Compare it side by side to your process for your key word newsletter--how do they compare? Next, I want you to defend, with support, your choice of medium (this is a "real" defense so I need to be persuaded here =). Last, you need to quickly connect your theory of composing to all of this.Make sure your reflection is fluid--this means even though you are discussing several things--find connections.
Due by Tuesday, July 26, 2011 BY 6:00 pm.
So where to begin? I guess from the beginning. I spent a great deal of time choosing the medium I actually wanted to remediate my keyword project into. I wanted to be sure I did not lose the original essence of the newsletter, while at the same time being outrageously crazy or creative. At one point I decided, I wanted to do arrangement. I wanted to compose a dance and do it in class, but that was not cool enough. After long hours of contemplation, I decided that I wanted to create a game using the key term delivery. After doing the newsletter project, I noticed how important it was to effectively deliver a speech. It would be rather difficult to call an audience to action if your delivery does not express a need for action to be taken. I was sure to review the newsletter project a few times. I wanted to be sure that I included major elements of the work so it was a true remediation and not just a switch in genres. I was sure to keep in mind the original medium so the new medium would not take away the essence of the original. Compared to the process of composing for the keyword newsletter, I enjoyed creating the remediation a lot more. I feel as if they both serve the same purpose. Ultimately the key word newsletter and the Pick Up or Delivery game were created to teach the importance of the term. The game allowed me as a composer to think as a professor. Through this course, I have learned that composers are not limited to writers. Composers compose! They can compose ANYTHING. My composing process has been the same for the most part. Whether the project has been for 40 somethings, college freshman, academic scholars or you, I always begin the same way- RESEARCH! After I research my target audience I develop a theme or concept (or a medium). I take key concepts that I think will contribute to my purpose or goal and I begin writing. Of course after the first draft is done, its time to (cue dramatic music) EDIT and REVISE. For those who think that you don’t have to edit and revise a game you are sadly mistaken. It is really just as important as editing a term paper or essay. The wrong clue for a word can mean all the difference of a game. I constantly revised and edited my rules to be sure they were as clear as possible. All in all, I think creating the remediation for keyword was an excellent practice to expand my composing wings. Although the game is intended for laughs, I wanted to be sure that it was evident what the purpose of delivery was and how important it is in everyday speech. PickUp or Delivery is a game that tricks players into understanding how delivery to an audience can affect their interpretation to what is being said. In my previous posts about remediation, I mention that remediation is the tension between new and old mediums. Remediation has defined 21st century culture. I am just happy that I was able to affectively contribute.
ReplyDeleteThe key words for my newsletter were technology and the three appeals. I chose to use a form technology to portray the three appeals for my remediation. My remediation IS a remediation because it does exactly what Bolter and Grusin describes it displays the original medium within another. It is not simply just a switch of medium or genre. It is more than that. For my remediation I chose to use Vuvox to create a slideshow movie in which I told the story of a nerdy college freshman who went on a journey to find the three appeals. Although a story is still a form of print/text, my creation is still a remediation because of the program I used as well as the pictures. It is also important to keep part of the original work in your remediation. You cannot completely get rid of it. Therefore, I took a few quotes and facts from the scholars used in my newsletter, and incorporated them into the story, which is told through mostly pictures.
ReplyDeleteMy original project incorporated technology using social networking sites to display the three appeals. I switched this element by using Vuvox and telling a story with words and photos. To be honest, the keywords project and its remediation were equally time consuming and stressful. I put a lot of time and effort into planning, formatting, and creating both. The keywords project however, was a lot easier because it was a group assignment, and the work could be split up equally. I feel that overall; both definitely help to portray the definitions of the three appeals separately in a way that the college freshman could understand. The remediation, although still fun and student friendly, incorporated more difficult quotes to incorporate or draw more upper level audience.
The process of creating my newsletter remediation was definitely NOT an easy task. First I had to come up with the idea. I racked my brain for days trying to figure out what to do, but then it came to me. My best friend Erin had a nerd themed birthday party, and I knew she had the perfect outfit. And what better way is there to portray a college freshman? So, using my emotions (pathos!) I persuaded her to help me out and she agreed. I dressed her as a nerd and we had fun taking pictures at various spots around campus. Next, I had to create the storyline and the actual Vuvox presentation, which was not simple. Overall, I think I was successful in accomplishing what I wanted to do. It does not look exactly how I originally planned due to some Vuvox and capability restrictions, but I think it turned out well.
The process of creating this remediation project was much like my normal composing process. I always have to put a lot of thought into my work before I get a good enough or creative enough idea. I then plan, and begin to produce my project. Halfway though the actual composition, I always seem to have to alter my original plans because they are either unrealistic, extremely difficult, or something just isn’t working or doesn’t look right. This is exactly what happened with my remediation. I originally planned on also incorporating a recorded video element, but Vuvox would not allow it. Because my video plans were not as strong as my Vuvox capabilities, I decided to stick with something I was good at, composing on Vuvox. After this usual bump in the road, I always complete my composition efficiently. Also, because of this class and this remediation project, I have learned the importance of incorporating media into compositions. This is definitely an important element that I will add to my composing process.
After pondering awhile about what medium to choose for our remediation project I chose to do a “reflection box.” I went out and got a little too crazy at Michaels Crafts but came out with everything I needed for my reflection box. One of my favorite movies is Mulan. I wanted to make my box kind of similar to as if Mulan was looking at her “reflection” like she sings in the movie. When you open the box it is lined with mirrors. In the box, I wrote down my favorite quotes from the movie Mulan that went along with my themes, reflection and literacy. I also collected numerous quotes that inspired me from Kathleen Yancey’s articles. Yancey’s quotes inspired me to not only reflect back but move forward. I felt like I could use my imagination more with the remediation project. When doing the remediation project it was very similar to composing. I had to plan out what I was doing and re think it several times. However, the newsletter project took hours of writing, revising and more revising. It was more tedious and time consuming. Nonetheless this is a helpful project for the real world with us EWM majors. If we want to be editors or publishers we need to learn how to edit and revise correctly and it only comes with practice. With the remediation project I could think outside of the box and get a little creative which I enjoy doing with crafts. Nevertheless, both of these projects served the same purpose and definitely gave me a lot of hands on experience with terms that we have learned in class. It cleared up any questions that I might have had about anything. Each of these projects allowed me to practice with different audiences, which is not my strength. All in all, from being creative, thinking outside the box, and practicing with different key terms, the remediation project was simply my favorite.
ReplyDeleteFrom the two words given to us from the brochures, I decided to do my assignment #2 on memory. In the brochures, my group talked out how memory influences discourse. I gave the example of Taylor Swift as a songwriter. She is known for taking entries from her diary and making them into hit singles in country music. As I was searching the web for ideas on what to do, I stumbled upon a quote form Walter Benjamin, “like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.” This made me think back to the concept of diaries and how the keeper of a diary will write down important memories in his/her life, thus creating discourse. I decided to paint the quote from Walter onto a plate around the edges. In the middle I put a diary along with pictures of memories that were of importance to me. I transposed text you would find in my diary into pictures. With my project, I went from text on paper to paint on a plate. I took a concept from the brochure and made it a piece of artwork. Besides the quote, I used pictures instead of text to catch the attention of viewers. The pictures related back to the quote on the edges to tie the project together around the concept of memory. For the brochures we also used a lot of things from the Internet such as pictures, resources, brochure templates, and more. With the second project, I only used the computer to find the quote. Everything else was drawn from hand using pencils and paint on the surface of a ceramic plate. In our readings during remediation we focused a lot on going forward from physical discourse to a more digital era. However, with my project I went backwards. I went from doing a brochure on the computer to painting it by hand. Remediation is a major factor in composing. Crossing mediums creates new ideas. There is no limitation these days with increment of technology and new inventions in how discourse is viewed. The composing process of discourse is continuously changing as time progresses. It plays an important part in any form of text. Composing is responsible for shaping a text and making it appeal to any particular audience.
ReplyDeleteOh the wizarding world of Harry Potter. When first thinking about exactly what to do for this project, I could not think of anything that felt as though it would completely fill all the requirements needed. Our newsletter was directed toward a completely different audience. The use of the five canons was a simple explanation when thinking of the freshmen we were trying to reach with our newsletter. Then of course came the choice of which word to use. Both knowledge and process are words that seem pretty self-explanatory. Well obviously for this project, self-explanatory was not going to me enough. Because process is such a broad word I felt that it would give me something that is very large and with little restrictions. Next choosing something I was passionate about took a toll on my brain. Then of course with Harry Potter coming to an end what could I possibly choose that would be better than the boy who lived himself. Surprisingly the five canons of Harry Potter flowed right out into the remediation medium for me. Being that Harry Potter is a book, and movie, it tells a story. The medium I chose to use was Vuvox. Vuvox helps to tell a story with pictures. This helped to keep some of the old ideas of Harry Potter still in tact while still allowing for some form of remediation to take place. The images were extremely fun to look up because I was able to show what Harry Potter means to me as well as give background knowledge about a movement that has been created all over dream J.K Rowling had on a trip. Vuvox also helped to give enough of a story that if someone knew nothing about Harry Potter yet understood the five canons of rhetoric, they would be able to follow along and relate one to another. Trying out the new medium of Vuvox was enlightening as well as challenging. I had to start the project over three different times because I just could not remember to save and organize the pictures the correct way. With the notion of composing itself, the composer must tell a story. The story however should still very much be personal and give a glimpse as to who the composer is as a person. This remediation project greatly expanded my thought process as a composer. I was able to take something that is personal and dear to my heart, and share it with a concept that was factual and learned in class. Based in fact and theory, I was able to show how magical a thing like Harry Potter could be to anyone willing to take the time to look at it.
ReplyDeleteIn creating my remediated key word projects, I viewed the process entirely different. From the beginning of the newsletter, I had a set guideline of exactly what needed to be done, down to the page number. The two compared in a large way because what was expected was entirely different. Although the two were related 100%, we had explored new terms and needed to collaborate our new knowledge with our previous work. I felt our first key word project was cut and dry – we knew exactly what we needed to do, whom we were writing for and the way in which we needed to write it. I didn’t have to do TOO much brainstorming. The second project gave me slight anxiety because much pressure comes from a work that is entirely your doing – there is much scrutiny to be had as a composer. With this being said, with the remediated key word, I had to brainstorm heavily since well, I hate technology (probably a huge issue) and I am heinously disabled in the area of physical creativity. So here was where my problem lied. I felt that our newsletter was a basic understanding of the term and with this project, I needed to remediate not only the work as a whole but the meaning of the word altogether. After exploring Bolter and Grusin and what remediation meant to them and how it would pertain to this project, my brain began to spin with ideas. I had dabbled with iMovie for the mini assignment so I knew the ins-and-outs of how to navigate exactly what I wanted to be doing. iMovie allowed me to easily drag images, insert words and use detail. I was able to incorporate music that I could choose myself, not just a generic background sound. I added transitions to make it fluid and blended photos with text. I’m a believer in iMovie because its so low maintenance. Given that I lack extreme digital fluency, some of the other mediums I played around with gave me a huge struggle. Now, I’m not saying I chose iMovie because I’m lazy and didn’t feel like toying with the other mediums, merely it was the most simple in portraying exactly what I wanted to do. This notion connects entirely to my theory of composing. I realize that it’s complex and at times ornate, but I feel the best work comes when it comes natural, not forced. If I had worked with say vuvox, my work would have most likely suffered because my lack of knowledge of the program. With iMovie, I was able to play around with it without getting frustrated. In composing I believe we should play around with our ideas and thoughts without letting them hinder the efficiency of our work. The remediation project was an extension of what we already knew – as a result of us studying Bolter and Grusin, we were more fluent in remediation and how it works and how it pertained to our original project. The same can be said with composition. Our composition process, the more we learn and expand, the better it gets. I can say with all sincerity that my thoughts on composing after this class will be changed because I EXPANDED my knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWhen writing the articles for the newsletter, I found that my mind would often stray into all the different ways we engage in discourse community. It was a hard concept for me to grasp at first because I thought that it was such a broad thing. Collaboration was obvious to me, but the challenge was nailing down a way to define discourse community. That is when everything clicked in my mind. DISCOURSE COMMUNITY IS OUR MODERN NORM. I feel like I am beating a dead horse with all my talk about how we are the most social generation yet but it is just SO fascinating to me. My articles in the newsletter were all about how the most regular common person is an author because of their ability to access the internet and to share their opinions. Once I read the different sources I realized you cannot have a discourse community without the use of collaboration. When making my remediation I was stuck trying to decide which term to use so I made a rough draft. Yes, I am slowly warming up to the composition process. I started creating my slideshow the day we were given the directions for the assignment. I had no idea what I was doing, but I just started animating an iPhone. Originally I had someone calling the iPhone and had the powerpoint animate answering the phone. That is when everything clicked in my head. So the original powerpoint I made would be considered brainstorming in the composition process. I decided that Facebook was the best way to describe discourse community because it is so involving. So I made a status on Facebook talking about how much I loved the movie Harry Potter. I did this because we learned in class that the original purpose of rhetoric was to persuade and I think that what other people post on Facebook can lead to the self discovery of new things. To stray away for a second, if a friend posts a video of a song I have never heard of and I like the artist, I will go on iTunes and look it up. I think that this is a form of persuasion because the friend is persuading me to like their opinion of good music. So I made a status about a movie and had a friend comment on it asking if they should see it because I wanted to show how I used discourse community to persuade a friend into seeing a movie. Obviously I had time restraints so I just responded with a simple yes but I think that I got the point across. Once I finished the slides for the facebook app, I was reviewing (another step in the composition process) and decided I needed more. The second part of my powerpoint took some time to think about because I wanted to keep the iPhone theme true but to stray away from Facebook and that is when a friend texted me and I was enlightened. I had a friend ask me what I was doing because I wanted to apply the rhetorical situation that we discussed in class. I wanted to show that even the most basic text message has a meaning behind it and that is exemplified when they ask me to go see their new dog. Once I finished those slides, I thought that I needed to engage a third party because discourse community is not a community with just two people so I simulated forwarding the picture to my mom. Even though the slideshow goes by in a minute in 12 seconds, it has a lot of meaning behind it. The revision step of the composition process took me the longest because of all of the little details that go into making something as perfect as you can get it. I added the song last and in the end, my friend said it seemed like a commercial. I thought that that was an interesting perception of my work because it is sort of informative. I hope that it gets my terms across, I strongly believe that it does.
ReplyDeleteI used powerpoint because I have always been pretty strong in using that medium and thought that it would be the easiest tool to make an animation.
After being transfixed on the topic of remediation, when our second project was announced I knew instantly that I wanted to work with the term Reflection. When I write, reflection is the most important aspect I focus on, especially in essays where an argument is required. Reflecting is looking back on your life and examining everything and every interaction person you’ve experienced, because even the little things can change a person’s views and life. While the term reflection came from our newsletter project, it didn’t weigh as heavy with me as it did with the 2nd project. In our first project we defined the term in relation with literacy and applied it to strangers. Yes, you can tell a stranger what you learned, but it won’t affect them as much as a first person experience will. I enjoyed working on the 2nd project much more than the 1st project. This is because I got to be more creative and less structured.
ReplyDeleteI instantly knew what direction I wanted to go in with my project. My plan was to get a canvas, put pieces of a broken mirror on it, along with pictures of objects and quotes that reflect me, as well as pictures of my family and friends and applying them to the canvas with paper mache. YAY PAPER MACHE! As I was cutting up my library of Cosmopolitan magazines (found ones from 2006!) I realized that paper mache would not suit this project. The pictures and quotes I was cutting out were too small and fragile to paper mache. Glue it was! The arrangement was a little difficult but after visualizing the canvas as a puzzle and the pieces my pictures and mirror fragments, it all pulled together. I think my project is terrific.
I chose a canvas because as with writing you need something to place your ideas on. My thought with the broken mirror is people can never have a full map of their lives. No one can know entirely why A led to B and produced C; we only have fragments of memories to work with. Also, because when I reflect on who I am, my life and all that I’ve experienced, it’s broken and fragmented. I haven’t lived enough to have a full spectrum of life experiences to reflect upon. The pictures I chose are what I want people to know about me. Things I like about my life. Hiking mountains in Maine during the summer and skiing in Canada during the winter. Traveling to Europe with my best friend where we encountered some of our craziest memories. Palm trees because I grew up on the beach. I want people to know I’m shy not unfriendly; because I’ve learned to others my shyness comes off as standoffish. The written list of attributes is by my mom. I think an important part of reflection is knowing how others think of you, because outside opinions weigh heavily on a person’s conscious and perception of themselves. The quote I chose from the book The Thorn Birds embodies me. Every terrible and good thing that has happened to me, I accept it and move on. The other quotes I found in Vanity Fair and from Yancey back up my theme of reflection.
This project exemplifies my theory of composing in a concrete manner. That is you could see my thought process played out with tangible materials. First I must find a medium, in this case a canvas. Next, decide what I want to convey to the audience and how to do so. What pictures and words will speak to an audience? Once a composer has an idea they must begin creating and accept that the original idea will never be the outcome because something is guaranteed to change along the way. Finally, you must review and edit what you’ve created before it is turned in.
For my remediated key word project, I chose to make a book which to me was the most literal or obvious, rather, representation of my group’s newsletter key word—literacy. In comparing my process for preparing the newsletter to the creation of a book, I can say hands-down that trying to make a book was a lot more tedious, and difficult to put together than the newsletter. The newsletter was not an easy task to say the least; there was research to be done, articles to be drafted, images to be found, selection of the newsletter format and insertion of the text and images, then tying all the articles and images together to make one cohesive document, but the book was more tedious, costly—I spent well over $70 for supplies—and messy than the newsletter. I had to go to a couple of stores, on more than one occasion, to purchase all the supplies that I needed and by the time I finished cutting, gluing, spraying cardboard, paper, and glittered foam sheets my house looked like a bunch of three-year olds broke in and threw a rave party! Drastically different from sitting in the library researching, or at home on the computer typing. Another difference between my process for creating the book versus the newsletter was that I did not need my normal solitary, quiet zone atmosphere which is imperative for me in all writing situations; I was able to complete this project at home surrounded by various noises and noise levels. Nevertheless, my process for creating the book and the newsletter shared a few commonalities, such as, determining the layout and use of my text and images, and using selected images to help guide me with the direction of my text.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Bolter and Grusin, remediation always entails the retention or repurposing of some elements of an older medium into a new medium. In order to stay true to this definition of remediation, I made sure to incorporate some of the commentary, quotes, and at least one image from the newsletter into my book thus affirming it as truly remediated. I believe my book also contains some element of what Bolter and Grusin call “hypermediacy” because it contains different image types (photos, banners, line drawings, etc.), various sticker quotes, foam images, makeshift picture frames and the actual text; all these elements work together to convey the meaning of each section within the book. In viewing this project in terms of my Theory of Composing, I would have to say that I maintained most of the elements of my theory. As I mentioned, I used my images to help dictate what I wanted to say in my text; I guess this method was like a different style of brainstorming for me…but it worked for both projects. I also made sure to revise images, foam pictures/items, and text before placing them on the actual book. After completing this project I feel like I should add “genre” to my theory of composing; the reason is because I realized after the fact that I did not include, in what was supposed to be my version of a traditional book, certain conventions found in a traditional book (table of contents, index, preface, foreword or introduction). This, in effect, caused my book to have more of a scrapbook look and feel rather than a book one would pick up if they were interested in literacy as a topic.
Intensity. That is the difference between the composing processes of the newsletter and its remediation. The composing process for my newsletter was much less intense than that of my remediation because my composing process for writing takes less time than that of crafting. The process is the same: Think, unthink, create, uncreate, think again, regret erasing, create again, and keep it.
ReplyDeleteSeems complicated and unorganized, but it is the only way I will ever get what I want out of my work. From creating, erasing, and recreating, I am exposed to new ideas bouncing off of one another and old ideas resurfacing.
(My response is too long, so I'm submitting it in two comments)
When it came to the newsletter, working with two other students had an effect on my process. With our ideas bouncing off of each other’s, the steps of erasing and recreating were altered. I didn’t need to act on each idea and erase them once found unsuccessful, because my group members were there to stop me from acting on unsuitable ideas, so I’d have less to erase. The process still had its fair share of trial and error. When it came to the layout, we tried many different page lay outs before we found the right one. The aesthetics of the newsletter were something that we learned as we went along. Aesthetics in any setting is the same. Any form of design will take trial and error. My remediation was done by crafting a bouquet of flowers partnered with a scrapbook. There were many ideas that were acted upon and regretted. Some I could take back and some I had to learn to work with. I say the process of crafting is more intense than that of writing because when I erase writing, that’s what I do: erase. When I want to eliminate what I’ve done in crafting, there are more aesthetic consequences. However, with this remediation project, the stakes for my artwork were a bit higher: I couldn’t just change anything I didn’t like because making sure my remediation project was a pure representation of the newsletter project was the main message of the art I was creating. I successfully represented the newsletter in my arts and crafts process in many ways. Some of these ways were abstract in the bouquet and made concrete in the scrapbook. The newsletter my group wrote was about the three appeals and technology. Each section of the newsletter was focused on an appeal and its relationship with an Internet website: Ethos/Facebook, Logos/Twitter, Pathos/YouTube. My remediation project represents the three appeals. However, to keep the newsletter’s content relevant and present in my remediation, I created a scrapbook connecting my bouquet of flowers with, not only each appeal, but Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. A concrete connection that can be made between the bouquet and the newsletter is that I handcrafted the flowers using printed sheets of one of the sources we used for the newsletter. For aesthetics, I tea dyed the paper before crafting. Taking the time to naturally tea dye the paper contributed to the Ethos that the bouquet holds while being observed. If the paper was not tea dyed, the bouquet loses the credible effect of having taken a long time to complete. Ethos was also represented in my uploading of a picture of the bouquet onto Facebook. In doing this, my Facebook friends have the opportunity to see my work, making me credible to craft for them to gain money. Because money is lovely, lovely, thing to get when Ethos is built. The newsletter argued that Pathos is connected to YouTube because videos can connect to many emotions. A funny one when you need to laugh, a sad one when you need to cry. The printed essay I used to craft the flowers had heavy relevance to Alice In Wonderland. I was able to connect the bouquet to YouTube in that way because the Bread-And-Butter-Flies mentioned in the essay are featured in the Flower Song of the movie. An abstract way Pathos is connected to the remediation is the feeling that people get when they receive flowers. This is what makes creating a bouquet more unique than any other handcrafted creation. Logos is represented in the bouquet because of the step-by-step process of crafting. No handcrafted creation takes one step. By looking up tutorials and by adlibbing, I showed logos through research and trial and error. The representation of Logos is concretely represented in the scrapbook’s page dedicated to a provided step-by-step tutorial of the tissue/doily flowers and the vase decoration. Once done, I uploaded the picture to Twitter, letting my followers know that if they need a tutorial, I can provide one. Through both abstract and concrete ways, my remediation is an undoubtedly clear representation and recreation of my group’s newsletter project.
ReplyDeleteFrom first having to create a newsletter then remediating it into a digital medium was not easy at all. I had a difficult time organizing and planning out what exactly I wanted to do as far as how to incorporate a dance as remediation. The very thought of it made me nervous; I wanted my project to be perfect. So, it took me about a good 3 1/2 hours to think of what song to choose let alone what to choreograph. I kept switching from an "emo" sort of song to a more upbeat pop song. Agreeing with Shannon, i wanted my audience to be known when I turned in my final project. Having to direct your audience to a certain type of group was very difficult when composing my newsletter. However, I was enjoying the fact that I felt I was an actual editor and was taking part in a magazine. To me, it reminds me of playing Pretend; the childhood game I knew and loved. It made me feel as if I were on the right track into becoming what I want to be. Writing was kind of difficult as well because of having to sound collegiate yet, freshman were the viewers but I also could not dumb-it-down for them either. All in all, comparing my newsletter and my remediated piece, I could not help but be pleased. My newsletter came as close to perfect as I could possibly have imagined it. From the simple yet captivating format to our topics of different movies and genre's I was ecstatic. When finding out my final grade on the newsletter I was relieved. Once Kara explained to me that I was so close to achieving an A, the thought alone only made me smile. Now I know next time that all I needed to do was this, this and this. WEPO helped me improve a lot in how I think and how I write, for that, I am extremely grateful.
ReplyDeleteOne of the keywords given to my group was collaboration. I chose this over discourse community because it seemed like with this term I would be able to have more fun with it. The website I chose to use was photovisi.com. Since I have an interest in fashion I wanted to incorporate it by discussing how women in the 1960s dressed with the way we dress now. Fashion trends are always changing but one thing that holds true even in this case is that “history repeats itself.” Fashion in the 1960s did not start off with psychedelic and radiant colors. The colors were duller, that is why I chose to make the pictures in black and white. I toyed around with having a more colorful background similar to tie dye but it was too harsh on the eyes and the pictures did not stand out as much as I liked with the plain pink background. You will notice walking around campus today now you see flowers in girls’ hair all the time, which was a popular accessory in the 60s. In the summer, floral designs are popular as well as shirts that are looser and flow more “hippie” like. Shirts that are fringed at the bottom, crop tops and high waisted bottoms are also styles that exemplify the 1960s. During wintertime, pea coats with high boots are also trends that have made their way back to the runway 50 years later. This medium allows “collaboration” to be demonstrated in a more interesting way that attracts the eye a bit more than a newsletter. It is vital to not lose what is represented in the old medium when you remediate it into something else so I made sure that this was a clear representation on collaboration, but I gave it my own twist. The thought I put into which medium to use is similar to my composing process. The first factor that played into my decision is focusing on the audience. Being audience appropriate is key to a successful composition. I looked up countless pictures of women in the 60s and in present time and began to find similarities. I arranged the pictures where the poster would flow so you wouldn’t be moving your head in circles trying to find something to focus on. My editing for this project was certainly different from correcting grammatical mistakes but I still had to edit, even with few words. My composing process did not seem ideal for this project but it was still grounded in my remediation.
ReplyDeleteChoosing a medium for this project was difficult. I am not the best when it comes to creating projects that involve posters, collages, etc. So for this project I tried to choose a medium I was comfortable with. It’s not coming up with ideas it’s more of the execution of the ideas. That’s why for I chose to do a Prezi. Since our first project was a newsletter, I felt something in a digital medium would help fuel the idea of a remediation. Although it was probably not the most exciting choice I thought it would allow me to remediate the first project without losing sight of what was expected in this project. A Prezi is something that I know how to you use fairly well. This medium allowed me to get past some of my own creativity issues still have a look and feel that I wanted. I feel this medium would let me break from the boring tradition of something like a PowerPoint presentation. The presi allowed me to put all the information I wanted in this project as well as giving a very polished look when its finished. It was really important to me to make sure I kept the same heart and soul from the first project. I used all the main details that I thought needed to be transferred into the new medium. Even though I was remediating the newsletter I made a concerned effort to not get lost in the new medium. When It comes to composing I feel that you need to pick something that your familiar with and that’s its something that you want to work with. If it’s something that you don’t have an interest in, then it’s most likely going to show in your work. The more invested you are into doing a good job the more it will show in the end. In our newsletter we wanted to make sure the key words could be relatable to our audience. With the audience change for this assignment I tried to do the same thing. I chose arrangement because I felt when you are composing something how you arrange everything that’s related to it, really helps shape the final product. Everything must flow throughout the piece. You have to be able to establish a connection with your audience early and need to reinforce your points throughout the piece. Of the five rhetorical canons I feel like arrangement is the one that is most important to the others. If you can arrange something well everything else will fall into place.
ReplyDeleteThe keywords for my newsletter project were process and knowledge. Being that both were two very broad terms, it was kind of “ the sky is the limit” with both the newsletter and the remediation project. With the newsletter, I was working with two other writers so of course I felt like there were creativity constraints because some of the ideas that I would have like to use weren’t able to be incorporated in the newsletter. However, this was not the case with the remediation assignment. Between the remediation project and the newsletter, both equally had their challenges, but with the remediation project I really felt like I was able to really let my mind run free and work within my own concept. The process I used in creating my article in the newsletter was a fairly simple one. Since I was somewhat told that I would be writing about, style and memory, I basically just t sit down and let my thoughts flow. I did my research and I tried my best to tie into the article interesting things that were relatable to the audience. Even though the writing had to be based on my scholarly research, I also still tried to include a little bit of “me” in it with my references and comparisons to fashion and politics, two of my favorite things. With the remediation project my goal was to incorporate style, memory and a bit of me into the new medium. With this being an individual activity, there were no limits on what could be done and I was really able to let my imagination run wild. With my keyword being process I decided to do a process that had style and memory elements as well as showed some of my individuality. In my remediation project I decided to show my step-by-step process for doing my makeup for a night on the town. This is, indeed, a process, its something that really is embedded in my memory, and it is related to style and fashion as referenced in the newsletter.
ReplyDeleteAs I have stated in previous blog posts, my theory of composing is writing about what we know for a given situation for a different audiences. Both these past assignments related to that theory because with the newsletter, I took the new knowledge that I had gained from my research and attempted to make it appear to my audience and with the remediation assignment I tried to the same.
Remediating my newsletter into a collage was fairly easy. It required much less time, knowledge, and research. I chose to remediate the term genre. When creating the newsletter, I decided to write about audience. To fully understand both terms, I switched it up for the remediation assignment. In the newsletter I relied on scholarly figures like Rebecca Moore Howard and Mr. Ong. Their views helped to mold my opinion and definition of audience. The collage is comprised of various photos, textures, and text. I found it necessary to add some texture to the design; I incorporated brown paper bag material, notebook paper, and tissue paper. I worked with everyday items that are readily available to the public like free literature. I used recycled tissue and shopping bags to add an artistic edge. The images I chose represent my views of genre. I share many genres from an owl to fashion. I found the images and text relevant to my understanding of genre. I define genre as a category of items that often branch out into subcategories. I incorporated the following genres; movies, music, photography, text, fashion, animals, food, and textures. I expressed physically what the newsletter could not. This extension of the remediation newsletter has added to my theory of composing. If you think about the overall design of my collage it makes sense. The portrait of the woman on the far right is thinking about her composition; this explains why she is placed upon a piece of notebook paper. She represents a composer reflecting on their personal thoughts and interests regarding genre. Her thoughts are then spewed across the board, but in a way the composition is still collectively organized.
ReplyDeleteThe newsletter, I focused on the content of the piece and the arrangement, to contribute to my audience’s understanding of the term delivery. Print mediums, such as the newsletter, have limited options for delivery techniques because of their one dimensional aspect, you can rearrange the text or play with different styles, but the text will always be flat on the page. This limits options for delivery in print medium. The arrangement of text and style were the only aspects that worked to contribute to the overall delivery of the piece. Delivery relied on use of color schemes, arrangement of the text, and the overall style of language.
ReplyDeleteThe process of creating a PowerPoint proved to be much more difficult but also more fun than the newsletter. PowerPoint allowed me to provide the same information as the newsletter on the term “delivery”, but also allowed me to incorporate animations, graphics, and other media within the medium. I was not familiar with the PowerPoint medium at first, so I played around with the background, animations, and different options for the slideshow. It was aggravating at times when I couldn’t figure out how to create certain effects I wanted, but it was also a fun process of exploration that taught me a great amount, which will surely be used again in the future. YouTube videos are another example of remediation or media convergence, as they mix several mediums to work together, such as music, video, movies, and advertising. The process of creating the PowerPoint presentation was not a fast or simple one, but it was the perfect medium to convey the meaning of delivery in composition and illustrate its impact.
I chose to remediate the keyword “delivery” from a newsletter to a PowerPoint, because a PowerPoint presentation allowed for creativity and more options for delivery. I was able to define delivery through text, as well as illustrate its definition through the use animations and transitions from slide to slide, so as not just to define, but illustrate my theory on delivery in composition. In summary, the text and graphics in my PowerPoint work together to form a cohesive definition of delivery, through a textual explanation as well as a visual demonstration. PowerPoint may not be appropriate for all genres, but it was the perfect choice for my remediation, because it demonstrates the key term delivery, in a way that a print medium cannot.
Furthermore, PowerPoint was an appropriate medium for remediation because it appeals to my audience. Slideshows are interactive and display movement, which students have learned to prefer in a digital age. In today’s world, print mediums are less likely to grab the attention of the audience, as students become more accustomed to digital mediums that are more interactive. The animation that a PowerPoint provides will grab the attention of my audience as text comes flying in, images fade in and out, and the slides transition from one to the next. These aspects of the PowerPoint allowed me to illustrate the term delivery in a way that a print medium could not.
This remediation project has altered my theory on composition by broadening my knowledge of how different mediums of composition can affect the delivery of information and be a determining factor in the art of rhetoric and persuasion. Previously, I related composition with only traditional print mediums, but now, with the emergence of the digital age, I am aware of so many different mediums that can be used to deliver a composition. I now understand how different mediums can work together, and that the medium chosen to deliver the composition is crucial for the delivery process, and therefore affects the audience’s reception. Not all mediums work for all genres, but the PowerPoint was the perfect medium for me to remediate my definition of “delivery”, as defined in the newsletter
In my key word assignment, my group and I discussed what arrangement and delivery meant and what they were all about. I decided for my remediation that I would do delivery, since that is mostly what I talked about in the brochure. When I hear the word delivery, I automatically think of food. As a matter of fact, when I was researching information on delivery during the first project, most of the information that came up were sites for food delivery places around town. I knew I had to do something about pizza delivery because that is the most popular. As I contemplated what medium to use, I considered having food delivered or something of that sort. In the end, I decided to create a poster with different images of delivery on it. My boyfriend and I were hungry the other evening and we decided to call Pizza Hut and have it delivered. I took pictures of him calling the order in, receiving the order, and then the finished product. Delivery is the last of the five canons of speech and it is all about how something is presented. We called and placed an order, then Pizza Hut made what we wanted (which could be arrangement) and then brought it to us. The delivery of the pizza put us in a good mood, so we ate the entire thing. When working on the brochure, I tried to give a more detailed description of what delivery was. I wanted to make sure the audience had an understanding of what it meant. So when I remediated, I wanted do something that I felt that everyone could understand. If you deliver a message that is negative or in a way that will make people unhappy, then it will upset the audience. If you deliver a message to your audience that is a good one, then you will please them. Same concept with food delivery; if my food is messed up, I’m going to be mad, but if it is delivered the way I asked, I will be a pleased customer (audience). Working on these projects helped me realize that composing isn’t just writing, it’s more. I can be anything that gets your point across (in my case a poster and brochure). No matter what your medium of choice is, keep in mind that your delivery of your composition is important because it will have an influence your audience.
ReplyDeleteWhen thinking of the new medium to illustrate the keyword, I decided to use a digital medium. I wanted to use a digital medium because I wanted to show that I can convey the same idea of my perspective on memory and its relation to rhetoric and composing, but in a different way. The reason I chose Vuvox is because of considering that the audience has changed to a more diverse group, rather than Freshman college students. Creating a collage made it easier to appeal to the audience because a simple compilation of images leaves the audience for self interpretation compared to printed texts on a newsletter. Also, I wanted to be creative with this remediation project but I’m personally, not an artist and I’m not good at drawing or painting and making anything with my hands. This digital medium (Vuvox) helped me manipulated creativity and imagination; although all the applications are available for all users, my specific text, images, music, etc. make it unique and individual work. I felt that I liked the balance of the digital medium compared to the balance of rhetoric on the newsletter. The newsletter required a lot more text and I think that it resulted in constricting the audience’s agency to think about composing or rhetoric in their own way. I felt like the newsletter gave no room for the audience to think otherwise and it just informed the readers “this is how it’s going to be”. Vuvox allowed me to guide the audience to their own interpretation of memory but also keeping in mind the final goal of composing and its relationship to memory.
ReplyDeleteMy overall understanding of composing is that the purpose of composing is to convey your own thoughts with rhetoric and language you’ve learned and remembered. Furthermore, we consider the situation , as well as, the audience. A lot of times we try to write in certain ways because we know who our audience is going to be. Although keeping in mind who the composition is for influences our work, I think that the ultimate goal of creating rhetoric is to be able to voice your own thoughts. Over the course of several weeks I’ve learned that there more contributing factors to composing rather than putting a bunch of words together that make you sound smart. Things such as, editing, proofreading during composing are important components to writing effectively. Even when using Vuvox, I thought it could be considered as editing when I had to go through the images and putting them in specific order to make sense and for the collage’s fluidity. Making sure the speed of the collage is fast enough where you don’t lose the audience’s attention but at the same time slow enough pace for the audience to be able to take in the information and actually think about the rhetoric and images. Also, to mention the obvious but important is doing research on the subject of whatever you’re discussing.
For the first assignment, our newsletter revolved around the words “knowledge” and “process.” I explained process as a multi-step plan to get to the finished product. In order to make process easy to understand, we used the 5 Canons of Rhetoric to explain the steps of composition: Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery. When we were given the task to remediate our original project, I was stumped. How could I physically show knowledge or process? Then I realized, hey! Why don’t I literally re-create the process that is done to make something else? So, I decided to go with the process of creating wine. I looked up said process and wrote the simplified version on a wine bottle, which I put in a basket with grapes and corks. On the bottle, I wrote the steps of creating wine. They were as follows:
ReplyDelete1. Plan
2. Grow
3. Process, sort, de-stem, crush, ferment
4. Age
5. Package
6. Experience
When compared to the five Canons of Rhetoric, I think that the process of winemaking is a great parallel. First, the Invention step is comparable to Plan. Arrangement combines the second and third step of winemaking, grow & process. We have to arrange the grapes properly in order to prepare for the winemaking, much like how we have to arrange our thoughts in order to make a great composition. Next, Style compares to the Aging process because the age of a fine wine determines the kick and personality of the taste, much like the style of a composition gives it a personal flair. Of the canons, Memory can be compared to the Packaging step of winemaking. Memorizing your knowledge for a speech or composition shows that you are well versed in your ways. Similarly, the packaging of wine gives a background on how the wine is made and the knowledge it took for the wine-makers to construct such a beverage. Finally, Delivery can be compared to Experience because the overall delivery of a composition or speech affects the experience (or in the winemaking process, the taste) of the audience.