PREPARATION FOR 1/29 (RETTBERG AND MILLER/SHEPHERD)

Hello, Everyone:

We will spend the first part of Tuesday's (1/29) class discussing the results of your group analysis of genres from Thursday, before discussing what Rettberg and Miller/Shepherd argue about blogs as genre. Their articles are not difficult, but they are lengthy because they are building theory based on an analysis of different case studies. Please give yourselves time to read thoughtfully for their claims and examples, but also make note of places where their claims may rub against or conflict with how you understand "blogging" or "citizen journalism." Our goal will be to recognize the take-away concepts in each article, and to consider the possibilities and limitations of those concepts.

Here are some discussion questions that may help you read in advance of Tuesday's class:

1. How does Miller and Shepherd's discussion of genre reflect other genre theories you may have studied, in English, EWM, or media studies classes? Or, if you're new to genre theory, then try to unpack the quote by Berkenkotter and Huckin that they use in the third paragraph of their article. In a way, that quote -- and that paragraph -- holds the genealogy of Miller and Shepherd's genre theory. Do you think the assumptions they make about genre generally hold up when applied to blogs?
2. What are some of the reasons Miller and Shepherd give for studying the blog as a genre? Their overarching claim seems to be that blogs both support and disrupt the distinction between public and private, but there are probably other reasons as well.
3. What is "kairos" in their argument? How is it significant? What does it mean that subjectivity is a product of time and place, formed in interaction with a kairos (second paragraph in final section of the article)?
4. In a way, Rettberg applies genre analysis to three case studies (Dooce.com, Kottke.org, dailykos.com) in order to come up with sub genres, or categories within the blog genre. How does she determine each sub genre? How do her sub genres act like -- or not act like -- Miller and Shepherd's concept of genre? Do you think they have the same expectations of genre?
5. Consider Liebling's 1960 statement about free speech, or free press (Rettberg quotes it in the beginning of her chapter on "Citizen Journalism"). Unpack it, for its assumptions and implications. Why do you think Rettberg opens her chapter with it? Does it apply today?
6. What do you see as the principal justifications or main reasons why Rettberg compares the "blogger" to a "citizen journalist"? And then, what are the main reasons or principal justifications for why this could be a tricky comparison? If it helps, try answer this question by using one of the specific examples Rettberg provides, e.g., Columbine, Baghdad, etc.
7. What is "symbiosis" in Rettberg's argument? How is it significant?

Enjoy the readings!

-Prof. Graban

IN-CLASS ANALYSIS OF SCI/TECH GENRE SAMPLES 1/24

Hello, Everyone:

In teams of 2-3 people (no more, please!) during Thursday’s discussion of our sci/tech public genre samples, I will ask you to spend some time writing a brief but coherent post on the question that corresponds with the genre you are assigned.

Genre Assignments
Wald’s “Is Ethanol for the Long Haul?”: How does Wald push the limits of current research on ethanol use and production to increase the certainty of his position on the topic?

Mann’s “The Coming Death Shortage”: What role do metaphors, lore, speculation, and prediction play in conveying how Mann thinks we should feel about the impending “death shortage”?

Joy’s “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”: What role do literature, contemporary science, historical science, and current events play in conveying how Joy thinks we should feel about genetic engineering technology?

Lehrer’s “The Future of Reading” (and related links in BB on the Lehrer controversy!): For Lehrer's blog post(s), wherein lies ownership of the ideas he uses? In other words, do you think his blog post(s) reenacts and transforms technical information, borrows it, represents it, or develops it further, or a combination of the above?

Tools/Concepts
To help you develop your response, here are some talking points that will aid your analysis, so I suggest that you compile notes on as many of these things as are helpful:

• shared value(s), ideologies, or assumptions on which the article is based (use 1-2 passages from Killingsworth/Palmer)
• evidence of community formation (use 1-2 passages from Killingsworth/Palmer)
• stasis (or stases) that seems to drive the argument (use 1-2 passages from Fahnestock/Secor)
• arrangement/organization of the article
• evidence of audience accommodation
• key terms, or buzzwords, that the article takes up to challenge, complicate, or reaffirm
• whether/how the article blurs genre or discursive aim, i.e., is it pretty focused in a sci/tech problem, or does it extend the problem out to other fields, such as law, politics, education, business, economics, etc.?
• implied narrative(s) (e.g., dominion, apocalypse, stewardship, anthropomorphization, shared ecology, biodiversity, colonization, etc.)
• relevant concept(s) from Style lesson 3 in “characters” (especially pp. 24-25) or lesson 7 in “shape” (especially pp. 71-75)
• relevant concept(s) from WWC chapter 8 (the final section on ellipses and parentheses) or chapter 10 on “clarity” (especially pp. 138-139, 141-142)

Feel free to post your group response by "commenting" to this post, signing your names (or pseudonyms).

-Prof. Graban

PREPARATION FOR 1/22 (FAHNESTOCK/SECOR AND KILLINGSWORTH/PALMER)

Hello, Everyone:

Thanks for your collaborative construction of the sci/tech discourse grid during yesterday's class (1/17). I have made my contributions to the grid and uploaded it to Blackboard, where you'll see the Google Docs link is also still active. Next week, we will use stasis theory to help us consider close interactions between logic, language, arrangement, and style -- especially when sci/tech genres begin to "go public."  

Here are some discussion questions that may help you read in advance of Tuesday's class:

1. In Fahnestock and Secor's article, what do the stasis patterns in scientific discourse and literary criticism have in common with each other? What do you think is the most important difference between them (sci discourse and lit crit)? 
2. How do Fahnestock/Secor build their theory? Whose ideas do they inherit and take up, what do they keep the same, and what do they change?
3. Selecting any one of the stasis levels they identify, do you think that stasis functions the same way as in Grant-Davie's article (the section on Exigence)? Could you see that stasis in the sci/tech genre that your group examined during yesterday's class?
4. In describing various "transformations" of scientific discourse across the public sphere, Killingsworth and Palmer present a theory that is based on a principal distinction between "news" and "common interest." Let's explore that distinction for all of its worth, including the reasons why it is still valuable for building discourse theory even in a highly mediated society such as ours, while also keeping in mind its limitations -- i.e., specific instances or examples where we see the distinction being challenged.
5. Does Killingsworth and Palmer's discussion of "community formation" (through case studies of different genres) in any way complicate -- or clarify -- the distinctions between Fahnestock and Secor's stasis levels?
6. In the final section of Killingsworth and Palmer's chapter, they analyze Time magazine to propose various ways that Time -- and similar news publications -- can represent a kind of "public environmentalism." Which example in that section do you think best explains the shift from "news" to "public" involvement, and why? What happens in the language of that example?

-Prof. Graban

STYLE AND WWC PAGES ANNOUNCED

Hello, Everyone:

Beginning next week (1/22), please do bring Style and When Words Collide to class each day. While I cannot promise that we will always use them as planned, I know that I do plan to use them and imagine they will become useful as we work through our spheres. Also, please note that I have assigned chapters from these texts on the days we are scheduled to read them more focusedly, so please make this change on your syllabus or in your calendars (wherever you keep track of your daily work):

• 2/5/13 Style chapters on "Actions" and "Cohesion/Coherence"; WWC chapter on "grmr: CWOT?"
• 2/14/13 Style chapter on "The Ethics of Style"; WWC chapter on "10 Little Secrets"
• 3/7/13 Style chapter on "Global Coherence"; WWC chapter on "Style"
• 4/11/13 Style chapter on "Emphasis"; WWC chapter on "Sense and Sensitivity"

Looking forward to it, and good luck on <Short Assignment #1>.

-Prof. Graban

BLOGGING SCHEDULE

Hello, Everyone:

Here is our blogging schedule as it stands:

• 1/15 - Alex, Cassandra, Rachel C., Tyler
• 1/22 - Alex, Anneleise, Annette, Austin, Chris, Donovan, Erik, Joey, Lindsey, Nate, Rachel Y.
• 1/29 - Amanda, Brittany S., Catalina, Corey, Jenn, Jordan, Katherine, Nick, Rachel C.
• 2/12 - Brittany M., Brittany S., Donovan, Erik, Joey, Joseph, Nick, Rachel Y., Shay, Stacey
• 2/21 - Annette, Austin, Cassandra, Danae, Lindsey, Katherine, Morgan, Vanessa
• 3/21 - Anneleise, Danae, Joseph, Morgan, Nate, Shay, Tyler, Vanessa
• 4/2 - Amanda, Brittany M., Catalina, Chris, Corey, Jenn, Jordan, Stacey

If you are one of Tuesday's bloggers, be sure to read carefully through our shared <guidelines>, so that you do your very best on your post. You are, to some degree, a discussion leader through your blogging, and your blog post is, to some degree, formal writing, so your readers are willing to have you educate and engage them. If you have specific questions about the blog (e.g., genre, format, content, etc.) feel free to e-mail me.

If you are one of Tuesday's respondents, remember that the <guidelines> apply to your responses as well, since I am asking for the equivalent of a well-articulated and thoughtful post, even though you will be "commenting" to someone else's post. You should plan to have the texts at hand so you can quote specifically (if needed), cite page numbers, and get names and details as accurately as possible. These are all important aspects of communicating publicly and we're hoping to build good habits early.

And finally, remember that your first blog post should appear on your own blog, and not on the course blog. So, if you have not yet sent me the  URL for your new blog, please do so ASAP so that I can post it in the right-hand navigation bar. Otherwise, your classmates will not know where to go to read your post.

Do well, but have fun with it!

-Prof. Graban

PREPARATION FOR 1/15 (GRANT-DAVIE & BAZERMAN)

Hello, Everyone:

I thank you for an engaging discussion today, as we just scratched the surface on what it means (or can mean) to analyze and theorize a whole discourse situation, taking into account text, context, intertext, metatext, and network. Next week, the fun truly begins, as we move fairly quickly into thinking about principles underlying the various spheres we will study, and how those principles are enacted through logic, language, and other things. As you work your way through Grant-Davie's discussion of "rhetorical constituents" and Charles Bazerman's demonstration of "intertextuality," try to be mindful of how they are communicating such abstract concepts to us. They work hard at it, and I think they make them fairly accessible.

Here are some discussion questions that may help you read in advance of Tuesday's class:

1. Grant-Davie seems to be interested in something he calls "causality," or "the extent to which the world is not chaotic, but ordered, a place where actions follow patterns and things happen for good reasons" (264). He also tells us that his preference -- as a writing professor -- is to help students develop "a stronger basis for making composing decisions" and for understanding the decisions of other writers (264). How does he argue for this, i.e., what can you locate as his main claims (or evidences)?
2. Why do you think Grant-Davie uses "constituents," and not "subjects" or "agents"? I imagine terminology matters in an article like this one. So I'll be interested in seeing you identify any new terms (to you), or terms whose usage in this article is unfamiliar to you. Look them up and try to understand their purpose in this article.
3. Bazerman describes six kinds of intertextual techniques (which is a pretty good list) (88-90). Thinking deeply about other texts you have read, composed, encountered, or edited, I wonder what other techniques you might add to this list? It's possible that your own examples would still be subsumed under his six techniques, but I'm curious whether we can imagine a text situation that inspires us to name a new technique, one not already thought of, or to describe its intertextuality in different ways.
4. Now do the same of what he describes as "levels of intertextuality" (86-88). What constitutes a "level"?
5. In the final part of his article ("Further Reading"), Bazerman names the theorists who have influenced the concept of "intertext," raising some interesting concerns about origins of ideas, authorship, readership, and audience construction. In class, I'll ask us to think about how these roles (and situations) can get complicated through intertextuality.
6. Does Bazerman's "intertextuality" in any way complicate -- or clarify -- the distinctions between Grant-Davie's terms (exigence, rhetor, audience, constraint)?

-Prof. Graban

PREPARATION FOR THURSDAY 1/10

Hello, everyone.

In preparation for Thursday's class, I have asked you to take care of these small -- but important -- tasks:

• print out, fill out, and bring to class the "questionnaire" (in our Blackboard "Course Handouts" folder) -- apologies for department copier being down!;
• accept my invitation to our course blog (you'll get this in an e-mail);
• <set up> your own blog (get as far as you can, referring to the 3-minute tutorial courtesy of Ms. Spiezo);
• send me an e-mail with your top 3 preferences for <blogging> dates (see the syllabus to get a sense of what we're reading when); 
• compose a "Goals" letter (bring 2 copies to Thursday's class). 

I look forward to continuing our discussion on Thursday!

-Prof. Graban

WELCOME TO ENC 4404 -- IT'S ALL RIGHT HERE!

Welcome to ENC 4404: Advanced Writing and Editing for the Spring 2013 semester! This dedicated blog space hosts announcements, updates to our course calendar, gateways for assignments, and a forum for conversation as the class gets underway. This semester, each of you will be writing and maintaining your own blog where class discussion will ensue, and in the first week of class, your blog links will appear under "Member Blogs" in the navigation bar at right. Until then, feel free to browse the "Course Links" at right to preview (or review) any of our course documents.

-Professor Graban