Pencils to Pixels

1.
The author says that the computer is a gateway to literacy. However, I don't think people necessarily have to use computer for literacy.
2.
Writing is an engineering of materials to accomplish an end.
3.
Pencil is a technology because it is made through an engineering process to put our thoughts onto paper.
4.
Plato thought it would weaken our memories.
5.
Written word can be more accurate because people think before they write. However, they are not very interactive. On contrast, spoken word is active but not very deliberate.
6.
Thoreau thought pencils are better than other technologies such as telegraph, because he thought those technologies are just illusions.So he devoted 10 years to improve pencil technologies.
7.
Telephone combined the aspects of speaking and writing situations in new way. The introduction of the telephone for social communication required considerable adaptation of the way we talk. Just like the writing, communication using telephones emulated the facial expressions and gestures so it changed the way we communicate.
8.
Although it was considered to be too complex at first, people adapted to the technology and use it for their writing.
9.
The computer has changed the way we write, and thus changed the meaning of literacy. Also, the technology is still developing rapidly so it will change the literacy even more.
10.
The author implicitly defines the literacy as an ability to adjust new technologies for writing.

21st century writing

1.
developing new models of writing, designing a new curriculum supporting those models and creating models for teaching the curriculum.
2.
The author's saying that the composers always have been trying to write while the cultures do not support but suppress them.
3.
Yancey argues that the students should learn to be a good composer, instead of a good test taker.
4.
While reading implies the act of obeying and following and produces a feeling of warming and intimacy, writing implies the act of creating and resistance and produces unpleasantness. So writing didn't got as much cultural respect as reading.
5.
People associate isolation and pain with writing.
6.
Process writing is a new conception of writing emerged in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Consists of invention, drafting, peer review, reflection, revising and rewriting and publishing.
7.
A writing that belongs to the writer, not to an institution, with the result that people want to compose and do to each other. I frequently write on facebook.
8.
Due to the digital technology such as blogs and social network sites, more and more people are composing something and writers are everywhere.
9.
Yancey argues that the meaning of literacy has changed, so the education for writing should be changed too.
10.
Yancey defines literacy as an ability to read and write and produce something not only on paper as before, but also on social media or other digital sources.

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

1.
The social media sites is changing the concept of relationship between people, from a close relationship to wide and weak relationship, as it becomes possible to know every little things happening to other people.
The social media sites give people 'ambient awareness' and thus make it possible to keep in touch with every acquaintances, as people can know everything about other people even before they talk about it.
As people uploads every little things of themselves in social media sites, people now can have much more knowledge about their acquaintances and thus they can keep in contact with all the people.
2.
He made news feed to make people able to keep up with their other friends' news without actively surfing for them. It greatly expanded the attention span, as it shows everything that we would have never searched actively. I think it's a bad thing for literacy, because it actually decreases our ability to think deep.
3.
Ambient awareness is knowing every little things happening to other people. I experience ambient experience through the Facebook news feed.
4.
Ambient awareness gives little information about the person, but tons of those little information makes up a portrait of the actual person. It can spread my emotional energy to know every little things, but it helps me to solve problems that cannot be solved by my own.
5.
"Monday sucks", "I'm going church", etc
6.
It suggests the question, is 'skimming' a real activity of using 'literacy'? Or, is 'skimming' now becoming a new inevitable ability for 'literacy'?
7.
"weak ties" greatly expands the number of acquaintances, however, the number of close friends does not change. This new relationship either can help or hurt us.
8.
Because people who are not close to them anymore continues to upload things about them, and they can never disconnect the connection.
9.
This article defines literacy as an ability to communicate with other people and obtain valuable information from thousands of insignificant information. It doesn't change my own definition of literacy, which is an ability to think beneath the surface of the sentence.

Gin, Television, and Cognitive Surplus

1. When people do something using their spare time, cognitive surplus is created and something good happens.
2. The author defines the literacy as an ability to understand certain information. The definition differs from the former two articles which defined literacy as an ability to catch the deep meaning of a writing.
3. Cognitive surplus is free time people have and use to do 'something'. It doesn't matter what they do. They just helps.
4. Unlike the authors of the two articles, the author argues that it is not bad to do seemingly worthless things such as web surfing or watching television and they actually help in some way, because doing such stuff is always better than doing nothing.
5. The Method
Patterns of Repetitions- Looking for the mouse, cognitive surplus, At least they are doing something

Strands of Similarities- taking advantage of the surplus/ better to do something

Binaries- not something that society grows out of, it is something that society grows into

Anomalies- information society knows without really knowing it

6. 

The repetitions of the sentence 'at least they are doing something' is the most important in understanding the text. The author is explaining how cognitive surplus, which basically means 'doing something' can contribute to the other people. Since the whole text is about how 'doing something' helps eventually, the repetition of 'at least they are doing something' helps to understand the text and makes the text more persuasive.

Google

1. The way of thinking and reading changes as one gets used to read online. Net now makes the people lose the ability to think deep and concentrate.
2. Net lets the author to immediately find what he wants to find. As he gets used to using web, he lost his ability to read long writings and concentrate on reading.
3. The ability to read deeply and understand beyond the sentences.
4. Socrates Nightmare and Google.. article both define literacy as more than an ability to read, but to understand the deep meaning of the writing.
5. As Internet lets people to get information immediately, people began to stop think and analyze deeply when they read. As the result, the Internet changed the way people think from traditional thinking-thinking deeply, analyzing, concentrating-to browsing and skimming. It leads the people to lose the ability to think deeply and concentrate.
6. Providing anecdotes of the author himself and other acquaintances, listing the opinions of experts, and showing the research results.
7. The evidence is effective because it leads people to agree with him by recalling their experience and gives more credibility.
8. This article explains how Internet changes the way people think. So it warns the people that they can lose their ability to think deeply. So the article leads people to think about how they should keep their ability to think deeply.

Unit 3 Brainstorming: Identity and Social Media

 I chose Stephen Hawking to analyze. Even though he's very famous for his genius accomplishments in the field of Universe and the Black Holes, he's personality is relatively not well-known, partly because of his physical handicap. Now as he uses twitter, his twitter would be a good source to look closer to his personality, as well as his intelligence. It will be a good chance to analyze a genius's usual life and personality. Also, since he's not aiming for popularity, his tweets are usually casual. So it'll help me to analyze him better.

Social Media: What does your tattoo say?

Actually, I try not to post anything that can damage myself. I don’t blame anybody, and I don’t post anything that can show my personal life. However, I frequently upload posts, usually something not at all important or serious, so I guess somebody can analyze my personality quite accurately by looking at my posts, if the one can understand Korean. If analyzed, I would be a humorous/weird math/science person.

My posts are usually a quote that I agree, a question something that I think it’s worth to think about.

One post I wrote:

“If you are born rich, you may lose your money, but if you are born lucky, you will always get what you need or want just by chance.”

If analyzed, the person who wrote this post can be analyzed as a amateur gambler, who believes in luck and loves money. But actually, I was interested in the force of ‘coincidence’ or ‘luck’ affecting my life.

Days later I posted:

Under what percent of possibility can a good happening be called ‘luck’

This person would be analyzed as a mathematical thinker. This shows that now I’m interested in the exact meaning of ‘luck’.

Some other posts I wrote are:

‘I will never drink iced mocha again’ – this shows that I’m a coffee drinker, who hates sweet ones.

‘I can’t wait to visit Korea this summer’ – this shows that I’m a Korean who lives out of Korea, which is ‘fob’.

Also I uploaded several photos of my origami. I can be analyzed as a typical Asian who’s good at Asian stuffs.

So overall, according to my facebook, I’m a typical Asian fob who’s interested in math and origami. So it is quite accurate, and my facebook personality and my real personality is exactly same, as I’m really an Asian fob who’s interested in math and origami. So hopefully my job interview won’t be damaged by my facebook posts.

Interpretive Leap

I chose Gene Kelly’s song ‘Singing in the Rain’ to analyze. The song is originally in the movie of the same title. This happy love song is also very famous for being in the movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’, a movie that is very far from being happy. In the movie ‘Singing in the Rain’, Gene Kelly sings the song after he meets ‘Kathy Shelden’, a woman who he loves. Since it is a love song sung by a man in love, the song is really straightforward. The lyrics repeatedly say how happy he is. It says ‘I’m singing in the rain’, ‘I’m happy again’, ‘I’m ready for love’, etc. In the movie ‘Singing in the Rain’, the song and the scene beautifully matches and makes perfect harmony. So, just like the movie which is filmed right after the World War 2, the song tries to make people happy. In the movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the main character ‘Alex’ sings ‘Singing in the Rain’ when he beats up Mr. Alexander and rapes Mrs. Alexander. So, the song is not really fit for the scene. By putting a happy song in a terribly violent scene, the song emphasizes the violence of the scene and the insanity of the main character, Alex.

From Flappers to Rappers

The movie “The Great Gatsby” successfully mixes 1920’s jazz and modern hip hop. It seems to be radical to put off-the-time music in a movie, but the sound tracks are perfectly fit to the music. Some might say the sound tracks used are awkward, but the blend of classical jazz music and modern music makes the movie more dynamic and modern. By balanced use of 1920s music and modern day hip hop, the movie becomes classical in some scenes and modern in other scenes. Actually, when Fitzgerald wrote the novel, jazz music had been treated just as the modern-day hip hop is treated nowadays. It was considered as ‘new’ and a lot of people were not used to such kind of music. Now, just like Fitzgerald featured the new music in his novel to make it more dynamic, the movie puts the modern-day hip hop to make the movie more dynamic and the hip hop music perfectly matches the time period in the movie, when the gangsters were wild and illegal moves are widespread.

The hip-hop music perfectly matches with the movie. The beat makes the scenes more thrilling, and the music makes the party more exciting. The modern-jazz such as ‘Back to Black’ fits in the 1920s mood, however it also sounds modern. Although the movie is based on 1920s, the party scenes and the flappers are completely different from those in the black-and-white photo. They look really modern, just like they were in that time period, and lively.

The mood of movie is quite critically affected by the modern music. 1920s jazz sounded really radical, adventurous and racy at that time, however, it sounds really old-fashioned or even boring today. Putting those music in the movie would have make the movie more realistic, however, it wouldn’t really sound dynamic and adventurous to nowadays’ audience. So the modern-day hip hop is a really successful rhetoric choice, because, it makes the movie a little bit anachronistic but ironically restores the mood of 1920s more realistically. 

Process and Product

The various methods of essay-writing I learned in Unit 1 helped me a lot to be a better writer. One of the best lessons I have learned was writing quick-and dirty rough draft. Before learning this, I used to try to write a completed essay at one time. Since English is not my first language, correcting grammar errors in my essay is always one of the biggest concerns in my writing process. I tended to focus on writing sentences that are grammatically correct, so it took relatively long time to write each sentences and it often caused me to forget what I was trying to write. As I began to write a rough-draft, I could ignore the grammatical errors first and focus on my ideas. Also, by putting every one of my ideas in paper first and then organizing it, I could write more smoothly and think of more ideas. Also, the advice ‘Put your unconscious on the job’ helped me a lot. When I write essays, I often lose track of my ideas. Now when I feel I’m lost, I do other things instead of desperately thinking of ideas.

                Required tasks of rough drafts and workshop helped me a lot. When I get an assignment, I tend to procrastinate as long as I can manage finishing it. The regularly-assigned drafts helped me not to postpone drafts and thus helped me to write a better essay. The workshops and peer reviews helped me to see the things I didn’t see and find new ways to make my essay better. Without those mandatory tasks, I would begin writing essays probably like one week before the due date. So I think the draft assignments and workshops helped me to keep track of writing and helped me to write a better paper.  

Crossfire

Notice and Focus + Ranking

Step 1

 Jon Stewart, who is a guest, begins with questioning to the panelists. The two panels continuously interrupt when Jon Stewart says something. They insult each other. The conversation is very heated. Jon Stewart uses humor to avoid their attack. His humor is often self-deprecating. They are accusing each other. They are not being logical. They are not looking for solution, but they just debate to win.

Step 2

 Neutral attitude of Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart’s use of humors, Interruptions of the panels.

Step 3

 The neutral attitude of Jon Stewart contrasts him with the biased panels, making his arguments more credible and logical. It makes his accusation to the program ‘Crossfire’ much more critical to the bow tie panel’s accusation to Jon Stewart’s program. Jon Stewart’s humors efficiently cut the opponent’s attacks and cool down the atmosphere of the debate. The interruptions to the opponent make the opponent lose his points, and make the opponent not be able to speak what he wants to speak. Thus, those interruptions make the debate overheated and off the point.

The Method

Step 1: Repetition

Why we fight?, Is he the best?, Hurting America, Stop, Suck up, Not serious, Please

Step 2: Strands

Crossfire-I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass, Bad-Hurtful, Argue-Fight, Suck up-Butt Boy, Bad-Hurtful-disingenuous

Step 3: Binary oppositions

CNN/Comedy central, Debate Show/Theater, Lecture people/Politicians

Step 4: Debate show/Theater

 Jon Stewart argues that Crossfire is a theater, instead of debate show. It is the most important binary opposition because this is a key point of Jon Stewart’s accusation to Crossfire. Debate show, as Jon Stewart’s argument, should be helpful and serious. Instead, Jon Stewart says that Crossfire is being a ‘theater’ which is fake and made up of actors. So this binary opposition strongly criticizes Crossfire of not being helpful and hurting America.

 Step 5

 Debate and Fight seems to be strands, but Jon Stewart uses this two words in opposite meaning. According to Jon Stewart, debate is a helpful way of finding solutions and exchanging opinions. In contrast, fight is a meaningless insulting and arguments, which is 'Crossfire'

So What?
 In the video Crossfire, Jon Stewart accuses the program of being 'bad for America'. Of course, Crossfire is a debate show. However, using the word 'theater' Jon Stewart implies that 'Crossfire' is not a real debate show. He reveals that what they are doing is not a debate, but just a fight full of insulting. Thus the argument leads the audience to re-define the meaning of 'debate' and to realize how wrong the program is. 

First post

When I get an essay assignment, I usually procrastinate till it’s due in few days. When I think of an idea, I usually go to a quiet place, such as library, to not be disturbed. First I brainstorm what to write in the essay. When I got a basic idea of it, I make an outline of my essay. Then I write a rough draft and then write the actual essay. Then I read it again and revise it. I prefer typing the essay because my typing is much faster than my handwriting and also because my handwriting is pretty bad. Sometimes if the essay is too difficult, I write the essay in Korean first and then rewrite it in English. That way I can see how my essay goes more clearly and so I can organize it better. The most difficult part of writing an essay for me is finding proper words that would fit in sentence and writing the sentence in correct structure. (I had to search Korean-English dictionary to find the word ‘proper’). English is my second language, so in many times I can think of a Korean word that fits perfectly but can’t think of the word in English. Also, I often find it impossible to translate a sentence which is grammatically correct in Korean into English grammatically correctly. Sometimes, a sentence becomes very childish when I translate it to English. Beginning an essay is always very difficult too. I often just look at an empty paper until I come up with an idea of what to write. When I can’t figure out one at that moment, I often stop thinking about the essay and try to read anything that is not related to the topic of an essay. Then in few hours an idea comes up to my brain almost incidentally. That is the moment essay writing is the easiest. I begin to write an essay really quickly and the sentence goes fluent. Usually the moment is gone in few minutes and I find myself being not able to understand my own essay. Ending an essay is also very difficult. Actually, writing an essay is a task full of difficulties. I can’t think of an ending for this essay. Okay that’s it.