Research Topic

Germany, Soviet Union, and Japan during World War II all commented some of the most heinous crimes against the civilian population in their own country or opposing countries. These crimes against humanity may have been thought up by the high command of their countries but the crimes were committed by the lowest members of the military. To say they were "following orders" just can not explain the millions dead. The lowest soldiers and even their own civilians held great hate for those they see has their enemy. But, in years before they were not killing each other with this much gusto. Propaganda is one of the ways to explain how the leaders ensured that their malice will was carried out. Propaganda may have and bad connotation, but it can also achieve wonderful things...depending on your view point. Example being US propaganda against Germany, Italy, and Japan helped to motivate the population to win the war. Good for us, bad for them.

Summary

Poorly worded questions for writing assignments cause problems for both the writer and the teacher/ audience. A writing question such has "Describe the top of your desk" is a poor question to ask. The question lacks important information needed to properly begin writing. Information like who is the audience, what information is needed about the desk. This question along with many others like "pretend your an animal" then become nothing more then a meaningless writing exercises for a grade. Some questions like "my hometown" are so vague that it causes problems for writing. On the opposite end a question like "comment on the following statement and do you agree or disagree with the statement," are so exact that that they restrict the writing process. Other questions like "assume you have wrecked the family car" does not tell you were to go with the work. A good question would include; the students interest in the subject, purpose of writing to the audience, the role the student takes in regards to the subject and audience, the form of discourse, and criteria for success. Without these points the question will become hard to answer due to the lack of guidance for the writer, and for the case of writing criteria, lack of guidance for the grader.

Blog 1

My writing process normally is sitting down at a computer and writing. I normally correct mistakes (spelling, grammar,thesaurus-izing) has I go, and when I complete my work I read over and correct any leftover mistakes or reword some parts without printing out a copy. Although, the prewriting process will be different depending on the subject of the work. I writing a summary or insight on a book or story I read the book or story. Then continue in my normal fashion, but my work will most likely contain statements cited from the story. If I am writing about a subject that I already know about, but still require source information, I will find a few statements and put them in with out really reading the works I cited. For papers that I require research but do not have to provide note cards I will use the internet and library to find sources. I will read those sources, but only take random notes on things that are hard to remember like dates, names, quotes, cities, chemical names, and the like. Also, I will get the information needed for the works cited page. If the teacher requires the note cards then I write information that I do not need has fluff to make the teacher happy. And, of course, the information for the works cited page. There has only been a one writing assignment that I chose not to do, and that was about Great Expectations for that teacher I made reference to in the second blog entry. But, normally I do choose to writing the assignments given to me. Also I normally do not have others revise my work due to me wanting to show what I can do and not what a small army can do.

Summary2

The chapter starts by giving the book's author Lindemann's way of starting writing. She also states that this process of beginning to write is different for each person. But, she still says that the three steps to people's writings are prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The first part of prewriting is the person needs to accept that they are going to write. Another part of prewriting is that the person needs to answer the questions about purpose, audience, point of view on the subject, and the code. These steps can be and usually are done mentally. The planning of the writing also helps to develop the writer's message, and asses the writer's own feeling to the message. The process of writing simply changes the mental message in the writer's head to a physical message that can be read. Rewriting is the actions of editing and revising ,proofreading. Editing is fixing the mistakes like grammar, spelling, comma splices,... Revising is the systematic improvement to the text, example being moving sentences around to improve the flow of the message. The problem with the rewriting process is that writing teachers make rewriting more has a punishment to correct the mistakes. This causes many students to stay away from the messy first drafts that are needed for proper writing.

From the start Lindemann states that the writing process is different for all people. This difference does not seem to include the tree basic steps of prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The difference seems to be more about the actions a person takes for these steps. At the start Lindemann says that she(?) clears off the kitchen table and spreads her work and notes on the table. This is how she writes but the differences do not seem to include the three steps of writing. The differences are more like where, and how they write instead of there being different process like Lindemann implies, like there are four steps or five steps to the writing process. The again the generic nature of the words cover all aspects. Prewriting, writing, and rewriting covers all writing periods just like past, present, and future covers all time periods. A better subject for this chapter would be the different styles of prewriting, like web graphs, brainstorming, and the like. But the end of the chapter with regards to the writing teachers putting emphasis on rewriting has punishment and causing messy first drafts to become rare seems out of place. Before we turn anything in to a teacher the first draft would have been rewriting already and the copy giving to the teacher would be post rewriting. Lindemann seems to think that teachers want a first draft, but almost all writing assignments that I have had, the teacher would rip off my head for turning in a rough (1st) draft instead of the rewritten final draft. So the messy first drafts still exist for me, but they get revised and edited in to the final draft. The use of the teacher reference by Lindenmann is more of a warning to teachers that continuation of correction of grammar and spelling is not has important has the message of the work. The concentration on grammar and spelling will produce writing robots instead of surfers that ride the ebb and flow of the written messages.

Summary 1 Response 1

This chapter gives a brief history of rhetoric. Rhetoric began 2500 years ago (about 492 B.C.) with Corax of Syracuse. The word rhetoric in modern times, to common people, as a negative connotation. But, modern scholars and people of the past saw the word rhetoric with a positive connotation. During the classicial age rhetoric was normally a spoken action. Also in the classical age there were five departments of rhetoric. One of those departments was style. Style itself consisted of three parts. During the middle ages rhetoric turned from being spoken into a written art. From the Renaissance to the twentyith centary three points of view were added to rhetoric works. These three were scientific, elocutionary, and literal. These view points did not change the writing methods but showed the complexity of rhetoric works. In modern times linguistics, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, semantics, politics were added to the list of view points.

The chapter title of "What do Teachers need to know about Rhetoric" implies that some were in the work that there will be a definition of rhetoric. Teachers need to know what words mean. Yet, in the chapter there was not good concrete answer to the definition of rhetoric, "...both practice and a body of knowledge describing the practice." What practice ? Baseball, soccer, polo? Although the historical development of rhetoric is interesting to me it still would be nice to give a modern definition to and old word. All the points of view, in the world do not help answer what the word means, and you need to know where to stand before you need to know where to look. The chapter seems to be more "sing-songy" novel than a fact based text book to be used has a teaching instrument. I hope the actual writing of rhetoric is less complex then the attempts of defining rhetoric.