betajames

Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric (Winter 1968): 1-14.

  Bitzer begins this piece with a series of hypothetical situations in which “words suggest the presence of events, persons, or objects” (1), and this leads into his idea of a rhetorical situation, causing him to state further that “situations are not always accompanied by discourse…it is the situation which calls the discourse into existence” (2).  He thus proposes “a theory of situation” (3) and explains further by stating that “rhetoric is situational” (3) because it, meaning rhetoric, is “a mode of altering reality” (4) and that “rhetorical discourse comes into being in order to effect change” (4).
Bitzer therefore views rhetorical situation as “a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which invites utterance” (5) and explains further:
So controlling is situation that we should consider it the very ground of rhetorical activity, whether that activity is primitive and productive of a simple utterance or artistic and productive of the Gettysburg Address. (5)

Furthermore, to say that rhetoric is situational means:
rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to situation…;(2) a speech is given rhetorical significance by the situation…; (3) a rhetorical situation must exist as a necessary condition of rhetorical discourse…; (4)…many rhetorical situations mature and decay without giving birth to rhetorical utterance; (5) a situation is rhetorical insofar as it needs and invites discourse capable of participating with situation and thereby altering its reality; (6) discourse is rhetorical insofar as it functions (or seeks to function) as a fitting response to a situation which needs and invites it…(7) the situation controls the rhetorical response in the same sense that the question controls the answer and the problem controls the solution.
Bitzer then offers a formal definition rhetorical situation as 
a complex of persons, events, objects, and relationships presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence. (6)
Afterward, he outlines three constituents of any rhetorical situation: exigence, audience and constraints.  The first of these is “an imperfection marked by urgency” (6) which also functions as the organizing principle by specifying “the audience to be addressed and the change to be effected” (7).  The second of these, audience, which is something rhetoric always requires (7), consists “only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change” (8).  The third of these, constraints, has two main classes, “those originated or managed by the rhetor and his method” (8) and “those other constraints, in the situation, which may be operative” (8).  Bitzer also notes that Aristotle called the former ‘artistic proofs’ and the latter ‘inartistic proofs’ before closing by stating that these three components “comprise everything in a rhetorical situation” (8).

Bitzer then offers some general characteristics or features of the conception of the rhetorical situation

Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation; the situation which the rhetor perceives to an invitation to create and present discourse. (8)

The rhetorical situation invites a fitting response, a response that fits the situation. (9)

To say that a rhetorical response fits a situation is to say that it meets the requirements established by the situation.  A situation which is strong and clear dictates purpose, theme, matter, and style of the response. (10)

The exigence and the complex of persons, objects, events and relations which generate rhetorical discourse are located in reality, are objective and publicly observable historic facts in the world we experience, and therefore available for scrutiny by an observer or critic who attends to them. (11)

Rhetorical situations exhibit structures which are simple or complex, and more or less organized. (11)

Rhetorical situations come into existence, then either mature or decay or mature and persist—conceivably some persist indefinitely. (12)

“In the best of all possible worlds,” Bitzer concludes, “there would be communication perhaps, but no rhetoric—since exigencies would nor arise” (13).  The rest of the conclusion concerns rhetoric’s philosophical justification.

Next Tuesday is a special session to discuss and evaluate Twitter. We'll also discuss revising deadlines for blog posts/comments.

In preparation for that discussion and ultimate decision on whether or not to keep Twitter as part of our class, below are pertinent passages from your evaluations:

M1 (11am class):

I now can see some relevance to the use of Twitter such as networking and communicating and keeping in touch with group members as well as  other classmates, and the professor. Although I feel that some of the other many social network sites may be more of a fit for use for the class as compared to Twitter I don’t feel that it is an absolutely ridiculous assignment. With twitter however, I liked how I could see what’s new while also being reminded of upcoming assignments that may be due thanks to my fellow classmates posts. I don’t necessarily think twitter should go, but I do feel that it has its pluses and negatives.

I do not think we should continue to use twitter, but if the class votes to keep it we should change the requirements.  I think that we should have to post class related posts.  If people want to post personal information, then they need to get a seperate account.  I also think we should reduce the number of tweets required.   Right now it seems like too much busy work.

I think it's nice to have there if we should need to contact someone with a question or group projects but having a required number to meet every week is a little extensive, overkill, and starting to become busy work. Many of us have never used such social communication tools before this. I've found, by communicating with my group for our project, that most of us preferred the use of e-mail to contact one another rather than twitter.

I have no problem keeping twitter if the personal posts about bathroom, eating and sleep breaks keep to a minmum. Also as long as linking your posterous.com counts as your "tweets" for the week. I do like the fact that Dr. Schirmer, is able to see all our posts because it lets him know the work we are doing and showing our participation. Also it is good to get team members information and moving on their part of the project. I don't have a problem with using twitter if these are the reason's we are using. 

Should we continue to use twitter? Yes and no.  I really like Twitter. I enjoy reading other peoples tweets or statuses and making comments here and there. However, there are two things I do not enjoy. I do not enjoy having to make the tweets refer to the class. Meaning, randomly having to find an article on technology and posting it or having to write something pertaining to the class. I would really enjoy using Twitter if the tweets could be about just anything.

[Twitter] didn’t just change the culture but absolutely created a community, again, whether we realized it or not. Everyone was in the dark, wondering how and why to use this new medium, not knowing much about it but what little we’ve heard, yet it created an open line of communication, even if awkward and limiting, in the late hours of the night, when just getting an “I’m so frustrated too!” made things seem not so dark.

To be honest, I don't feel I have done enough yet with Twitter. I would like to read more of the relevant class tweets, go to more links on class tweets, and look for organizations and people on Twitter that I might want to follow. I would like to ed links posts and engaged in more re-Tweeting and direct responses to Tweets. Thus, I am ambivalent as to whether we continue with Twitter or not.

via sooperphli.posterous.com

I think we should continue to use Twitter, however I do not think there should be a required number of tweets anymore.  This could be the "chatter" of the classroom, allowing us to freely discuss and comment on what is going on in class, rather than being pressured to think of something pertaining to the class. It is also just one more thing to check every day, and that has caused me to resent it a bit.

my inexperience with Twitter led me to have unrealistic expectations of its abilities in relation to our class's purposes. Maybe it's doing just fine and I should evaluate it more from a microblogging perspective, which is probably the correct frame of reference, anyway.

Nonetheless, there do seem to be a few disadvantages to our use of Twitter thus far. While I can balance my time enough to meet requirements, it's more than just the time required to use Twitter in our class - it's the value related to the time invested. I think the time would be of better value if our class maintained Twitter accounts specifically made for the purposes of our class, that way the members of the class would not have to weed through hundreds of tweets, some of which are a bit vulgar, to meet the demands of our Twitter use.

Although I really enjoy twitter for communication purposes and getting to know my classmates, I found that I had to read 65 totally unrelated posts compared to 25 related (or at least loosely related) to technical writing...I do enjoy twitter for getting to know my classmates and it is helpful to see when everyone has a new blog post up, makes it easier to do my commenting, but I am not sure overall it is worth the effort of sifting through the non sense stuff. I have kind of had a change of heart in the past couple weeks, I started out completely in favor of twitter because I really did not know what else we could do. After I read the email of ideas I felt better about that aspect, and I have noticed my group is actually better at communicating through email. I do not think twitter is doing what it was supposed to do for our class.

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M2 (230pm class): 

I see others using [Twitter] for the same reasons that I have. I don’t want to sound like a complainer but there are also people out there that use it for EVERYTHING! I understand that this is a way for them to communicate and express themselves but some people seem to post 45 times a day. I feel like they should have separate accounts. I try to use my Twitter account strictly for class use. I feel like I miss some of the important information, and have to sift through the useless posts to have proper contact with my classmates.

My estimation of Twitter was that someone had finally figured out how to use technology to create, once and for all, a way for people to feel as though they were actually talking to other people without ever having to listen to them.  After having this initial reaction to Twitter, yet being compelled to endure in the face of being required to use it, what I slowly found out that was that there were some posts that I seemed dislike less than others.

Although some of my previous comments may contradict this, I think we should continue the use of twitter for this class.  I have gotten used to it and am not interested in learning a new form of social media at this time.  Twitter has its benefits and just has simply taken alot longer than expected for most to get used to, because of the class requirements.

I would say that, I don't see a negative reason to stop using twitter account to post anything. I personally like it, because I am learning from everybody. Twitter can enable osmotic communication in virtual teams and we can avoid social isolation...Lastly, messages can contain every type of information, give tip in someone's question, you can follow every twitter user you want. I can follow every bit of information that flows by... even when I finish the #345 course

I don't really see much of a reason to continue the use of Twitter other than students just not wanting the extra work that might be required otherwise. I personally think one extra Posterous blog per week or two or three additional comments per week would be extrememly beneficial. Since comments on blogs are already required, extra comments or an extra blog might encourage more student interaction.

We should continue to use twitter this semester because it helps us get easy and fast feedback from the instructor and classmates. It also sort of like a news port for technical writing. When I read other peoples tweets or see some of the information they have posted on their page, it gives me ideas on what I should blog about and opens my mind to the other possibilities there are in technical writing. That being said, I think the requirements for using twitter should be amended.

While I seem to be pretty anti-Twitter, if we choose to continue to use Twitter, you won’t hear much complaint from me. It isn’t hard to post five 140-character posts per week. Actually, from the list of alternative options, it is probably the easiest. However, to use a tool just to use it seems purposeless.

if we shouldn't continue to use twitter i think we should use something that people can get on and use right away and that they are familiar with. im not against twitter at all i am just getting the grasp of it and  i think that would have to be black board just because everyone has a account  with the class already and im sure everyone has already  used it for another college class this is already set up and has been used by many people then this way  we wouldn't have to fish and try and find people in our class im sure ive not added everyone yet on twitter. so if we switched then i think this would be the perfect thing to jump into.

I would hate to think that we would not continue to use Twitter, especially after reading some of the alternatives that would replace it.  I think adding an additional blog post requirement would be too much to do all in one week for the one’s striving to get an A in the class because that would make it 4 blogs we would have to submit per week.  Not only do I think that that would be too time consuming but after Gentle’s and McMurrey’s readings are completed it will be even more difficult to find relatable topics to write about.  I also don’t think it would be necessary to meet up more than we already do considering James has been very good about keeping in touch with us via email.  Any questions/concerns that I have had have been addressed in a timely and clear manner.  Meeting more would just be time consuming in my opinion and could be used for better purposes.

I think we should still have Twitter available to us to use like a discussion board, but we shouldn’t be required to post on it.  I like the idea of Twitter in theory, but when actually having to use it, I didn’t like it.  I think there are other things we could use that would make communication easier and more organized.

Due to 2 snow days last week, we had a jam-packed session Thursday night. We evaluated and decided to keep using Twitter. We wrote letters to elementary students based on ethos, pathos, and logos. We collaborated on collaboration. It was a very full and fulfilling session.

Class began with an evaluative discussion of Twitter, which we've been using for the last five weeks as outlined here. The actual assignment mentions a couple reasons for using Twitter, but there is an additional reason that I mentioned in class Thursday night. Given the wealth of important, positive connections and contributions I've made via Twitter, I felt I'd be doing students an incredible disservice if it wasn't part of our class. The ultimate decision to keep Twitter, if a bit begrudgingly by some, came with the condition that we designate Wednesday and Sunday nights as optional "tweet-heavy" times. In other words, usage requirements were simplified to "just do it." There is no more 5-per-week requirement. Just be present and accounted for and acknowledged in using Twitter. Since that decision, there's been something of a quick turnaround for a couple students who weren't interested in keeping Twitter part of #567crt. I have to admit to some excitement in seeing how Twitter will work for us the rest of the semester.

So far, discussion of theories that can/should inform how we teach writing have been very measured and reasonable. That is, we've weighed the good and not-so-good aspects of process, expressivist, rhetorical, and collaborative theory, seen how each might play a part in a first-year writing course. As Gia H. concluded on her blog, "there is a time and a place. That seems to be the motto this semester." To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been a wholesale allegiance made by anyone to one particular theory. There hasn't been a declaration of "I'm an expressivist!" Perhaps there's some reluctance to do so, which is understandable. I'm just as ready to observe and question such declarations. However, I remain curious if any of the theories we've yet to discuss will resonate in its entirety with one/some/all students. Will critical and feminist factions develop after the break? Will #567crt evolve (or devolve) into a microcosm of the discipline of rhetoric and writing overall?

Also: A couple posts on rhetoric/al situations mention the snowstorm that caused the cancellation of last week's class. I'm curious if this recent "snowpocalypse" and the bevy of related descriptors generated to describe it could serve as an interesting example of the rhetorical situation. 

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On collaboration: 

Collaboration is definitely another theory that should be used but it needs to be after some familarity has been established in the class.

Throwing it in a students face without explanation seems to be the common thing to do, and no wonder student's have anxiety, and hatred towards group work.

Even if it works for the student in the freshmen composition course, is collaborative writing the correct, most effective way to produce work?

when group work is running at its best, it encourages individual contributions. The point of group work is to get a section of individuals to pull together and to reason, think and do as a unit. This is both a method of doing but should also be looked at as an opportunity to learn.

Some students have experience that goes way beyond alcoholism and other collaborative writings.

What possibly can a classroom learn from this except shock and disbelief.

One weakness of this article was that the authors never really explained why the profession was so against collaboration. Maybe it's just my questioning nature, but I wanted to know the why of it. It would have been interesting for the authors to actually pose that question to various colleges and universities and document the differences/similarities of the responses given.

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On rhetoric/al situation: 

The more I read the more I felt like the conversations were describing two sides of a coin.

I looked at these readings kind of like a boxing match, with the coach being the rhetor. 

If our culture is responsible for how we write or how we say something, why has haven't there been significant changes over the last 60 years?

I view a rhetor as a a newsreporter or author and it is their reality the audience is reading, and their interpretation of events. It is important to be very critical of any source of information because it is their views and reactions of the situation, I ask how does the rhetor benefit?

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On Twitter:

when you surround yourself with the right audience, [Twitter] has positive effects.

[Twitter] is a good starting point for collaboration

How is Twitter better?  What can you say in so few characters? I just have this sinking feeling that I’m filling the void with detritus.

Twitter is useful for bouncing ideas around and it’s nice to get to “know” people in a different way.  But I guess I’m a little miffed that I feel like I need to be connected to the class on a daily basis, and I guess I don’t think it’s fair.

I think using Twitter is actually a pretty good idea because it allows us to stay in touch with one another outside of class. It has really been nice to not use Blackboard!

My growing interest in mommyblogs and digital rhetoric in general has only benefitted from the communities I have found on Twitter.

Twitter has basically kept a record of our class if you search for our hashtag.

I like twitter for a more recreational purpose.

Collaborative learning can be efficient in providing first-year students with a real immediate audience for their work; it can also generate new ideas and can translate productively into outside world experiences.

Collaboration can be either hierarchical or egalitarian depending on group dynamics (i.e., whether or not some members have more control than other members of the group or if members have equal say).

The strengths and weaknesses of collaboration reside in the strengths and weaknesses of the collaborators.

Collaborative learning is a process although sometimes disjointed in which as Bruffee says the blind can sometimes end up leading the blind.

We are spokes in a wheel.

Due to a somewhat abrupt change, there wasn't as much blogging this week. Instead, students emailed me early self/course evaluations, offering their perspectives on their performance at my request. Though there were some expressions of uncertainty, I think a majority of those who emailed me understand quite well their position in #345tw. That's not to write that there aren't some persistent concerns. I want to find the time to address them in full next week. Given the group facilitation planned for next Tuesday, I doubt 15 minutes will be enough. With that in mind, I want to suggest now the possibility of a face-to-face meeting next Thursday. The focus of this additional meeting will be course requirements beyond the use of Twitter, including deadlines for blogging and other assignments. So, #345tw students, could we meet twice next week? 

Evaluating Twitter won't be the only topic on the table, but as some students have already posted their evaluations, I want to take a moment and look ahead to the possibility of doing away with Twitter. If M1 and/or M2 decide against keeping and using Twitter for the rest of the semester, something needs to replace it. Something needs to replace it because, along with Posterous, Twitter was part of the alternative to using Blackboard and/or having ENG 345 as a more traditional course. Something needs to replace Twitter if only because of sheer volume. Please forgive the elementary math used below to illustrate tweet volume:

5 tweets per week x 140 characters = 700 characters per week

700 characters over the next 10 weeks = 7000 characters

On an average of 5 characters per word: 7000 / 5 = 1400 words.

So, if students continued to use Twitter for the next 10 weeks, they'd each produce around 1400 words. This is equivalent to a solid short essay, but I'm not about to suggest an additional major writing assignment as a replacement. Instead, here are some possibilities:

1. An additional blog post and/or comments per week
2. Face-to-face meetings once a week
3. Revise existing requirements
4. A new social media tool

From my perspective, only two of the above options are viable. Additional blogging in the form of one more required post per week and/or more comments may be the most sensible. Students are already comfortable with blogging and managing Posterous. Given students' growing confidence, perhaps there's more yet we can do with Posterous alone. I also think meeting face-to-face once a week for the rest of the semester could prove beneficial. If nothing else, requiring such meetings would provide a set time for groups to see each other and discuss facilitation and project work. 

Based on the early evaluations of Twitter, I'm less inclined to think students will be open to revising requirements for use. I'm even more disinclined to think a majority of students will be open to learning a new social media tool at this point in the semester. It may be better to just settle in and work with what's been working so far.

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Most of the group projects posted this week appear solid and I look forward to seeing how each group brings their project to fruition. I do have one concern, though, which I posted on Twitter yesterday: "#345tw clarification: Content curation in the form of links to YouTube or other sites does not count toward 'appropriate media equivalent.'" The point behind this clarification concerns the focus of the group project itself: original content creation. Each group needs to create its own content, take its own photos and post them to Flickr, shoot its own videos and upload them to Vimeo or YouTube, type up its own texts and post them to a wiki, etc. Simply posting or linking to content posted by others outside the group/class, whether audio content, photo content, video content, or some other kind of content, won't count toward the 2400-word requirement or the appropriate media equivalent. I encourage each group to research and reference outside sources, but we can't get away with posting a cluster of YouTube videos about [insert topic here] to Tumblr and call it good.

Odd how 2 snow days impact even a course that's predominantly online. Confusion, miscommunication, and misunderstanding abounded this week and I'm a little unsure as to why. Perhaps I need to email more friendly reminders...

pecha-kucha (Japanese for "chatter"), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That's it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. The result, in the hands of masters of the form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate cliché into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art.

If nothing else, I think Pecha Kucha is good training and good practice. Everyone should try Pecha Kucha; it's a good exercise for getting your story down even if you do not use the method exactly for your live talk in your work. It does not matter whether or not you can implement the Pecha Kucha "20x20 6:40" method exactly in your own company or school, but the spirit behind it and the concept of "restrictions as liberators" can be applied to most any presentation situation.

The method makes going deep difficult. But if there is a good discussion after a Pecha Kucha type of presentation then it may work well even inside an organization. I can imagine having college students give this kind of presentation about their research followed by deeper questioning and probing by the instructor and class. Which would be more difficult for a student and a better indication of their knowledge: a 45 minute recycled and typical PowerPoint presentation, or a tight 6:40 presentation followed by 30 minutes of probing questions and discussion?

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

"I'm gonna express so hard." - John M.

Expressivism may be a better base for other kinds of writing, a way in that enables writing students to develop an emotional commitment to the act and performance. However, for as freeing as expressivism might be for some, given its perceived lack of arbitrary rules, it may be just as important to develop standards without being prescriptive. 

I'm reminded of guiding ENG 112 last semester. For the first major, traditional writing assignment, I asked each student to put together a pecha kucha presentation. Despite the 20/20 constraints and the minimalism of presenting in this way, I stressed to students the freedom they had, offering personal narrative as one of many options. I attempted explaining to them that the PK could serve any number of ends for them, from how and why to what and where. In other words, I framed the PK as an expressive opportunity, but one that was part of the overall process of the larger, traditional writing assignment.

Given this frame, I shouldn't have been too surprised that some students simply turned in the script for their PK as the first draft of what was supposed to be a research essay. Either I didn't draw enough separation between the PK and the research essay as independent, but connected acts of writing or students just neglected to acknowledge it. Perhaps there was some confusion between ethos and persona, much like the kind Roger Cherry describes.

It's unfortunate that class this past week didn't get into much of that discussion, but I understand why. I wanted to make sure we gave enough time to the discussion of expressivism, even with a student-led facilitation about it. There were almost too many worthwhile comments made about expressivism, so I want to point to students' blogs as they contain similar thoughts (both in the original posts and in the subsequent comments, too).

the personal voice of a writer doesn't need to be labeled as romantic, just personal and I don't think that it discourages or excludes academic discourse. On Twitter, I asked why not both? Can we not have both personal voice as well as academic discourse in a paper?

The class being the official judge of the writing. Students are students for a reason. They are there to learn. I do not nessicarily agree with this.

I give you my best ink splattered pages and what do you give me in return? You give me a voice—a voice in my head that answers, that talks back but also one that questions.

Writing is a combination of a few different techniques and variables, much like completing a puzzle. What a teacher/professor needs to do is to find what the benefits and limitations of each theory of writing. The teacher should also know what genres of writing will benefit the most from the different theories and practices.

If we can find a way to weave the student’s own expressive thoughts in conjunction with his or her peers I think this can lead to “mastering new dialects…not abandoning the old, because our native tongue is always the means for understanding new ones

Consider the appeal of blogs, letters, journals/diaries and speeches. Such things are written from a personal point of view, usually in order to gain support for some cause or to deposit frustations or explain hopes and dreams. A little voice goes a long way, because in being comfortable with what one is writing, one may be able to construct a better argument.

After we've gotten the students to understand that their experience is helpful in writing, at some point if they're not strong in it already, we do have to get them ready to deal with specific audiences they might be writing to, and to be sure they're writing is technically correct as well. 

Before we can address the writing process with students, I think we need to re-educate them on how to approach school. Because I think the writing process, as many have stated on their blogs, is something we sort discover on our own.

By helping students understand themselves they can exist in a community with more knowledge and in turn professors also learn a new perspective they may have never once been introduced to in the past.

As writing teachers, we need to be careful if/when asking for experiences that students haven't had, that expressivism can (should?) be a potential layer over process and/or chosen when deemed necessary. Prewriting's perhaps the most obvious point of inclusion for expressivism, but the week's readings also reveal some promise for the purposes of revision.

Still, I'm curious if our thoughtful reactions to expressivist notions will occur in relation to rhetoricla, feminist, and other theories we've yet to read about and discuss. Is each theory of teaching writing simply layered on process? Or is posing such a question, in which these theories are "just layers," unfair?

Also, is Sean Connery an expressivist? Evidence: 

The first set of student-led group facilitations this week were effective and set something of a standard by which I think all future facilitations will be judged. The clear delineation of responsibility led to most group members appearing comfortable and confident with their assigned roles. Practical activities and discussions occurred in both face-to-face sessions; real-world examples of technical communication as well as reading summaries kept sessions from being too nebulous. 

Neither had much of a clear conclusion; each dissolved into more general discussion about the class, which was fine. That written, I have an expectation that future facilitations will have a cleaner, clearer closing section. Still, I want to offer my public thanks to those students who were brave enough souls to facilitate first.

There was also a noticeable shift in the blogs toward more practical, technical concerns this week. The level of comfort and confidence with Posterous and/or Twitter is sufficient now that many are able to get into the nuts-n-bolts of technical writing. Perhaps some are just seeing greater worth in the online textbook by McMurrey. It may also involve the shift in focus to the group project and the proposal in particular, which is due about 36 hours from now. 

The "Zero Gravity Toilet" (ZGT) assignment was due this week, too. Below are some personal favorites that I think captured the spirit of the assignment and showcased a strong, burgeoning understanding of technical communication.

M1:

The Cornballer from Arrested Development 

The "kill kit" from Dexter 

The Neuralizer from Men In Black 

The gun bra from Austin Powers 

M2:

The PKD blaster from Blade Runner 

The arc reactor from Iron Man 

King Triton's trident from The Little Mermaid 

The matter teleportation device from Star Trek 

In some ways, I think the facilitation was more helpful than the later discussion. While structured as a mock first-year composition class session, we were all in on the simulation. It was a meta-classroom situation. This allowed for some interesting meta-commentary moments, including the quick realization of the puzzle exercise as emblematic of process theory. Unlike first-year writing students, we were quite aware of how and why Michelle E. structured her facilitation. This awareness and experience also provided a different foundation for additional thoughts on the assigned readings. Some students pulled more from the facilitation than from prior classroom experience; this kind of immediacy made for a more fruitful discussion. 

Still, a couple students might have been a little too quick to write off (ha ha) the idea of discussing audience with students. Talking about audience with those who haven't the best awareness of it can be difficult, but that can't/shouldn't mean we avoid it altogether. For as offensive or problematic David Foster Wallace's SWE/SBE speech might be, don't we have a responsibility to help students foster that awareness? And if not a direct conversation, can we devise activities/exercises (if not full assignments) that address?

Related to these questions, though, are others, including that of just what first-year writing students can handle (as well as how much). Which tools are now in/essential to teaching first-year composition? How much direction is to be provided? What does it mean to afford students the opportunity to be creative, particularly with those students who resist? What do we force on students vs. simply ask of them?

Perhaps we should put a disclaimer somewhere on our future syllabi: "your audience may vary."

In a number of Posterous entries and Twitter updates this week, I noticed a certain amount of "settling in," evidence of students getting comfortable and confident with the communicative technologies required for this course. It appears that what I hoped for last week is indeed happening. That is, as students figure out the idiosyncrasies and intricacies of Posterous and Twitter*, the less they focus on them. We're getting more into the discussion of what technical writing is, what it does, how it works, etc.

However, this shift in discussion and focus presents a new problem: likening technical writing to other forms of writing that we're more familiar with. This can be problematic because such comparisons limit our perspective of what technical writing is, what it does, how it works, etc. It may be natural for us to make such comparisons when learning new things, but this constrains our ability to understand. 

The kind of writing we do can be connected to almost any other kind of writing. It's all argument, it's all communication, it's all information. But the intent, the presentation, the topic, all these things are different and dependent on the kind of writing we do. Elements of journalism or poetry are similar to (or can influence) technical writing and the inverse is also arguable. However, technical writing is its own form of communication, replete with just as many idiosyncrasies and intricacies. 

So, rather than drawing comparisons between technical writing and journalism or poetry or writing about videogames, I'm hopeful that we'll move more toward analysis of technical writing itself. The ZGT assignment due next week should provide a greater indication of this analysis.

*Twitter remains an interesting course experiment, but there have been a couple complaints about how some students are using the service. Some are tweeting ad infinitum about other courses, how bored they are at work, their relationship status. For some students, this is TMI. However, each student's Twitter account/profile is theirs; I can't lay claim to it or dictate too much of the content. So long as students post 5 course-related tweets every week, making sure to include the course hashtag, #345tw, I have to be okay with students using Twitter for other purposes. I just want those students to know that their classmates might not be okay with those other purposes.

M1:

Blogs should have a meaning behind them, whether it is to relay new information or to start a conversation, blogs need to be thought out.

I didn't realize that the more you have conversations with people about the product at hand, or directions, or documentation, or whatever level you are trying to operate on, that you learn more and more of the issues at hand by teaching it. I understand that the more you teach something, the better you are at explaining it, but I can really see it now when I look back on issues revolving around things such as customer service.

my challenge to the group is for us to add more color with links, attachments, formatting, and subheadings. Some of us are, but the more the better.

A technical writer must prepare and reflect on his or her priorities and goals before embarking upon introducing some new medium of joining conversation. Anne Gentle encourages personal reflection before immediately trying a new way of becoming accessible to the community.  The technical writer must be wary of the amount of time they spend on a newly discovered social media site, as it's efficacy may be dismissed because of time one may spend on it during the workday

Right now in class with all the blogs and twitters we are doing, we are documenting and helping other people to document what they think is important.  When we go through and read other blogs it helps to organize our own ideas. 

M2:

Knowing why someone is reluctant to use social media could potentially make the difference in convincing them

It would not be worth anyone's time if an instruction manual was written and aimed towards someone with previous knowledge of the product but that was not the actual audience. If the audience does not understand the material, the writing piece seems pointless and did not accomplish its purpose.

I feel like I'm contradicting everything Gentle is writing about the relationship between technical writers and social networking, but customer service must be approached much differently than writing a document, and should probably be done by tech support, right? 

social networking is a huge way to get out your product, name, intentions, etc and a great way to build clientele.  The more they can read/write/connect with and about your company the more it will grow.