?" by Covino and Joliffe

     This article dove into the depths of the terms associated with rhetoric, as well as the complex meaning of rhetoric itself. In doing this, the authors helped identify that such devices such as audience, situation, arrangement, etc., are all necessary components of what rhetoric is. They repeatedly referred back to the ancient philosophers of Aristotle, Socrates, etc., to point out that the definition of rhetoric has been questioned and hard to define since it was born. Along with these references were multiple examples of rhetoric in action, including its involvement in current debates, while all the time keeping the reader fully aware of the necessity of rhetoric, and how important it is for writers especially to deeply understand what it consists of and what it portrays.

     In the publication of a book I am currently reading, entitled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet A. Jacobs, it is easy to see the elements of rhetoric described by Covino and Joliffe, used by Jacobs, as the rhetor. The situation is clearly that slaves are being beaten, starved, abused and mistreated, and still the practice is legal and acceptable. The audience was originally intended to be for the white, non slave owning women of the north, yet has traveled down to the hands of me, a 19 year old college student over 60 years later. The invention is that Jacobs told her account first hand, and included all of the horrific things she both saw and endured. The arrangement was in the order of events, starting with her birth into the slave world, and ending in her escape and the freedom of herself and her children. The style is very straight forward, yet Jacobs still uses language that pulls on the reader’s heartstrings, which helped her gain empathy and understanding. Memory and delivery were not a part of this publication, as it was not given orally. But collectively, I have realized that in all publications, rhetoric can be seen, and how its components influence every part of the publication.

Writing in the 21st Century by Kathleen Blake Yancey

      When I took my first glimpse at this article, I was thrilled to see that it was composed by Kathleen Yancey, an instructor at Florida State University. The fact that I could associate this article and the writer close to home made me even more enthused to read in than normal. The title in itself, "Writing in the 21st Century", caught my interest, as I figured it would cover the topic of writing online, which I believe to be a main part of this WEPO course.
      So as I began making my way through the article, a quote jumped out at me that I found very interesting and inspiring. "Writing has never been accorded the cultural respect or the support that reading has enjoyed, in part because through reading, society could control its citizens, whereas through writing, citizens might exercise their own control."
      The absolute truth in this quote caught me a little off guard, especially as I consider myself more of a reader than a writer. And while in books such as Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 it was always books and reading that were banned to control society, the thought of writing instead being banished seems it could cause even more harm.
      The rest of the article kept up it's captivating whit and sense of urgency in it's ideas with great finesse, accomplishing what I figure was intended: Getting the reader to understand how writing came to be looked upon as just a means of testing, but can now, with the cooperation of English and writing teachers and willing to learn students, become a more common and positively viewed means of communication.
      Another quote that jumped out at me in this article was, "Through writing, we are." These four words hold such profoundness, and when read intently, cam make any person thoughtfully consider a profession or even a hobby, as a writer.
      I would be honored if I ever actually got the chance to meet with Yancey. Her writing in this article caused me to think about writing and the type of connotation it withholds, and how a better understanding of it’s necessity could do great things in our society.


   

The Rhetorical Stance by Wayne C. Booth

        While reading The Rhetorical Stance, I automatically noticed that this article seemed to combine the ideas of both of the previous articles I have commented on. Booth focused mainly on how rhetoric required a certain balance of recognizing and incorporating the audience, as well as staying true to the logistics and facts of the topic, regardless of what the audience is more likely to respond to.

        I personally enjoyed how Booth included personal experiences, with interactions from his own students and lessons he himself learned through his writing endeavors. From these, I gained better insight on how an in depth understanding of rhetoric and the need of an audience to be recognized are so critical for quality writing. Throughout the article, I found myself becoming more and more engaged, contrary to my normal inability to concentrate for over ten minutes at a time. I correlate this to the amount of examples, and the specific yet not too drawn out reasoning for his ideas.
        If I were to personally meet with Booth, I would first off be extremely excited, for after reading his article I became very fond of both his writing techniques and his ideas of the three types of stances. I would probably even bring a sample of my own writing, and ask him to critique it, and to explain in his own words to me how I should approach my rhetorical stance to help improve my writing. What impressed me the most about this article by Booth is how he wrote it exactly how he described the rhetorical stance to be. He kept the audience in mind, but stayed true to his ideas and motives of writing the paper, keeping me captivated, interested, and when finished reading it, a motivation to try and obtain the balance of the rhetorical stance in all of my writing.

The Meanings of "Audience" by Douglas B. Park

         This article tried to convey the abstractness and importance of the concept of "Audience". I found myself repeatedly confused with the terms Douglas tried to define audience with, but also appreciated his explanations of how much the meaning of audience is misinterpreted these days, and how a wrong idea of audience can greatly hinder writing.
         It seemed sort of ironic how, as Douglas went through his explanation of what an audience is or is not, I noticed that his proposed audience seemed to be that of English composition teachers. He referred multiple times to the importance of teaching the concept of audience correctly, and how students need to understand how it is more of a metaphor than an actual group of people. But even though I didn't group myself in his intended audience, I realized as I made my way through the article that since I benefited in some way from what he wrote, and will take this new idea of audience and apply it to my future writings, that I actually am apart of his audience, as he defined it.
         If I were able to converse with the author of this article, I would commend him for taking on such a brave task as to explain the different meanings and misinterpretations of such a commonly misused idea. I would admit to him that the way he went about it did create certain elements of confusion for myself as a reader, but would admit that I know no other way to try and go about the task. I also enjoyed his multiple comments and references to "The Rhetorical Situation", which I wrote about in my previous blog. Its role in the Audience article helped clarify some of the points Park was making, and helped me relate audience to a rhetorical situation, and how an audience is significant in it.

The Rhetorical Situation by Lloyd F. Blitzer

      The Rhetorical Situation, by Lloyd F. Blitzer, is an article that delves into the concept and definition of such a situation; what it requires, what is cannot contain, how it comes about, etc. To complete such a task, Blitzer took the reader through a sequence of reasoning, where he set the stage for what a rhetorical situation is, and what it entails.


     As I made my way through the article, I found myself becoming more and more impressed with the way Blitzer set up the article, and the way his reasoning slowly helped the reader understand and quite easily follow along with his explanations. The array of examples used, especially the one of the fishermen on the boat, and how it was justified as a rhetorical situation, and its inclusion of all necessary components, helped paint a picture in my mind of what a rhetorical situation is. Other examples, such as the Gettysburg address and Socrates’ apology helped define more complex rhetorical situations, along with how discourse was not necessary, but commonly upheld.

    If I were to engage in a conversation with Blitzer, I would probably just ask him to in his own words explain his concept again, and just marvel at the brilliance and sophistication he would no doubt exude. Taking on the definition of such a complex and untouched situation with such confidence and backed with perfect examples and reasoning, I would praise the author of this article and thank him for granting me such clarity on an idea I would never have guessed had such complexity.