New Literacy

Blogging has become a new way of communication of this century.  Even within this class, right now, we are blogging our thoughts for an audience, in this case our classmates.  In my own writing experiences as well, outside of all school and classroom settings, I blog.  My Tumblr is a way for me to express myself daily.  I have daily posts about what happens to me during my day, or my thoughts or feelings toward something specific.  Even pictures and quotes are a way of written expression.  I have followers that read my blog as well as people that I follow their blogs and keep up with what is going on in their lives.  That is what is so important about blogging.  The audience.  Just as Thompson says, “the fact that students today almost always write for an audience gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing.”  Obviously I’m not going to have the same format in my blog as I would a research paper for a class.  This is because the audience that students today write for develops their entire style and tone of a piece of writing.  As well as posting my thoughts, I can respond to other’s blogs as well.  In this way, it makes the conversation public and therefore, according to Thompson, close to the ancient Greek style of argument.  My blog is just one specific example that supports Thomspon’s views on new literacy.  In addition, I use Twitter, which according to him the text in tweets adds up over time.  There are many more other solid examples in my life that back up Thompson’s views.  

Text of Choice

            In this ad for a Compassion Child Sponsor, the purpose is to get its audience to sponsor a child that is in poverty.  Its audience is middle to upper class Christians (probably all in first world countries) that would be able to write letters and donate money to a child each month.  It is relevant because children are dying of starvation and poverty each day in third world countries and Compassion is giving a way for the audience to help them.  By saying “Releasing Children From Poverty” the organization makes it timely and convinces the audience that they much sponsor now in order to save a child.  The ad is able to achieve this through the use of ethos and pathos as well as logos.  The image that serves as the background to the ad is a very crucial element to evoking pathos among the audience.  The child, so innocent, is dirty and looks sad and it is as though he is trapped behind the wood.  It is a strong picture that makes the audience sad and feel pity and compassion for the child and therefore would persuade them to donate.  In addition, the claim that “The Difference is Jesus” is an appeal to both ethos and logos.  It is ethos because it establishes the foundation as Christian and the Christian members that make up the audience are a lot more likely to donate because it is a Christian organization (this is why the audience is mostly Christians to begin with).  Also, Jesus could be used here as a form of logic for the audience because they believe that he is a concrete reason to help others in need.  The add uses all three approaches to reach the audience, but the strongest is the pathos that is set by the image. 

http://thoughtfulspot.typepad.com/.a/6a0128760776fb970c014e8a295dea970d-600wi

Writer's Profile

            When writing, I generally begin with an outline.  My writing process begins with making a broad list of the overview of subjects that I will be writing about.  Under each subject, or category, I come up with two or three subcategories or examples or ideas (depending on the assignment) to support each subject.  If I can’t come up with enough support for a subject or topic, then I throw it out.  The ones that I am left with are the ones that I have solid evidence to support then when I begin to write.  Once I have an outline of what I am going to write, I just start writing.  It may not be in the right order or as specific as it needs to be but I try to just get all of my ideas and support out on the paper.  Once I have a first draft, I read through it and see if the order of things needs to be changed, if I need to add or remove some sentences based on how well they fit within the writing.  Next, I read for grammar and sentence structure.  Editing is very important to me and I generally do a lot more editing than revision.  In all of my writing, no matter how casual, I put it upon myself to make sure that I use correct grammar and English.  Once I am done making corrections, I read it once more to make sure that everything works together nicely and that I am satisfied with the level of work that I produced.  I think this process works for me very nicely.  It gives me somewhere to start with and somewhere to go and a procedure to follow along the way.  The most challenging part for me is filling in the information from the outline to the full writing.  I have trouble in my writing connecting all of the parts of my paper so that they function as a whole. For example, sometimes I lose sight of the fact that I have to tie everything back to my thesis in the beginning in order for the paper to argue whatever its purpose is.  Otherwise, the writing hasn’t accomplished anything.