Notes on Addressing Your Audience
September 9th, 2019
How did the writing you did for the peer review differ from writing you would do individually OR for a different audience?
2 specifications:
The audience for this peer review was Caitlin, and the person who we were peer reviewing. The type of writing in that peer review was more informative and singularly based on one thing (their narrative.) The writing I would do individually would be less informative and more of a plot based writing or something with a more broad reason of writing to it. Also, the writing for the peer review was heavily monitored by the writer to make sure not to offend anyone or judge too harshly, but rather convey thoughts in a civil manner, whereas for other writing I would do, I would not worry about the reader’s opinion of me.
Reading an Audience
-Body Language
- Eye contact
- Leaving
- Facial expression
- Response
- Gender
- Age
- Appearance
Notes on Reading Text for an Audience
The assignment: Who is the audience, analyze the audience, develop a profile for the audience
-we know the age is older because it is print media
-their interests: content indicates about the audience
-the advertisements in the magazine will tell you about the magazine
-Language that is in the text: specialized language, jargon, if its elevated or less so
*Remember claims need evidence
Your language should reflect your activity-adverbial constructions (likely, more likely, evidence indicates), we are making a deduction but we are not absolutely sure.
The audience of Wired magazine seems to be geared towards young to middle aged men who show an interest in the technology field of science because many of the articles and featured stories include topics such as high powered solar panels, intricate data collection methods, and hacking. Technology is a gender neutral field, but Wired includes ads that reflect products used by men such as Gillette (Page 30), George Clooney endorsed watches (Page 1), and smokeless tobacco (Page ) which is typically used by men. Male figures are more dominant in the magazine, including male comedians such as Seth Rogan and Donald Glover, male models. Many of the hero figures on page 64 are men, and one single female hero at the very bottom. This magazine includes the more social aspects of technology, rather than the technical aspects. Technology here is mentioned to help advance society to be better, not technical innovations. We believe that the audience is also an educated group, as it would be difficult to comprehend much of the topics if one does not have a background knowledge in the field.
Notes on the Metaphor Essay
September 18, 2019
Metaphor: A metaphor is a comparison of things- abstract/concrete
These two words, introvert & loner, are the same thing but they have different connotations
S/He is schizophrenic – this makes it seem like it is central to the identity of the person
S/He has schizophrenia- this makes it so that it isn’t the total definition of who they are
“Ticking time bombs”- this is concrete. It means short-tempered, impulsive, stressed, dangerous, angry, unpredictable
Audience Expectations
- Identify what properties of the concrete are transferred onto the abstract→ don’t define with a comparison
-“cancer is a demonic pregnancy”: first explain why cancer is described like that or what that demonic pregnancy does to the person with cancer. It makes it a connection to the spiritual world.
-what properties of the concrete (demonic pregnancy) are transferred onto the abstract (cancer)
-use text to prove & do this 2x
- compare two metaphors. Compare them to each other too
- obscure/ inform something
- suffering/pain
→ conclusion
The effect the metaphor has. What is the effect on people’s perception, any real effects, etc. You need to interpret and analyze the effect and what has happened because of that.
Logical Structure of the Essay: Definition, comparison of the two metaphors, and the effect
Group Activity
Bold- Abstract- what you’re trying to understand
Italics- concrete- the thing that is understood better
“When, not so many decades ago, learning that one had TB was tantamount to hearing a sentence of death– it was common to conceal…” (7)
“And one non-tumor form of cancer, now turns up in commercial fiction in the role once monopolized by TB, as the romantic disease which cuts off a young life. ”
“Fever in TB was a sign of an inward burning: the tubercular is someone “consumed” by ardor…”
“TB was represented as the proto-typical passive death. Often it was a kind of suicide.”
“The TB sufferer was a dropout, a wanderer in endless search of the healthy place.”
Notes on Writing & Reading Strategies
September 23, 2019
Writing/reading strategies
Reverse outlining
Argument
- Accepted facts
- Belief systems
- Personal preferences
Claim- sufficient evidence
Pathos
Appeal to emotion
Anecdotal evidence
Logos
Reason communicates through writing
Ethos
Source credibility
Arshia’s Paper
Intro
- body-summary-contextMetaphor 1- dependent on Biss’s POV
- Body- 2nd metaphor
- interpret/argue
- Comparison- use
- Conclusion
*In Sontag, she uses TB as a metaphor for a romantic disease
Notes on the Critical Lens Essay
October 7th, 2019
Step 1. Read the lens text to identify the author’s core arguments and vocabulary, and choose some examples that illustrate the author’s point of view.
When Reading: Search key words, annotate by asking questions and making a connection
Previewing- find author’s purpose, read topic sentences of the entire text
Chunking- graphic organizer→ outline, concept map/web
Purpose
Content areas:
History- formation of the norm, definitions, mythology
Historical Contrast:
The Ideal- no one thing can be considered ideal
The grotesque- all bodies are in some way disabled
Statistics- How humans came to be normed
Eugenics- Marx, Darwin, Galton→ find a way to normalize the abnormal, they wanted to perfect humans
Literature- The non-normative body is not the hero of the story
