Steve Buentello

I am a Computer Information Technology major at UTRGV. In terms of writing iam awful at it. i am in Summer II ENGL 1302. From the course i hope to drastically improve my writing skills to at least passable.

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We can refer to a blog, the radio, a website or a newspaper article as an educational sponsor if it provides information withholding literacy. All these sources refer back to social media. How we as an individual take in the literacy from social media is how we will interact with one another and how we perform in our writing. You are the determining factor on whether social media will help you improve or deteriorate.

-- Alexandria Badillo

While it is true that social media my play a part in how we use literacy, this quote perfectly expresses the fact that ultimately it is the individual who determines weather or not social media will have a positive or negative effect on them.

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I pictured myself as being distracted and ignorant toward my writing due to my engagement in tech talk. As I read on about a collective action, I thought of all my English instructors as my collective action agents. They work towards one goal, which is to improve my writing as a student. Until we become aware of the dangers social media has on our literacy, we will continue writing in an informal spoken language. 

-- Alexandria Badillo

This is a perfect example that highlights the dangers of not knowing writing literacy, eventually literacy gets influenced by the medium used most during that particular period of time. People nowadays when they write tend to take a laid  back approach when they should be taking a formal approach.

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As I was writing away, I noticed that I was using acronyms in my writing such as "LOL" and "IDK". This use of cyber slang is linked back to my heavy usage of social media. This term is used to describe acronyms or shortcuts that make texting faster and easier for us. At that moment, I came to the realization that my literacy writing was being affected.

-- Alexandria Badillo

This is a common occurrence with many young people in this modern age of tech we live in. Many students in schools find themselves accidentally using letters in place of real words like “U” instead of “you” or “R” instead of “are”.

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Social Media and Literacy

A large amount of time is spent online by most people, and because of this people have developed their own language to communicate with each other online. This can have adverse affects on our own literacy when speaking with people in our everyday lives. 

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Asking rhetorical questions provokes a process of inquiry-based thinking that is useful for learning how to participate in academic conversations in a way that investigates the decisions writers make when they compose and arrange compositions. As you read, get in the habit of asking rhetorical questions about the composition of texts. 

-- Steven Lessner, Collin Craig

This to me is probably the most important part of rhetorical reading, when i read something that does not make sense to me, naturally i have questions about it. It never occurred to me look at those questions this way. When asking rhetorical questions about the reading you might find yourself answering the question yourself and forming an idea that snow balls in to a river of thought just pouring from your mind to the paper. Asking questions can help if you are stuck in trying to pick a topic to write on from assigned readings.

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As a college reader, finding an author’s intent is a commonly learned critical thinking strategy that works for analyzing texts. But engaged reading can also be about discovering how the writing strategies of authors are working to build an essay and convey a message. A good start towards transitioning into college-level writing is discovering what you can stand to gain as a writer from the reading process.

-- Steven Lessner, Collin Craig

Learning to use rhetorical reading would have helped me and i’m sure many other college students get through the trouble or writing good essays based off of assigned reading assignments. If i would have known about this skill i would have been at least attempting to read rhetorically, when reading i tend to get lost and felt overwhelmed, especially if the content does not interest me Then when it comes time to write i have a difficult time because i did not understand what it was i read. Had i known about this skill perhaps i would have had an easier time i my college writing courses.

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“Reading rhetorically develops critical thinking skills that not only interrogate ideas but also situates them within a rhetorical situation (context) and works towards determining how the message, intended audience, and method of delivery work together for the purpose of persuasion and effective communication.”

-- Steven Lessner, Collin Craig

When reading books it can be easy to lose track or get lost in the way the author presents information, when you use rhetorical reading it can become more clear as to what the author is trying to convey to the audience.

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Rhetorical reading

In the reading of “Finding Your Way In: invention as inquiry Based Learning in Firs Year Writing” they talk about rhetorical reading, and how it is an approach for understanding the tools that writers use to persuade or effectively communicate ideas. When you use rhetorical reading naturally you start to develop critical thinking skills and in turn improve your ability as a writer.

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“On a less dramatic level, there is enough pretense, deception and face-work around to suggest that the acting out of roles is not that uncommon; and to take a relatively innocuous context, a prospective son-in-law may pretend to be an active and participating member of a bridge-playing community in order to make a favorable impression on his prospective parents-in-law.

-- John Swales

This quote shows more of what John Swales refers to what he call spies. Spies are people who fain interest in the subject of the community. The son-in-law would be the spy because he his pretending to like bridge in order to have his prospective parents-in-law possibly look at him with favor. This perfectly shows how getting to know a discourse community can be favorable, and now the son-in-law is expanding his knowledge of the game bridge, and scoring points with his future parents-in-law.

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“The secondary purpose of the information exchange will vary according to the common goals: to improve performance in a football squad or in an orchestra, to make money in a brokerage house, to grow better roses in a gardening club, or to dent the research in an academic department.”

-- John Swales

This quote in particular speaks to me, as i played football in high school. From experience i can tell you that this very true, the only way to improve or gain more knowledge of football is to communicate with people who also have an interest in the game, people such as your team mates. Getting to know your team mates or Discourse community would help improve not only your knowledge and skill of the game but your team mates as well.

Originally posted by infinityandcyanide

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“My own early attempts to be a full member of the community were not marked by success. Early on I published an article in the journal which used a fairly complex frequency analysis of occurrence derived from Applied Linguistics in order to offer an alternative explanation of a puzzle well known to members of the HKSC. The only comments that this effort to establish credibility elicited were “too clever by half and  “Mr Swales, we won’t change our minds without a chemical analysis”.

-- John Swales

Swales took a risk and decided to go against the norm of the community, and he was ostracized for it. Since Swales was seeking full membership to the Honk Kong Study Circle (HKSC), a community which fosters interest and knowledge of  the stamps of Hong Kong, he should have tried to have more in common with his opinion. This would have made them more open to his request to be a full member.

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The Concept of Discourse Community

Jon Swales the Concept of Discourse Community is very difficult to explain. The idea of discourse communities is open to a wide variety of interpretation, there really is no definitive way to define a Discourse Community. Swales says for a Discourse Community to exist they must meet the six characteristics he outlines in his book. They have common public goals, a way to communicate with each other, use the community for information and feedback, possess one or more genre, use specific terminology to communicate, different levels of membership. While reading, i found that it is important to know if you are part of a discourse community. Knowing allows you to advance in the community, as well as build stronger bonds with those who share the same interest and goals.

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“My mother as an informal institutional sponsor truly molded my learning of theatre literacy and specifically the portrayal of a character. Mom was a dancer growing up in Manhattan, so she was no stranger to Broadway or the performing arts.”

--Adrien Pitchman

The authors personal history with his mother is what set the tone for his eventual leap into the acting world. With out the influence of his mothers own interest there is a strong possibility that the author would have found some other indirect institution, and pursued an entirely different form of literacy. I myself have been influenced by many different forms of sponsored literacy in my past. Experiencing college level writing courses has peaked my interest somewhat in advancing my own literacy, even though i am seeking a career in writing. My professors have shown me that although my career may not focus solely on literacy, it is a skill that will give a leg up on other candidates seeking the same employment.

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“Along the same historical sponsorship lines, but even more impactful on my personation literacy practice, are the works of William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan era. I truly began to experiment with and learn new and unique character choices when i began to act in Shakespeare’s plays.”

--Adrien Pitchma

The author writes about how Shakespeare shaped his own literacy. Shakespeare influences many forms of acting literacy today, however just as in the authors case a new and personal form of literacy may develop. This shows how history not only acts as an institution but also as a foundation for literacy.

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“In the realm of education any particular literacy, history does not act solely as a sponsor, but rather as a foundation for instruction by institutional sponsors on contemporary literacy practices.”

--Adrien Pitchman

This single quote sets the tone for the entire article. The author explains that history plays a role in the way sponsors deliver literacy content to the sponsored. Not only is history a way learn literacy, it has an effect on the literacy that we are taught today.

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Digital divide in learning

Having disadvantages when it comes to learning is not just a local problem. With technology advancing at such a fast pace, there are those less developed country whose children are denied the opportunity to learn because of the lack of available technological resources. 

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Equal learning Opportunities

No one regardless of race gender or economic status should ever be deprived of the opportunities, tools, or sponsors that will help improve ones literacy skills. History has shown us that things like race, gender, or economic status have played a role in deciding what kind of future one can expect to have. It is up those sponsors that feel they have duty to improve the literacy of everyone that wants to, to find the less fortunate individuals, and guide them down the path that improves their skills. Sponsors should also relay information about social programs designed to help those without the same advantages others have. Everyone deserves the chance to improve their literacy and gain a skill that will only benefit them as time goes on.