Post 12

Ann Johns’ article “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice” is an extension of the articles we read by Gee and Swales.  She published her article later than both, Swales and Gee, so she had the time to think through some of the issues presented.  She recaps Swales texts and reiterates his main point.  Swales defines discourse community and points out that in order to participate in a discourse community, you didn’t necessarily have to join it.  Johns points out that Swales fails to pursue the idea of conflict any further.  Gee, on the other hand, argues that people from non-dominant Discourse can only join a dominant Discourse through “musfake.” 

Johns focuses primarily on academic discourses.  She talks about expected conventions and sources of contention that we see in an academic discourse.  She also points out authority.  Johns focuses on the problems of authority and the possible control over acceptable community discourse that could lead to rebellion again discourse community conventions. 

In the second article “Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Workplaces,” Wardle talks about the three ways in which newcomers choose levels and types of engagements, which is essentially their mode of belonging.  The three concepts include: engagement, imagination and alignment. 

Engagement is the effort to pursue and develop “interpersonal relationships” with the old-timers in that community.  Imagination is broadening your mind to new possibilities and finding ways to imagine your own work in the realm of the new community.  Lastly, alignment is about finding a common ground and finding boundaries.  This reacquires the creation and adoption of different ideas and activities in a different community. 

My discourse community is my sorority.  Applying these three concepts as a newcomer can be very important and beneficial.  Engagement is probably the most important because without a connection to one of the older girls you might feel alone or an outcast.  People don’t join for the title; they join because of the bonds they have made with people.  Second, imagination plays a key role, because there are many positions that can be taken, and as a newcomer you should be thinking about how you can see yourself in that position or even in the world of Greek life.  Not only does it take imagining the organization in your world, but also bringing some of your world to the organization.  Lastly, alignment could relate to how you manage your time or following the rules of the sorority.  

Post 11

In James Gees’ “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics,” he talks about how tension or conflict is present between two people in discourse communities.  We test people in a certain community, for example a softball organization that I once played for, perhaps in order to show our dominance.  This group can communicate in a distinct way, which will weed out people who discourse communities can deem “non-natives.”

Swales’ identifies six different characteristics for a discourse community.  Using an example familiar to me, I would choose my softball team/softball community.  I was constantly surrounded by the people I was playing with and the atmosphere it provided.  The first characteristic is: the community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.  Everyone shared the same goal and did similar things to achieve the goal of winning.  Although we wore different color and team names, all in all everyone was doing the same thing. 

            The second characteristic is using its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.  Being a softball tournament allowed parents and team members of my team to bond and get to know someone they might not have normally talked to.  With this interpersonal communication, everyone has able to improve and provide suggestions on how to be a better team.  This feedback is what forms the board that strives to make the organization better.

            The fourth characteristic is a community that utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.  The softball organization I played for consisted of hundreds of different teams.  All of theses teams are their own genre, but together we all worked to better the organization and to make a good name for ourselves.

            The softball community has its own specific lexis.  This includes terms that would not be heard on a soccer field or perhaps a football field.  Typically there are things such as “RBI” or batting average, but specifically within a team, you could have different plays that need to be called that have special names.

            Lastly the sixth characteristic is a community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise.  The softball organization I played for only extended up to the age of twenty-three.  Every year there were girls leaving the organization in order to go to college or focus on their career.  Some left for other reasons, but many girls continued to also enter every year, which ensured the organization would continue.    

Post 10

It is almost impossible to go an entire day without coming into contact with some type of electronic device. The world is immersed in the ever-changing world of technology, and this is just the beginning.  Unfortunately older techniques have fallen to the waste-side and to be innovative, you must be using technology.  Smart phones and ipods have taken over every day life, and this is shaped how I write.  With the amount of technology we have at our disposal, it would be hard not to change the way we write.  There is a high demand for internet based projects, and visual aids as opposed to simply a well written story.   Since the invention of word processing programs like Microsoft Word, there is much less emphasis on the quality of writing, and more emphasis on the visual aspects that accompany a piece.
In the "Future of Literacy", the author points out that importance of composing pieces that are not strictly words.  Today, there is an added pressure to compose videos and sounds, to enhance a publishers message.  For school, I am constantly composing projects with visual aids and creative videos because that is what people are interested in.  Technology is taking over, and I think people are much less interested in the written language.  It is unfortunate because writing with simply words can sometimes tell a better story than a visual aid.

Post 9

As defined by Heath, literacy events are tools used when examining a particular community of modern soceitys' relationship between written and spoken language, along with the actual forms and functions of oral and literature traditions.  A literacy event can include individuals and activities that surround print.  In Trackton, Heath points out literacy events that focused mainly on the interaction between adults and children.  She explains that adults and children did not interact very much, and the schools lacked written material produced primarily for children.  Children, would however go to school knowing many types of information available in their environment.  Although parents were not aware they were tutoring their children in reading and writing, they were helping them by making them aware to literacy models during their everyday life.  Children came to school with a knowledge of things such as brand names and models of cars.  Lastly she says that these children differed greatly from mainstream children.  Among Trackton children, solitary reading without "oral explanation" was seen as unacceptable.
Sherman Alexie's narrative talks about how he learned to read with a superman comic book.  He did not have the vocabulary to understand what a "paragraph" was.  This frustrated him when he was trying to read because the words in his fathers books seemed foreign to him.  He is similar to the kids in Trackton because he used the pictures of the comic book to eventually understand what the words were trying to tell him.  He could not read the words to begin with, but used the symbols to unravel what the story was about.

Beauty isn’t Everything: A Rhetorical Analysis of a Visual Argument

“Smoking Kills.”  This is the common phrase we see on every billboard walking down the street.  It was only twenty years ago that people were smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, thinking they had no consequences.  Times have changed, and so has peoples’ state of mind when it comes to smoking.  After discovering it is linked to many health problems such as cancer, many advertisements are aimed specifically at the end of cigarette smoking.  This ad is one that combines the physical consequences and severity of what could happen to a cigarette smoker. 

This advertisement makes a compelling argument that smoking has adverse affects on our physical well-being.  It plays on our importance of beauty in our society today.  In the article “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” Carroll explains that when dissecting the rhetorical analysis of a message, the first place to start is “the context.” 

The exigence in this advertisement is the severity of negative consequences contributed with smoking.  Keith Grant-Davie in the “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents” explains exigence as a question; “ why is the message needed?”  This condition, that is so prevalent today, invites a response; to quit smoking.  Many times a rhetorical message is responding to some kind of problem in society.  Not only is this message urging people to stop smoking, but it also plays on the importance of beauty in society, which can possibly make the message even more important.  

These concepts of exigence are directly connected to the audience this message is trying to reach.  At first glance it targets women, because no woman wants to have a hole in their mouth of the toxins in a cigarette.  Going further, it can also be reaching men as well.   Many men would be deterred from dating a woman that smokes and could eventually end up with ugly marks due to cigarettes.  With these two ideas combined, it hits home even more for women because women want to be desired by men, so this might deter them from smoking as well.  In addition to the heterosexual community, this add pertains to the homosexual community as well.  No matter what or whom you are attracted to, having a hole in your lips from smoking is in no way attractive.  Since the smoking age is 18, it would be assumed that this message would only be reaching an audience of adults that are allowed to smoke.  Unfortunately many young teenagers are smoking, and this advertisement could still relate to them, especially because during high school is when kids are so reliant on their appearance. 

With any message, constraints are inevitable.  A simply advertisement cannot force people to care about the negative consequences, so it is limited in that aspect.  Another major constraint of this ad is that it has no credibility.  This also applies when talking about the rhetor behind this argument.  Since we have no proof of where it came from, it automatically lacks credibility. There are no words on the ad, and no company linked to the message.  Many people look at who is sponsoring the ad to know if they can trust that company.  Without having a company name on the ad, people may not even take the time to consider the message. 

The creator of the ad can be making two different arguments.  One is more favorable than the other, but it can be misconstrued into another message.  The first message is that smoking is bad for your health and your appearance.  They are saying if you keep smoking, then this is what will happen to you.  The second argument is that the creator is pointing out that beauty plays too big of a role in our society.  Women are held to a high standard of beauty and feel pressure to be a certain way.  Some people might take offense to the fact that this ad does completely play on our physical appearance.  This could be another constraint.  Many women may think this ad is ridiculous because they don’t put as much importance into their looks as this ad is conveying.  By thinking that they are completely missing the point of the argument.  Some other women may think after a quick glance that it is another sexist ad targeted at the appearance of women, and their pressure to look perfect. 

Logos, ethos and pathos are three aspects of an advertisement aimed at optimizing the message.  Creators use these to make a more significant impact by playing on people’s logic, credibility and emotions.  This ad in particular uses logos and pathos.  It uses logos by appealing to the audience’s logic.  They are aiming to persuade their audience on their reasoning, and showing that smoking is linked to health problems.  The use of pathos accompanies the logic in this message.  Since society is so concerned with appearances, this plays on our concerns that we might end up with a hole in our mouth, and impregnates the lingering thought about what else could happen to our appearance if we continue to smoke. 

After viewing many other non-smoking ads I think this one is effective, but in a different way than most.  Most non-smoking advertisements play strictly on your emotions by showing you children that possibly die earlier due to their parents addiction to smoking.  These ads may be cliché, but they do “pack a lot of punch” when it comes to conveying an important message to its viewers.  This advertisement does a good job of using logos, and appealing to the logical side of society, but could possibly attract more sympathy if it were a little more emotional. 

The biggest problem I see with this ad is its lack of credibility.  Especially when talking about health issues, people are attracting to things that they feel are credible because they want to trust that what they are saying is true.  Unfortunately this ad has no sponsor or creator associated with it, so many people will skim over it.  Since health care has become such an important issue in the last couple decades. Many people are not willing to consider any one else’s opinion unless they have the best credibility.  In response to the lack of credibility on this ad, people might assume that this “could never happen” because a doctor or heath care company was not associated with the making of this advertisement.  

Rhetorical Analysis Rough Draft

“Smoking Kills.”  This is the common phrase we see on every billboard walking down the street.  It was only twenty years ago that people were smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, thinking they had no consequences.  Times have changed, and so has peoples’ state of mind when it comes to smoking.  After discovering it is linked to many health problems such as cancer, many advertisements are aimed specifically at the end of cigarette smoking.  This ad is one that combines the physical consequences and severity of what could happen to a cigarette smoker. 

This advertisement makes a compelling argument that smoking has adverse affects on our physical well-being.  It plays on our importance of beauty in our society today.  In the article “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” Carroll explains that when dissecting the rhetorical analysis of a message, the first place to start is “the context.” 

The exigence in this advertisement is the severity of negative consequences contributed with smoking.  Keith Grant-Davie in the “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents” explains exigence as a question; “ why is the message needed?”  This condition, that is so prevalent today, invites a response; to quit smoking.  Many times a rhetorical message is responding to some kind of problem in society.  Not only is this message urging people to stop smoking, but it also plays on the importance of beauty in society, which can possibly make the message even more important.  

These concepts of exigence are directly connected to the audience this message is trying to reach.  At first glance it targets women, because no woman wants to have a hole in their mouth of the toxins in a cigarette.  Going further, it can also be reaching men as well.   Many men would be deterred from dating a woman that smokes and could eventually end up with ugly marks due to cigarettes.  With these two ideas combined, it hits home even more for women because women want to be desired by men, so this might deter them from smoking as well.  In addition to the heterosexual community, this add pertains to the homosexual community as well.  No matter what or whom you are attracted to, having a hole in your lips from smoking is in no way attractive.  Since the smoking age is 18, it would be assumed that this message would only be reaching an audience of adults that are allowed to smoke.  Unfortunately many young teenagers are smoking, and this advertisement could still relate to them, especially because during high school is when kids are so reliant on their appearance. 

With any message, constraints are inevitable.  A simply advertisement cannot force people to care about the negative consequences, so it is limited in that aspect.  Another major constraint of this ad is that it has no credibility.  There are no words on the ad, and no company linked to the message.  Many people look at who is sponsoring the ad to know if they can trust that company.  Without having a company name on the ad, people may not even take the time to consider the message. 

The creator of the ad can be making two different arguments.  One is more favorable than the other, but it can be misconstrued into another message.  The first message is that smoking is bad for your health and your appearance.  They are saying if you keep smoking, then this is what will happen to you.  The second argument is that the creator is pointing out that beauty plays too big of a role in our society.  Women are held to a high standard of beauty and feel pressure to be a certain way.  Some people might take offense to the fact that this ad does completely play on our physical appearance.  This could be another constraint.  Many women may think this ad is ridiculous because they don’t put as much importance into their looks as this ad is conveying.  By thinking that they are completely missing the point of the argument.  Some other women may think after a quick glance that it is another sexist ad targeted at the appearance of women, and their pressure to look perfect. 

Logos, ethos and pathos are three aspects of an advertisement aimed at optimizing the message.  Creators use these to make a more significant impact by playing on people’s logic, credibility and emotions.  This ad in particular uses logos and pathos.  It uses logos by appealing to the audience’s logic.  They are aiming to persuade their audience on their reasoning, and showing that smoking is linked to health problems.  The use of pathos accompanies the logic in this message.  Since society is so concerned with appearances, this plays on our concerns that we might end up with a hole in our mouth, and impregnates the lingering thought about what else could happen to our appearance if we continue to smoke. 

After viewing many other non-smoking ads I think this one is effective, but in a different way than most.  Most non-smoking advertisements play strictly on your emotions by showing you children that possibly die earlier due to their parents addiction to smoking.  These ads may be cliché, but they do “pack a lot of punch” when it comes to conveying an important message to its viewers.  This advertisement does a good job of using logos, and appealing to the logical side of society, but could possibly attract more sympathy if it were a little more emotional. 

The biggest problem I see with this ad is its lack of credibility.  Especially when talking about health issues, people are attracting to things that they feel are credible because they want to trust that what they are saying is true.  Unfortunately this ad has no sponsor or creator associated with it, so many people will skim over it.  Since health care has become such an important issue in the last couple decades. Many people are not willing to consider any one else’s opinion unless they have the best credibility.  In response to the lack of credibility on this ad, people might assume that this “could never happen” because a doctor or heath care company was not associated with the making of this advertisement.  

Rhetorical Analysis