Research Paper Summary

Well it has been awhile since my last post and that is probably because I haven’t been actually required to do one in a while.  At the end of my last quarter of college was also the end of blogger lifestyle.  Why am I back you ask? Good question and you can probably already guessed the answer, it is because I have to write again.  After my quarter of blogging class I took another writing class that involved researching the online MMORPG World of Warcraft.  I had never played WoW but I was intrigued by the community that did play.  My friends and I were required to research and write about an aspect of the game that we found interesting. We ended up focusing on the social features and aspects of the game. What follows is some of our findings about the game and what we thought about our experience playing. 

            We started by coming up with a set of interview questions for players that have been both been plying the game for a while and those who had just recently started to play.  By doing that, we found a division in the social uses of the game between the lower level, new players, and the higher level, more experienced players.   We then differentiated between team play with socializing and solo play with a lack of socializing.  Two of the members of the group including myself were new to the game and were what you might call “noobs” (New Players).  This was one of the main reasons that we decided to do our research about the social aspects of both newer and older gamers.  Our third partner was very experienced in the ways of WoW and he was all for the socializing and guilds while the two of us just ran around and did our own thing without a  care in the world for what other players were doing in the game. 

            At the end of our research, we found that other players were not so different from those in our group in regards to what the two lower level players in our group wanted to do versus what our higher level friend did.  This did not come as much of a surprise because through interviews that we conducted, the players reaffirmed our belief that the higher level characters were more involved in the social aspect of the game.  Now this does not mean that we didn’t have a few answers from lower levels that said they started playing the game because of friends but the majority of players fell within our hunch.  We also found out that a lot of people like to socialize with friends in real life while playing in a virtual world and that it is not that uncommon for groups of players to be all together in one area in the RLS (Real Life Server) while playing together on a virtual server created by Blizzard in the game. 

            Some of the players that we interviewed gave us some pretty good quotes about the social aspect of the game.  On player said, it “adds a lot of fun to it because everyone has a job to do. Dps (damage dealers) have to do their jobs, while watching out for the mechanics of the boss at the same time. Tanks (high health players) have to keep their agro by taunting and making sure the boss isn’t attacking anyone but them. Healers have to keep everyone alive.” He concluded his point by saying that “The boss cannot be killed with the teamwork of every role.” We can see here that the player is saying that teamwork and socializing are vital aspects to complete higher level challenges in the game. Another player mentioned how when he was a lower level “I was just dipping my toes into the social aspect.” He was basically saying that he didn’t really socialize when he was low level and now that he is a higher level, (90 I believe) he is much more into it. 

 So, if there are any WoW players that happen to follow this extremely unpopular, un-followed blog then please feel free to leave a comment or two about your feeling on the social aspect of World of Warcraft.  Our full research paper can be found at, https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kA_4XzYNnH4AwXc96VGVwwYQsdfNoJmtE8LV-Fpl-fOcs4scxELbwgYjAbTy/edit?usp=sharing

Final Blog Posdt

At the start of this class I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  When I first heard that we were going to be keeping a blog, I thought it sounded like a very time consuming and pointless task.  I had never written a blog before and I had never really followed or read any other blogs so I’m really not sure why I thought this.  After learning about blogging and reading articles pertaining to blogging and literacy, I found that I really like the writing style of blogging.  I learned that I myself believe that blogging is a writing style and that I really like to put my own feelings and emotion into what I am writing.  I feel that if I am writing about something with passion I can better get across the message that I am trying to send. 

            In regards to the news, I have actually always really followed story that I am interested in.  I like to read about what is happening in our world and have found that I have very strong opinions about things that are happening in it.  This class helped me to focus more on different sides of news stories rather than just what I heard on one website. Now I tend to look at multiple sites in order to obtain the largest amount of information possible so I can form a better opinion about a subject.  I also learned that even blogging is news to some people no matter how opinionated the blog.

Final Essay 2 Draft

            Charlie Mullen

March 1, 2013

Writ 1122

Extended Essay 2

Multiple lives of a News Story

            News stories can have a life of their own. Once a story gets started, if it is big enough, it can spread to the far corners of the internet taking on new forms and inspiring new ideas in the people who read the stories.  These stories are often taken by multiple different news sites and written in the way that they think their readers would want to read them.  On February 7^th, a story broke in The Telegraph which is a London based news site about a manhunt for a former LAPD police officer who has allegedly killed three people and is on the run in California.  The story talks about a “manifesto” if which Dorner talks about his grievances with the LAPD and how it is their fault that his reputation was ruined.  Dorner writes, “When the truth comes out, the killing stops” (Telegraph).  Dorner was fired from the LAPD after allegedly lying about a trainee officer who he alleged kicked a schizophrenic suspect.  Dorner was eventually found dead in a cabin that was burned down from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  For a few weeks this story has been a huge part of the media and the idea behind Dorner has changed based on perception of the media. 

After the breaking of this original story, the basis of which sounds like a crazy man hell bent of revenge, the media started to look into the motivation behind what would make an ex-cop want to turn and threaten to kill his fellow officers.  In an article on the CNN website that was published on February 12^th, five days after the original story in The Telegraph, further insight into Dorner’s manifesto was taken.  The article is quoted as saying, “he blamed racism and corruption in the department for his removal and vowed to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against LAPD officers and their families. He called it a "last resort" to clear his name and strike back at a department he says mistreated him” (CNN).  This article shows the point that Dorner is trying to come from.  It provides more insight into the motives behind why the ex-cop would want to kill his fellow officers and harm their families.  This article also goes into details about the thoughts of the LAPD.  It provides insight into the way that the LAPD is viewing Dorner and his actions and how they are going to handle the situation.  Las Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck makes a statement that paints Dorner in a very different light than his manifesto does. He says, "This is an act -- and make no mistake about it -- of domestic terrorism".  "This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered" (CNN).  I think that Dorner’s story about how racism is the reason that he lost his job resonates a little louder because of the LAPD and their history with racism and mistreatment.

After this manifesto was more widely read and interpreted, and Dorner’s statements that he was wrongfully fired, people start to sympathize with Dorner’s situation.  Another article on CNN that is titled, “Ex-LAPD cop gains sympathizers on social media” talks about how followers on facebook pages have been siding with Dorner posting about how he was fired for trying to expose corruption within the LAPD.  These Facebook pages “take an approach” as Harris would state it, in siding with Dorner.  They approach their posting on Facebook with the idea that Dorner is right and that the LAPD is just another racist, corrupt government organization.  They are trying to appeal to people who also share this same view.  There are posts that highlight these beliefs such as, "He killed CORRUPT cops, cops kill INNOCENT people!" and "it's a shame we the people couldn't help dorner against these government forces" (CNN).  These pages on social media portray Dorner as a hero that is just taking matters into his own hands because no one else will fight the corruption that is taking place in the LAPD.  There is also a story on Fox News Insider that talks about Dr. Marc Lamont Hill who made comments on the O’Reily Factor that make Dorner look like some sort of a Hero.  He stated on the show,

“He’s been a real-life superhero to many people. Now, don’t get me wrong, what he did was awful, killing innocent people is bad. But when you read his manifesto, when you read the message that he left, he wasn’t entirely crazy,” Hill said on the network. “He had a plan and a mission here [...] and many people aren’t rooting for him to kill innocent people. They’re rooting for someone who was wronged to get a kind of revenge against the system. It’s almost like watching Django: Unchained in real life. It’s kind of exciting.”

This statement shows that people can see Dorner in a different light, that he just is not on a random killing spree but has a motive and a goal, and is actually fighting for something that he believes is good and right.  This is why it resonates with people and that is why people are taking his side and defending him.  Although it is a small group of people, they still feel for his cause.  These few readers have taken their own approach to the idea that Dorner is actually a hero and is fighting for good.  The idea was spawned from this story and didn’t have anything to do with the original story in the first place.  At no point in the original story did it talk about how Dorner is a hero.  This is just an interpretation of the story that has taken hold because people have chosen to believe it. 

            In a final transition of this news story, there was a story posted to InfoWars.com titled, “Imagine if Christopher Dorner was a Tea Party Member”.  It was very interesting to read because he is not a Tea Party member but is, according to the article, “is an Obama-supporting, gun control advocating, NRA hating, Piers Morgan loving, big government liberal” (infowars).  The article focuses on the fact that he is in fact favor of most of the things that Obama is doing and it accuses the media of not focusing on this aspect of the story.  They argue that if he was a “Right-Wing Extremist” he would be torn apart by the media.  The article also argues that if he were a “Right-Wing Extremist” then his support of the second amendment would be used by the media as a huge argument to support stricter gun control.  This article, unlike the previous ones, focuses on the part of the manifesto that talks about Dorner’s support for Obama and how the media is not focusing on these issues because he supports Obama.  They bring up an interesting argument about how the news is portrayed in today’s society.  The purpose of this article does not focus on what Dorner has done but rather uses his manifesto to bash the media that this article says is downplaying the story because of Dorner’s political stance.  One of the final things that is written is, “Most news outlets are publishing a censored version that is only 11 pages long,” leaving out Dorner’s political stance, which was cited through the site Twitchy.  This story was spawned from a story and it has started an entirely different debate that really does not have anything to do with a cop on the run with an agenda. 

            After reading and interpreting these news stories on different sites and how they change, it seems like the greatest change occurs when the largest audience is reached.  In other words, when a story is as big as an ex-cop killing people and is on the run based on his beliefs that he was wronged by the people that he has targeted to kill, millions of people are going to hear about it and have an opinion about it.  When the story reaches these millions of people they are all going to have interpretations about why this man is doing what he is doing.  They can even write stories that target audiences that agree with them and even take on entirely different stories that might be related to the original as seen in the transition of the stories above.  I think that the life of a news story is based on what people believe about the story.  The story can change based on when new information is gathered but that isn’t the type of change that I think is the biggest kind.  The biggest kind of change occurs when people write stories that are interpretations of the original action or story.  The interpretation of Dorner has a hero is story in and of itself and the interpretation that the “liberal media” is leaving out Dorner’s political sections of his manifesto is another interpretation.  In essence all of these stories have taken an approach to the original story that there is an ex-cop on the run who has allegedly killed three people. 

Hariss, Joseph. Rewriting: How to do Things with Texts. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2006. Print.

"“I Get to Decide Here, Doctor, I Get to Decide!”: Bill O’Reilly Takes on Dr. Marc Lamont Hill Over CNN Comments Comparing Dorner Manhunt to ‘Django: Unchained’." FoxNewsInsider. N.p., 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

Martinez, Michael. "Ex-LAPD cop gains sympathizers on social media." CNN. N.p., 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

Smith, Matt. "Los Angeles puts up $1 million reward for Dorner." CNN. N.p., 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

Watson, Paul. "Imagine If Christopher Dorner Was a Tea Party Member." InfoWars. N.p., 8 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

Short Essay 2

            When trying to decide what article and pictures I wanted to write about, it occurred to me that one of the largest media events of the year had just occurred and there were bound to be countless photos and articles about the Academy Awards.  Every year I see magazine articles titled best and worst dresses of the Oscars and headlines about who won what awards so I thought it only fitting that I write about what has just happened. 

            I did not in fact watch the Academy awards last night because to be honest The Walking Dead was on television and I was much more interested in that.  It was odd however not watching because for as long as I can remember I have always watched the Academy awards with my mom and sister on Oscar Sunday.  Instead, this year, I read about who won what awards the morning after.  I went to CBS news and one of the first articles was about the previous night so I decided to read it.  I saw that within the article there were a few slideshows that could be watched that had pictures about the previous night.  One was titled, Oscars 2013: show highlights.  I decided that before I read the article I was going to look through the slide show at the pictures to see what information I could gather.  I knew many of the actors and actresses that were up for various awards and after viewing the slide show I could with confidence tell you who won what awards.  I noticed Christoph Waltz had an Oscar in a picture and I assumed he won best supporting actor for his role in Django Unchained.  I also saw Ben Affleck holding an Oscar but there where many people on stage so I assumed Argo won best picture because I knew that Mr. Affleck was not nominated for best director.  I could make educated guesses about who won what just based off of the pictures that were shown to me, after all the slide show did say highlights.  After finishing the slide show I proceeded to read the article and picked up on tidbits of information like who won some of the lesser awards that I frankly wasn’t interested in.

            It goes without saying that the pictures told me a story of the night but as I previously stated, I assumed that the actors and actresses had won these awards. Although I was later proven to be correct by reading the article, it was all assumption until I actually read it.  There was also a picture; I believe number 47 on the first slide show that showed Jennifer Lawrence laying the stage steps.  I did not know if she was hurt of had fallen or was just crying or something.  Later on I discovered that she had tripped over her dress and was completely fine.  Another thing that could not be told from the pictures was opinions of people.  Did the people think that these people deserved to win for their performances or not, and most importantly, who did a good job presenting?  It was only after reading that I was filled in on the gaps that the pictures left out.  The pictures can tell a story but like the article we read by Morris, the picture really does not mean much without the viewer knowing background about the image itself.  In the case of the Oscar photos, my background was that I knew which actors and actresses were up for awards and I could make an educated guess as to who won what based on the pictures. 

            I think that the famous saying a picture is worth a thousand words because without prior knowledge the picture could tell a thousand different stories, a perfect example is the picture of Jennifer Lawrence.  Pictures can be very helpful when trying to get a point across but the picture is only as good as the context of which it is being shown. The viewer also needs to know what is happening in the image and even who the image is off to get a proper understanding of what the image is trying to convey.   

Stories with Pictures

After reading the article about images it made a lot of sense to me what Morris was trying to say.  The idea that images can tell a story is and make it believable is something that I find to be true.  I think that a story can be told with a series of pictures but it has to be with a series of pictures.  For example, if I was to show someone a picture of my family, I would assume that they would know it is a picture of a family and if they knew me they would recognize that it is my family.  Although they may know that it is a family they wouldn’t know anything about me or my family or what we have done.  One picture cannot tell a whole story but if I was to show many pictures of my family and things that we have done it would better be able to tell a story of what we have done.  I have attended a summer camp for the last ten years of my life and I could go on and on about the stories that I have.  There is also a flickr page that has hundreds of pictures that tell the story of life at camp.  I can get a story from the life that the pictures represent.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/campwarren/

Taking an Approach

            After reading Harris’s “Taking an Approach” I think that taking an approach I taking a piece of work and writing it with a new life.  It is giving the same story but with a different approach and or audience.  Harris gives an example about how most of the ideas behind Shakespeare’s plays where taken from already used ideas.  Shakespeare just added a new twist to the story.  Harris also writes, “Think of Aretha Franklin turning Otis Redding’s macho demand for “Respect” into an assertion of female independence, or Jimi Hendrix interpreting the “Star-Spangled Banner” as an anthem for destruction.”  These artists all took something that was already around and re-worked it into something new with a new meaning.  When reading the Times I find it hard to find it hard to find a good example of this concept.  I see the times as writing a story in respect to the way that it has happened and I also find it more or less unbiased.  In comparison to other sites though we can find examples of “taking an approach” After reading a blog site like the Huffington Post we can see that the Post takes a story about a subject and portrays it in a different way that the times would.  The Post talks a lot about a rally that is occurring in Washington D.C. in order for Obama not to sign the legislation that will allow a pipeline to be built between the U.S. and Canada. The focus is on global warming and the Post is focusing on how people feel about the pipeline and a lot of anger about the pipeline.  The Times however focuses of the news factor of the story.  They talk about how it is a tough decision for Obama politically.  I didn’t really see any mention of the protestors or global warming at all, both sites took a different approach to the pipeline legislation.  

Short Essay

            When choosing the style that I wanted to use to rewrite my news story, I found it hard not to choose blogging.  I wanted to be able to tell a story but at the same time give my opinion about that story.  I feel that an opinion about a news story is just as important as the story itself. I choose to do this essay with consecutive posts as the story progressed.  I wanted to be able to show that a story can be stated without great detail.  A blogger can then go back and continue posting, adding more and more info as either they hear it or they research it[O1] .  I chose to rewrite the story about Christopher Dorner as I heard about it on CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/10/us/lapd-attacks/index.html?iref=allsearch   

Post 1   

            So what’s up with this Dorner guy? Apparently he shot and killed two people and is now on the run? Man that’s crazy.  From what I understand he was fired and wanted revenge against whoever fired him.  I mean if he was fired it was probably for good reason not just because somebody didn’t like him.  No one has the right to just start shooting people because they are pissed off.  I hope they catch this guy.

Post 2

            So Dorner is still on the run and apparently now there is an award out for his capture, one million dollars.  Man what I would give to have some info to catch this guy.  After hearing about this story originally I did some research into why Dorner was fired.  Apparently in 2009 Dorner and his partner responded to a call about a mentally ill man creating a disturbance in a hotel.  A few weeks later Dorner reported that his partner had kicked the man but an IA (internal affairs) investigation concluded that this wasn’t true and Dorner was fired for disciplinary reasons.  He appealed but to no avail.  Apparently, he targeted the daughter of the man who represented him at his termination hearing.  Cruel way to get revenge, it’s really sad.  I’m really starting to hate this guy.

Post 3

So I have been following the guy Christopher Dorner’s story ever since I heard that he is accused of killing two police officers.  We all know that he is on the run and to be honest I am kind of impressed that he has lasted so long.  I just got an update on my iPhone that told me that a body was found in a burned out [O2] cabin that is believed to be Dorner’s.  Authorities aren’t able to identify the body because it is apparently to badly burned.  I heard that he even got into a shootout with more cops and even killed one of them.  I find it pretty crazy that some guy would do this I mean he was fired, yea that sucks, but it doesn’t mean you should go and kill people because of it.  I think that this guy ultimately got what was coming for him; after the cops that he shot and killed.  If it happens to be Dorner I will be happy they got him, he has killed four people, and I honestly wouldn’t feel bad if he was in the cabin when itI burned down.

---

 [O1]I think you need to talk about what you are rewriting and where the original article came from just to give a back ground I guess for the introduction.

 [O2]What do you mean “burned out”

countering

          When I first saw the word counter, I was reminded of the days when I used to play hockey.  I had a coach that talked about winning a faceoff was all about countering what your opponent was doing.  You see what he is trying to do, and counter it with a move of your own.  Although what my definition is suggestion isn’t the same as what Harris is saying, it is more or less the same idea.  Harris writes that, “to counter is not to nullify but to suggest a different way of thinking.”  In a sense winning a faceoff is just thinking of another way to beat your opponent.  Although for Harris’ purposes, we are talking about presenting a counter argument that can be viewed about the same subject.  Harris also writes, “…the aim of countering is to develop a new line of thinking…” He is saying that countering isn’t trying to disprove or belittle something, but rather again, open it for new interpretation. 

            I think great examples of this can be blog posts.  When someone reads a post they usually have the opportunity to comment on that post.  They can say almost anything that they want and most of the time it is used to present a counter opinion or interpretation of what has already been written.  A great example of this is a blog that I happened across about comics called The Beat.  There was a post about the newest Batman movies and one of the moments called into questions on of the statistics in the article.  The commenter was just presenting some information that could help explain the article a little better. Countering.

I got this from, http://comicsbeat.com/the-dark-knight-rises-batmans-third-act/

Forwarding

When I first heard the word forwarding, I honestly thought of an email.  I thought that you forward an email onto someone else to let them have the information as well.  After starting to read Harris, he was talking about the same thing.  He uses email arrows for left and right to show that you can either reply back to something that someone has said or forward it onto someone else to keep the flow of information going.   Harris writes, “a writer forwards a text by taking words, images, or ideas from it and putting them to use in new contexts”, this really helps explain what the idea of forwarding is.  In his previous chapter Harris even talks about how he uses techniques to bring others works into his own writing as points of reference in order to make a point.  I think that forwarding is a valuable technique but it has to be used in the right context in order to maintain what original works are trying to state. 

An example of forwarding can be found in pretty much every blog post that I have written for this class. I use reading to answer questions and in doing so reference the reading through quotes and examples, even the essay that I had to write for this class used forwarding.  I was given a prompt to use in my essay but most of my argument points were interpretation and summary of what other authors had already written.  I used quotes from many different authors and their opinions helped shape the argument of my essay.  

Where we get News

After reading blogs post from my classmates about how they receive their news, I thought they sounded a lot like my own.  Most of us receive our news from social media, word of mouth, or basically anything electronic.  There is a lot of talk about how someone will post something on facebook and people will then check to see if it is true.  What else is interesting is we all seem to just see the stories and not really read a lot into them to figure out specific details about why something has happened or who was involved.  I even notice in class people say I heard about this story or I saw rather than, I read this article.  I think that we have all grown up in the same time period and these are the ways that we receive our news.  This is probably different from our parents and our grandparents as well.  The way information travels is always evolving and each generation has something new to add to it. 

After reading articles by Carr and Hedges,  I see that both kind of have a valid point Carr tells us about how we get information on the internet quickly and without reading pages of material and Hedges talks about how we aren’t reading anymore and therefore we are worse readers and writers.  I think that both of these authors show some points that are signs of a generational change.  Even though Carr is older than us, he has had to adapt to keep up with the wealth of information that everyone has access to.  I think that both authors would agree that the times are changing but they would make arguments whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.  

Being Informed

I pretty much had been reading the news online before the start of this class.  I would get notifications on my iPhone about stories on CNN or The Times and if they looked interesting, I would read them further.  I ended up getting the Times app for my tablet and that has caused me to look a little closer at stories because it is a little bigger and easier to read.  I have always found the news informational and intriguing when I was a kid and I even watched the morning news and evening news when I had the time.  I feel that keeping up with what is happening in our world is a key part in us being connected and making decisions.  I work at a summer camp each summer and I am always surprised to hear things when I get out of the woods after ten weeks.  I feel like I have been disconnected and I will usually go straight into my apps to learn what has been happening around the world.  I am always interested to see what is happening around the world and how those things could affect me.  I think that world politics are very interesting especially things that are happening in the Middle East and Asia.  I like this class because we get to talk about the news and even have discussions about the sides that are being taken over a debate.  I think I like the news so much because I like to hear what other people think and I can do that by talking about stories that I have seen in the news.  It also helps me shape and form opinions on subjects that could be a major problem in the future.  

News

When I started to think about where I got most of my news, there were so many places that I have received news in the past few days that I was kind of astounded.  I check twitter every day and I get a lot of sports news from there.  I learned about Rajon Rondo’s torn ACL from twitter and I also learned the Minnesota Wild lost last night 3-1 against the Anaheim Ducks.  I also get a lot of my news on my iPhone.  I have a CNN app that will notify me with breaking news and if I find that interesting I will go onto my tablet and read up on the story on my New York Times app.  I used to watch the news on television every morning in high school but I really don’t have time to watch television anymore because I am more focus on getting sleep in the mornings and doing homework at night.  Every once in a while I will hear a snippet of information from another person but I will always back it up by checking my iPhone to see if that news is actually true or not.  The more that I have thought about the way that I receive news kind of makes me wish that I had the time to sit down with a nice hot cup of coffee and read the paper every morning.  I have heard that people say kids in our generation should read the paper rather than get all of their information online but I think that growing up with phones that allow us to stay connected more easily than ever before is a good thing.  We are much more informed than we ever have been and I doubt that my parents sat around and read the paper every morning when they were kids.  

Essay 1

Literacy: Forever in Motion

                        The world today is more fasted paced than it ever has been in all of human history.  Mankind is developing technologies that everything we do happen faster and with more immediate results.  With the creation of the internet information has also become more readily available to anyone that wants to access it with billions of people around the world having access to the internet.  Instead of picking up a book and reading it cover to cover to get information that you want, you can just open a web browser and just Google whatever it is that you want to know.  We have access to all of human history just at the click of a button.  With the easily available information and the speed at which it can be accessed the question can be asked, are we as a people becoming more and more illiterate?

            An argument can be made that we are, In Chris Hedges article America the Illiterate, Hedges uses a barrage of statistics to show that America is slowly becoming more and more illiterate.  His argument at first seems very strong because of the size of the numbers that he is using.  Statistics like, “There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level.”, sounded crazy to me and unbelievable.  I was interested to see a lack of cited sources at the end of the article which for me put the accuracy of these statistics in question.  In another article that I read, Is Google Making us Stupid by Nicholas Carr, Carr’s article is written in a way that lets the reader make his or her own decision about literacy and reading since the creation and explosion of internet reading and writing.  Carr, in my opinion uses reason and personal experience to argue his point as where Hedges uses what I would call “scare tactics” to in theory, scare his readers into thinking that we are all fifth-grade level readers and should read more books and improve vocabulary.  On the other hand, after reading Carr’s article, I found myself agreeing with him.  One of the great personal examples that he uses is, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” After reading this statement by Carr, it really got me thinking about my own personal reading habits and what I grew up reading which I think was Carr’s goal in writing this article. I thought about how I grew up in a digital age and most of the information I got was online.  I remember writing a research paper in high school where we were required to use paper books as a source even if the book had an eBook format.  It baffled me after remembering this that we had to be forced to use a paper copy of a book when fifty years ago that is all that was available.   

            Another article that I read by Andrew Sullivan called Why I Blog, Sullivan basically does what he tells us what he is going to do in the title and tells us why he blogs.  He mentions how in the early days of his blogging he would right about his thoughts on a specific event that has occurred.  He argues for the legitimacy of blogging as a form of writing and gives very convincing examples as to why it is.  He argues that with the creation of the internet information can be documented, checked, and rechecked by the thousands of people that are online daily and happen to read Sullivan’s post.  Reaction to the statement from other readers is immediate and can be immediately stated by said reader in the form of a comment on the original post.  This varies from original writing is the sense that if a news story breaks, the paper that is released the next day is when the story is told and if a reader has a reaction to the writing, they can write a letter to the editor which might take a week to actually reach the eyes of the author who in turn can choose to respond or not.  When I thought about these two forms of writing, I realized how similar they actually are from reading an article, responding to it, and hopefully getting a response. The only difference is speed.  The speed at which the article is read, responded to by the reader, and responded to by hundreds of other readers is extremely fast.  Although there are some differences between blog posts and newspaper articles, the point remains the same, to get the information to the readers and try to get them to react to it.  Blogging also brings an element of feeling into the writing.  Authors of articles may have opinions on certain stories they write and certain styles that come across in their writing but Sullivan argues that blogs contain a lot more emotion and more importantly constant emotion.  He talks about his personal experience during the 9/11 terrorist attacks and how he was blogging almost hourly about what had happened.  He writes in this article, “I can look back and see not just how I responded to the event, but how I responded to it at 3:47 that afternoon. And at 9:46 that night.” that is the world of blogging, responding in real time with emotion and feeling. 

            Another article that I read made a very interesting point that I thought correlated well with what Sullivan was trying to argue.  In Andrea Lunsford’s Semi Illiterate Youth? Not so fast, Lunsford presents a study that she conducted at Stanford University that randomly asked 189 college students to submit anything that they had written whether it is in class or their own personal writing to Lunsford and her colleagues.  She stated that over the years they collected over 15,000 works of writing.  Her finding led her to the conclusion that Americans aren’t becoming more illiterate but rather they are developing new writing techniques and styles which are primarily occurring in new digital online formats.  These formats can consist of email, texts, Facebook, or even twitter.  All of these forms of writing are contributing to the enchantment of writing in young adults.  She gives an example where a student uses two different styles of writing to stat the same point, one very informal via text message and one very formal to a faculty advisor.  This shows that the dynamic of writing is changing but the skills to write formally are still being taught and learned and even new styles are emerging with the emergence of digital communication.  This study is great evidence for Sullivan’s article because he is basically arguing for the emergence of a new form of writing.  The study that was conducted by Lunsford shows compelling evidence that students are coming out with new forms of writing communication based on the multiple forms of writing that now exist and even the audience that the writing is trying to targets as Lunsford’s evidence shows. 

            After reading and writing about each of these articles I honestly didn’t know what to think.  I tend to disagree with Hedges’ statistics because I do not know what source these statistics are coming and after reading the rest of the articles by Carr, Sullivan, and Lunsford I frankly don’t believe much of anything that Hedges had to say.  I personally see Carr’s point in reading a book versus reading online where he talks about finding it hard to read a book cover to cover because all of his information is gathered in two or three sentence snippets online.  Even when reading his article I had trouble focusing what I was reading and tended to skim paragraphs to try and gather the important points.  I have found that after reading these articles and studying my own personal habits of reading and writing, I think that we are in fact becoming better more informed readers and writers.  Based on the evidence presented to me through these articles it is clear that we are becoming more personal with writing and that is what is making it better.  A perfect example of this what my senior year AP English class where at the end of the year we had to write a 1,500 word free form essay where we could write anything that we wanted and were even encouraged to use personal experiences and emotions.  After finishing the essay and receiving a final grade, my teacher told me that it was the best writing I had done all year.  I feel that this basically sums up the argument.  Technology and the digital age are affecting our writing but I argue that it is for the better, not for the worse.  Reading and writing are an ever evolving creation.  We have created writing in so many different forms since the first recorded writings in history and it will always be changing, no matter what people may think or say.  

Reflection

So far writing blogs has seemed kind of interesting.  I don’t like the fact that we are given prompts to write about though.  I think that in the spirit of blogging we should just be told to read and article and write about how it makes us feel.  I think that it would give us more argument points and that it would be more benefitial to our opinion formation.  I love the fact that this class and blogging in general is open to opinions and how students feel about specific topics.  After reading many of these articles I see that writing and reading has changed a lot since the formation of the internet and that it isn’t a bad thing.  Just because we aren’t using big words and talking to sound smart doesn’t mean that we aren’t smart.  I think that it means that we are just saying things strait.  We are saying what we mean without any word fluff or words that make us sounds smart and important.  I think that the web has changed us to be more upfront with information.  Blogging and the web has made arguing and information more readily available for anyone.  

Scribner Lunsford

In the opening section of Scribner, Literacy as Adaptation, Scribner talks about how schools should at least be able to teach students how to communicate and function in their everyday life.  He says that there is no justification for why these skills are needed because it’s just so obvious.  When talking about literacy as power, Scribner uses a reference to Bataille in 1976 that talks about how literacy and words are a tool for human liberation and social change.  The third and final section that Scribner talks about how literacy is a state of grace.  He says that he doesn’t like to use grace as a term for the divine inference that it brings words and literacy have been used by Plato and Aristotle to reference specific philosophy and we still read and heed their advice today. One of my old history teachers said that there are good speakers and there are great speakers.  Good speakers inspire people but great speakers inspire people and move them to action.  Unfortunately one of the best examples of this is Adolf Hitler.  His speeches and words took Germany out of their depression after World War I and made them an economic powerhouse up until the end of World War II.  In Lunsford’s paper, she talks about how students haven’t necessarily become worse writers but have developed a different style of writing adding to their repertoire as she puts it.  These students still have the ability to write essays and literary works but in my opinion they just enjoy writing on the internet and expressing themselves in a new way.  I feel that these two articles are related to Hedges and Carr in the sense that they talk about appearances of our writing and reading today.  Hedges and Carr basically say that we are stupider than we used to be while Scribner and Lunsford argue that we are just changing the way that we talk and write.  Just because we don’t use big words like we did in the past to sound proper and elegant which frankly I don’t think people care about anymore.  

Am I Stupid?

I believe that the answer to the original question isn’t necessarily that Google is making us stupider but it is changing the way that we read and gather information.  The argument is made that once the internet was invented information became readily available to anyone who wanted to access it.  With all of the information being available, there is no way that anyone can read it all because it would take someone years to read all the reports and papers of information that has be written about or discovered so in the interest of knowledge all the information was shortened and annotated. Search engines were introduced so that user could search for the information that they wanted to get with just one click of a mouse.

 

In response to Hedges article, I am baffled by the statistic that 42 million Americans cannot read and twenty percent hold high school diplomas.  I honestly think that this is crazy and I honestly find it hard to believe.  A major point it that entertainment is helping to destroy literacy levels because most of the entertainment is in the form of television or pop ups on our computers.  After reading these two articles I honestly have to agree with what they are talking about. I get most of my information from the internet and mostly all of my news for reading article titles and or CNN notifications on my iPhone, that it how I found out that we didn’t go over the fiscal cliff.  Even during the reading of these articles I could find myself drifting off and finding it hard to focus.  I love reading for pleasure because it is something that I actually want to read and find interesting.  I read the new Game of Thrones book in like a week because I liked it so much so I like seeing that I am not part of the statistic that said stated the percentage of people that don’t read another book after they leave high school.  At least I can take some consolation in that.  

Reading Definition

I think that reading is the act of gathering information using your eyes and your understanding of words.  It can also be the interpretation of what someone else has written through the act of it being read.

Writing Definition

I think that the definition of writing is the record of events that have transpired or the responce to a specific event that has transpired.  This is in reference to Sullivan saying that blogging is writing about what is happening in the moment using emotion.  Writing iis also used to critique and or expand on someone else's writing.

Harris and Sullivan similarities

After finishing the reading of the two chapters of Harris’s Rewriting I see that Harris describes writing as an ongoing process.  He argues that most writing is about something that has happened or something that is in reference to another piece of written work.  He describes the process as a constant move.  He also argues that it is exciting to reference and cite other people’s sources because that is how different points of view are established and can further be argued by others who choose.  He also argues that most of the argument can come out of interpretation of what other people have written.  It is one thing to but a quote into a paper that you are writing and cite it properly but without an interpretation of how the quote is relevant to the subject that is being written then the quote is in fact irrelevant. The writer need to be able to paraphrase what his source has stated and be able to build off of what he has said. 

After thinking about how this relates to Sullivan’s work, I have found that they are very similar.  Both authors talk about how writing is always a constant process even if blogging occurs faster than traditional writing.  Both forms are constantly being criticized.  With blogs it is through comments and with traditional writing it is through other papers or works referencing something that has been previously written.  Sullivan argues that blogging is a legitimate source of writing and I believe that after starting to read Harris that I would have to agree with him.  Both are too similar to each other even though both forms are presented in two very different ways.  I think that blogging gets a bad rep because it isn’t a reviewed source and it doesn’t go through a rigorous review process.  

Response to "Why I Blog"

After reading Andrew Sullivan’s article “Why I Blog”, I started to get a better understanding of why many people feel that blogging is so revolutionary and why Mr. Sullivan wrote this article.  The first thing that stood out to me and something that I started to realize more and more is that without comments blogging really isn’t very different from a news article.  News articles tell a story or give an opinion and so do blogs, they both are written by an author and both involve a target audience reading the specific article but the huge difference between the two forms of information are the comments on the blogs.  It’s not to say that news articles don’t get comments it is that the comments usually some a few days later and the responses even later than that.  With blogging the comments and reaction to the post are instant.  The readers can give their opinions and even challenge what the author has wrote and this is what makes blogging so unique.  Another point that Mr. Sullivan makes it that blogging is much more personally.  He says something along the lines of its hard to blog and not have your own emotions spill over into what it is you are writing about because most of the time the writing is occurring very close to the timing of the event you are writing about.  He gave an example about 9/11 and the terrorists attacks talking about how he could go back and look at how he felt certain times after the event had occurred.  Mr. Sullivan also made a point that bloggers can post many times a day and the information can be posted instantaneously rather that have to wait until the next morning for a story to run that was breaking news the day before.  The power of blogging is such that authors can inform readers and the readers can also inform the authors via comments and post of links to further advance to conversation about the blog post.  This article made it easy to understand why blogging is an important form of information sharing and has peaked my interest very much into the world of blogging.  

An Interesting Concept: Blogging

First of all when I heard that we were creating a blog I honestly had no idea what they were about.  I had heard about bloggers and that it was something that people did on the internet but other than that I was a foreign to the concept.  The entire process itself seemed very simple, name your blog, think about something to write, and then write it.  I wasn’t sure how to initially create my domain name but after asking a friend that was quickly resolved and my blog was up and running.  I never really had an opinion of blogging because I was never really introduced to it on the internet.  After the creation of the blog I find my opinion changing and my interest peaked although I am not really sure why.  Maybe it’s because it is a place where I can speak my mind to strangers who aren’t afraid to comment on what I have said.  It seems like today everyone posts statuses on Facebook about opinions they have on certain subjects but only people they are friends with are able to comment on these post.  People seem to be too afraid to speak their minds on such posts for fear of being excommunicated by the original poster of the status.  It seems like in the blogging world people you don’t know freely comment on what you have posted giving their opinions in there truest form without fear of excommunication.  I also feel that it is a very simple and easy way for others to hear your opinion and for the original writer to be able to get honest feedback from many different types of people.  My personal opinion on blogging has definitely changed now that I am a little more informed as to what blogging is and why people do it.