Letter to Myself

Dear Paige,

Today is Mother’s Day, the one day that children with loving mother’s are pretty much required to show love and appreciation for everything mom’s do. Despite any bad things that have happened in your life the past few days, you have got to hold it together today, because freaking out on your mom on Mother’s Day is something you might come to regret. I’m writing this letter to you, my past self, to prevent unnecessary words spewing out of your mouth which will only end up hurting your mom’s feelings. Since you have worked as a banquet server for the past two days, this third day in a row will be much more hard and hectic than you thought. You got home from work at 2 a.m. last night and must go in at 9 a.m. this morning for a mother’s day brunch. These odd and out of the normal hours will come to cause potential moody behavior, and sore feet later in the day.

To prevent nasty comments from flying out of your mouth, here is a new plan of approach that you should try for taking on the day. Go in to work this morning with a positive attitude, despite the unfortunate scheduling and lack of sleep you got last night, this first step is imperative. Attitude will mean everything in the long run. Smile at the fact that you have a job; be happy that you will get pay for the work you have to do today. Make sure you compose this happy attitude in hopes that it may actually become how you truly feel about working today. Once you are at work, continually check to make sure you are maintaining a positive attitude while elaborating on the process. The next thing to do is avoid physically and emotionally strenuous activity for as long as you can. Do these by letting someone else move the eight foot tables across the room and instead choose to polish the silverware. Keep as much energy in your body as you can, sit down while polishing the silverware and make sure to rest your feet from standing, walking and going up and down the stairs so much. Once work is over, and you have finished serving all the tables, and cleaning up the banquet room, clock out and walk to your car. Next, it is very important for you to take off your shoes once you get in your car. The tennis shoes have become very uncomfortable over the past few days, wearing them for hours after hours. You want to prevent any strain on your feet-complaining about the pain will only cause you trouble later on. Once you have driven home, take a moment to yourself. Embrace the peace and quiet and remind yourself that it is mother’s day and of all that she has done for you. After all of that, go inside and greet mom with a smile and a “happy mother’s day!”. Showing your genuine care towards her will make her happy. In order to be genuine, do not complain about work, and especially don’t complain about how sore your feet are. If you complain about sore feet, mom will continually talk to you about how you need better shoes, and on and on she will go, and then suddenly “LEAVE ME ALONE” will burst out of your mouth before you have a chance to bite your tongue. Refrain from saying anything harsh towards your mother on Mother’s Day, otherwise you will feel guilty all day long. Finally, to prevent further outbursts from happening, spend the rest of the day doing things that are enjoyable and time well spent, in order to keep your mood up. Anything that will put off a negative attitude forming is the key to success in this step.

At the end of today, as long as you remember to do what I said above, Mother’s Day shall remain intact. Be positive, keep calm and collected, sustain as much energy as possible, remind yourself how much you appreciate your mom, keep all complaints to yourself, and spend the rest of the day doing things that keep you happy. Bite your tongue when it irrationally spits out something harsh, and at all costs, do not ruin mom’s day!

Sincerely,

 Paige Tigner

Redesign Reflection

This assignment excited me because the guidelines required some creativity, in order to change who the ad would appeal to, and how it would pull that off. I was able to create a whole new ad for a different audience than the original. It was different and a new kind of assignment than I have ever been assigned to do before. The only worry I found with this assignment in the beginning was finding an ad that I could change for a new audience. Class was helpful with this area, during peer brainstorming.

Initially I came to class with the idea of redesigning a Bose stereo advertisement; however, this ad featured a lot of text and would have been too much information to consolidate for a new audience. With help from my peer group and teacher-student interaction I decided that the Bose ad was too general and we found the Eddie Bauer down winter coat advertisement instead. This ad was chosen because it had a relatively simple design, the product was easily determined, and the ad had appeals that were being used to reach its audience. Since the ad featured all of these things I decided it would be a good ad to try and redesign.

The advertisement that I ended up with to redesign was an Eddie Bauer down winter coat advertisement. I had trouble discovering an alternative audience for this ad; none seemed different enough from the original. So, to solve that problem I began delving deeper into whom the original ad was really appealing to, instead of saying it appealed to women, I went more specific saying it appealed to athletic women.  After I did that, it was easier to determine a new audience of middle-aged, business-men for the redesign. The design of the new advertisement came straight out of a picture in my mind. I continually looked at the original ad and gained inspiration from some of the simplistic and timeless qualities that it carries. A picture that included my new audience within it began to form in my head. To remember all of the details, I jotted down my ideas on paper as they came and expanded on them as I wrote my essay on the computer.

As I began writing my essay I was challenged, as always, with getting all of my thoughts down on paper in the most organized and sensible way. I found many details and aspects in the original ad that were rhetorical appeals, and I was challenged with getting all of them on paper in a way that made sense. To avoid sporadic and choppy thoughts throughout the description of the original and redesigned rhetorical appeals, I slowed down and really thought about the ways the ad was appealing to the viewers. I decided which details thoroughly did what each rhetorical appeal is meant to do, and described those details in full to show that I understood the purpose of pathos, logos, and ethos. One other challenge I ran into, was finding a way to include logos in my redesigned advertisement. The original did not have any statistical fact about the product, nor did it include science and math, so I had trouble producing a fact that seemed believable for my new audience.

This assignment was similar to an art assignment in my opinion. It required us to design a new advertisement for a new audience based off of an original. I took many art classes throughout high school and treated this assignment similar to the assignments I did in art class. I was able to use the original ad as a resource for the creation of my redesign. I found myself feeding off of the colors, text, and overall mood that the original ad had in order to fully develop my redesigned advertisement. I really enjoyed the creativity that this assignment allowed for. It gave us freedom to create something on our own, yet had boundaries that helped us write successful essays.

After the fact, I feel like I have a better understanding of what advertisements are capable of besides just promoting a product. I learned that they often use emotions to strike interest in viewers, and facts and logic to allude to the logical and moralistic sides of people. These things are used to promote the product, but also can influence the audience in ways that we may not even realize sometimes. Evaluating the rhetorical appeals through this redesign assignment has helped me grasp how pathos, logos and ethos make a difference in an advertisement as well as on the people who view it. When seeing new commercials and ads in magazines I feel like I can identify so much more detail than I could before that give clues about the brand/company, and what their goals are.

If I were to go back and re-do this essay I feel like I could improve some areas that are weak. I would try physically drawing out my redesigned advertisement so that I could see it, rather than pull it all from my memory during the writing process. Although I am happy with the way my redesign turned out, I would like to know if actually drawing or sketching it would benefit my description in any way. 

Process Memo

Paige Tigner

Professor Rinke

Writing 150

12 October 2012

Process Memo

            Writing about literacy is a task that I was not expecting to encounter when I did. This process forced my brain to think back to how I became able to think, read and write the way I am right now: its one big connecting circle. The personal timeline I created was all so revealing in how I came to be who I am today; never before had I realized how big of an impact my road to literacy had on me. I began to notice a majority of my literacy experiences being revolved around some sort of art, coming to this conclusion was not something that I expected, yet it made sense to me. I knew that coloring, painting, and drawing were regular day to day tasks for me as a child, but I never realized that those early on experiences linked me to my literate abilities today. The timeline surprisingly presented me with the specific examples of my childhood I needed to connect the dots and told me that creativity and visual learning is a big part of how I am the student/person I am.

            Beginning the literacy narrative was a pretty straightforward shot for me. I had very little trouble choosing the focus areas of my paper, and deciding how to organize everything. My usually strategies of writing involve making brief notes of all my ideas on a sheet of paper in a way that makes them all flow together nicely, this helps all my ideas pour out as I write the next draft. Even more so I luckily had a very clear memory between my coloring book and the words at the end of the page, which made it easy for me to write about how art is what started it all. After that I was able to simply elaborate on that specific memory with other experiences with art and books I had in life. Once the rough draft was completed, it went through the peer review process in class which helped me determine whether or not my theme was presented in a clear enough way, and if it was understandable to other people. My partners were able to fix minor grammatical errors, and told me when some of my sentences were misleading and confusing. When examining my narrative for the final time, I made note of the sentences that my peer review partners suggested I use for my video, and I also made sure to alter some that I thought should be in there to keep the train of thought on its path. I used roughly ten sentences that were chosen by my partners and then I chose five or six more to use. Writing these sentences made the story a dual-purpose type of writing and made me think harder about the way I organized the paper, and the words I chose to convey my main ideas.

            Creating the animoto slideshow was somewhat difficult due to the character limitations per slide. I ran into a few slides that were not able to include every word I had in the original sentence. To work around this, I substituted some of my main words with less lengthy words, and eliminated words like “it”, “the”, “a”, and “to” when I could. In one slide in particular I wrote “illustrations in books are my top memories of reading”, I was unhappy with the end result of this slide, the words I had to use are not my first choice-I would much rather have said “illustrations in my childhood books are what I remember most”. The animoto forced me to compromise some original ideas and create new ways to convey them. I think the pictures I chose are a mix of being complimentary to my text slides, and providing more detail that I wasn’t able to put into text. Some complimentary ones in my video include pictures of me coloring as a child to go with “coloring books gave me a strong connection with paper”, the picture of crayons compliment “markers and crayons were the coolest toys I had”. Some other pictures such as the pictures I included of The Berenstein Bears book, The Series of Unfortunate Events, and The Spiderwick Chronicles all provided details about what types of books I found interest in, and how they got more advanced over time. Along with all of these pictures, I included many other personal pictures of myself reading with family, and partaking in art competitions and sketching in the park with friends. All of these personal pictures helped set the tone for my video and let the audience see first-hand how art and reading has been in my life. The audio I chose for my video is A Message by Coldplay. I would describe this song as very calm, easy-going, and natural which is how I feel about my road to literacy. I chose that song because I think it appropriately exemplifies the success I was lucky enough to have in becoming literate. Not only does it compliment my video in a thematic way, but it also has that continuous, easy strum of the guitar throughout the song that matches the background of my video that looks like bleeding ink.  Overall, I am happy with the way my animoto turned out; however, there are a few things I would change or improve if I could. Reflecting on the responses I got, I would consider slowing down the speed of my video so the audience has an easier time following the ideas I present, and I would also like to add more text slides that focus in on how I think art and my literate abilities are connected so that my audience can understand more of the reasoning behind all of that.

                

You Can't Go Wrong with a Subaru

In the Subaru car commercial there are cues that allude to a certain way of life. The way the commercial was produced shows a way of life among people that value family, quality/loyalty, and fulfilling experiences throughout life. These are ideologies because they are a sort of belief system of how some people live their lives. I think the commercial represents the car as being family friendly because it shows the owners go from one person and a dog, to a couple and their dog, to a couple and their child, and a dog. The family develops and grows over time while still using the same Subaru, which a big indicator of loyalty and dependability. This time frame part of the commercial also represents the importance of quality in life. The parts where the man is playing fetch with his dog and taking walks as a family are all details that show the importance of fulfilling life with meaningful moments. This belief is also shown through the love displayed between the man and woman with the kiss they share, to the petting of the dog that we see grow up from puppy to adult. The audience for this commercial is families, active people, and anyone who values long lasting materials. The location of the commercial, the clothing worn by the actors, and even the minor details of the set are all rhetoric that was used to grasp the attention of the intended audience. It is all filmed outdoors at what looks like a cabin house, it’s back in the woods where there a lot of trees and long grass, and the family is in practical, casual, adventuring clothing. All of these details help promote the ideologies of the audience. I have a dominant-hegemonic response to this commercial. I agree with the beliefs that are represented throughout the commercial and have no personal problems with the way they show the importance of family, loyalty, and lifestyle through this car commercial. I feel this way because I am someone who has been raised in a relatively close-knit family, I enjoy doing many active things outdoors, and I think material things should last a long time and be reliable and loyal. 

Virginia Heffernan Response on Digital Literacy

1.       My college experience thus far has required much more technology based knowledge than I was ever expected at my high school. It would have been very helpful in high school to learn more detailed techniques, like how to format an outline easily, in programs such as Word, or Powerpoint. I feel like I was relatively prepared for what I have been hit with here at OU; I was familiarized with Moodle in high school, I know how to type, emailing teachers was encouraged. The more advanced stuff was left on the wayside, and while it could have been very helpful to me in the long run, I don’t think it has caused me any great trouble.

2.       In the Health Sciences career field I am expecting to have interactions with computers, in order to contact people, and type up reports and other documents for patients. I am also expecting to have to be familiar with technology that is used only in a health related setting. It could be machines or computer programs that test the body for heart rates, measurements or anything else associated with that. I feel that I will be properly trained to some degree here at Oakland University. The new Human Health Building seems like it is equipped with many tools that I will benefit from.

3.       Writing in a relaxed setting like a blog or an email helps me come up with many ideas easily. I find that I have an almost overflow of things I could write about, and how I could present all of them. The problem with that is, the finished results are usually unorganized and don’t focus on a few main topics, instead they cover a range of topics, but don’t go into very much depth. I feel like my writing ends up better when it is in a educational setting where I know there are some guidelines that need to be followed in order to stay organized and get my points across.

4.       According to Heffernan, there are expectations that 65 percent of jobs that the upcoming generations will have are not even invented yet. This idea puts a lot of things in perspective, especially in terms of education for these upcoming generations. If I were a teacher in this time period, including technology in the classroom would be very important to me. If children are exposed to technology from early on in their life it could help in the long run for how they handle technology, even if the technology isn’t invented just yet. It may be true that having technology in a math, or science class would make more sense, but having technology used in English class is also very important. The world is on an upward journey involving technology, so preparing the future generations for the future they will have is almost a duty for educators.

5.       The tone of Heffernan’s piece on digital and pop culture is informative, convincing, scholarly, factual and confident. I agree with Heffernan’s argument that today’s classrooms need an upgrade in order to sufficiently educate the children who are learning in them. If it is true that 65 percent of jobs in the future will employ the kids today, then we need to make sure they grow up learning in an environment that they will be utilizing as adults. By providing children with this technology based education we could readily prepare students for their further education and their life beyond that. 

Literacy Timeline.

I have always been a paper and pencil kind of person.

These are small memories, here and there, that I can remember…

-I constantly colored in coloring books that I had at home; Barbie ones, Cinderella ones, Barney ones.

-I remember lying down on the ground in front of the TV at my dad’s house and bugging him over and over to come lie down and color with me. He eventually came over and colored in the Barbie coloring book with me.

-I would always notice the little sentences of text that are at the bottom of every page in the coloring books.

-I would draw in notebooks, draw with chalk on the driveway.

-I remember mom doing crafts, and she would let me join in; homemade Christmas ornaments, Halloween decorations.

-She would always display what was created!

-Rhyming game with my grandma-every time I was in the car with my grandma going somewhere we would play The Rhyming Game, which included her and I coming up with rhyming pairs- when I made up words that weren’t actually real, or didn’t really rhyme she would tell me they didn’t work, and I would have to come up with a new one.

-Mother read to my sister and I in bed most nights.

-My favorite books were The Pixie Tales that she read just to me.

The books were small fictional chapter books.

They were something that my mom and I shared.

She would help me read the chapters when I felt like trying to read.

There were stickers in the back of the book that made it interesting.

They were adventurous and magical books that surprised me because it was so unlike real life.

-Once my younger sister, Amber, started school she began to develop her reading skills very quickly-this made me want to push myself to be a really good reader as well.

-I remember being in my 4^th grade English class, and the teacher often chose me to read out loud because she said I was a great out loud reader. I liked that because I was told I was good at it. 

Superman and Me

                Sherman Alexi grew up on an Indian reservation where many things that are important to American society were not seen as important to the people of that reservation. Literacy became a very important factor in Alexi’s life from an early age. He saw books that his father read all over the house, and they always had his interest, but he really learned to read through a Superman comic. He began to read text very prematurely, and with that he had a very sophisticated outlook on what he was doing. He says in his literary narrative “I am trying to save our lives” (88). Alexi felt a need to extend what he has learned through becoming literate and educating himself to the younger Indian people who are subjected to stereotypes about Indians not needing to work hard for an education because they aren’t going to get very far anyway. He reads, and writes to save his people and acts as a role model for other Indians who have ever been pushed into those stereotypes.

                Becoming a literate person was very different for me compared to Alexi. I was never interested in reading and writing to become some sort of vision to others who need someone to look up to. I never found myself caught in a stereotype. Alexi felt a need to save those people who get drowned out in those tough years. I was never caught in a situation where I saw a need for someone to take that position. I can relate to Alexi’s literacy narrative in some ways though: he said “My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well” (86). I believe that my literacy was influenced in some ways by my mother. She always made an effort to read a story to my sister and me before we went to bed at night. Having my mom read to me at night, made it a very enjoyable thing. It was a bonding activity for both of us, and I was able to ask my mom questions if I didn’t understand what was happening in the book. Like Alexi, I was very interested in pictures and the way that they tell a story without any writing involved. I remember looking through numerous Dr. Seuss books and widening my eyes at the colors and odd features of every tree, building and creature. I didn’t know any words to put to the pictures, but the images in those books match the rhyming nature of his writing that I figured out later down the road of my literacy. Alexi’s journey to literacy is one that full of self motivation and determination to make a difference for his people. I can relate in some ways to small details of his journey, but mostly I am a bystander who gets to see the barriers that he has broken through, and the differences he has made for so many others in a similar situation as him.