wp3 reflection

Jacqueline Aguilar

Writing 2

Zack De Piero

21 May 2016

Reflection: WP3

Unconsciously we associate certain genres with specific age groups, but why are genres tailored to attract the audience? Genres always have a purpose, and how they are presented depends on the intended audience, as well as conventions that are distinguishable but importantly they add to the overall effect of the piece. When one thinks of a typical dance flyer posted on a bulletin board for example, assumptions on its appearance naturally emerge. Perhaps a colorful background, time, and setting for the dance performance comes to mind. They are all conventions of a genre that creates the core essence of this particular genre. For this assignment I chose to dissect a scholarly research report by attorney Devon M. Alvarez and transform it to accommodate younger audiences in the form of a comic strip as well in the form of an informative brochure for older audiences.

Hazing is a form of humiliation and harassment an individual's endures in order to be accepted in a certain group.This scholarly article by Devon M. Alvarez argues that there should be a uniformed law that prohibits hazing, if there is a common understanding of potential punishment, it would create a safe place for individuals to comfortably step forward about harassment they have undergone or hear about. Some states punish hazing as a misdemeanor and others just have a no hazing policy. Greek life on college campuses haze new members to determine how willing students are to the certain fraternity or sorority they are pledging for. In the past 11 years, at least sixty college students have died from hazing related incidents. Even though hazing occurs on the majority of college campus it is a form of cruelty that continues to remain mostly unreported due to the secretive of greek life. As Universities themselves refuse to take responsibility of these cases, it causes confusion amongst states when determining suitable punishment for this behavior.  

Children are curious, adventurous and naturally gravitate towards colorful images, thus I thought a colorful cartoon comic strip would transform the heavy topic of hazing in a more practical and playful way. Although comic strips can contain broad themes and topics that can appeal to all age groups, I designed my cartoon comic strip in a way that allows younger audiences to resonate with the material. For instance the school/ playground setting I chose is a place that the vast majority of kids can relate to, in grade school children play with each other and form friend groups according to similar interests. I'm assuming that this young audience around the age of seven to twelve are reading this comic strip to be entertained with a story or interesting facts. To accommodate this aspect, I created a scene that is filled of color as well as a plot that doesn't directly state its hazing but becomes obvious there is a situation worth someone's attention. It very popular for children genres to have a moral because since they are growing and learning how the world functions, everything they read or experience has a significant influence in their life. Therefore I thought it was essential to teach the audience who reads my comic strip, that it's not morally correct to force others to do things in order to be accepted to a certain group.

A comic strip depends on its structure, what each frame captures affects how the audience will grasp the plot. McCloud discusses choice of moment, which its ultimate goal is to “connect the dots by showing the moments that matter and putting those that don't. ”(McCloud, 37) In my choice of genre I knew i would walk the audience through every character's thought or action because that would result in an excessive amount of frames; so I only included the core events that would build on one another as well as keep the plot in chronological order. I decided to exclude small moments like people the children getting on the bus to go to the field trip or the mom driving to school. These scenes do not affect the overall plot because the scenes that i did focus on are strong enough to stand alone, I also believe that the conversations characters have with one another summarizes the general idea. This can be seen when one of the girls falls and then the next scene was her in bed because she was hurt. The transition is logical or “scene to scene,” I believe the young audience can make the easy connection from one scene to another. Overall the comic stip emcompasses common conventions that engages and allows children to resonate with the plot.

For the older audience I focused on grandparents who have grandchildren entering college and potentially joining a fraternity, where they would face hazing. In the form of a informative club brochure I included an “About Us” section which is a common conventions because it gives the audience a brief background on what the organization is about. I mostly included all the basic information one might expect reading a brochure on one side and on the other I presented some information such as the greek life environment as well as hazing in a casual manner. In the scholarly article Mr. Alvarez informs the audience on the history of hazing and then adds all the real life cases that are results of hazing. By using pathos he makes the audience envision that this is currently happening and people we know can be harassed and put in danger in order to join a “brotherhood” or “sisterhood”. According to McCloud Choice of word can “clearly and persuasively communicate ideas”(McCloud, 25). Thus I choice to convey the idea of the controversial idea of greek life, through a detailed description of a party atmosphere as well as the respected organization that offers multiple opportunities in a professional atmosphere. Older audiences like grandparents tend to be retired and have plenty of time to read, so the choice of words I included were detailed and very descriptive to openly inform the audience the pros and cons of greek life.  Overall the brochure is revealing in order to give the entire truth to older audiences who have time to read and care about their relatives who might be intrigues by greek life.

Works Cited

Alvarez, Devon M. "Death by Hazing, Should There Be a Federal Law against Frats." Http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d41c97be-acef-44d9-97ae-f777972417c7%40sessionmgr4002&vid=6&hid=4106. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2016.

McCloud, Scott.  Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerrenial, 1994. Chapter One: Writing with Pictures

LINK To Brochure for Older Audiences : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fOJrV5Leib89oYm_2mUrMqL6Rp4PD_3HbaMrsnsoU00/edit?usp=sharing

LINK To Cartoon Comic Strip: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eW59tgXZJKYqMKirzI7F-ItOTFrzVaZvS_dV6b85s9o/edit?usp=sharing

thlog

Thlog

Week 8: wow! the weeks are flying by but this week we wrapped up comments and feedback from WP2 and began discussing WP3, where we are asked to transform a scholarly article to something someone older and younger than us would probably read. Honestly speaking, I feel like I’ve learned so much about genres. When we listed the sub genres in magazines it made me realize that genre is everywhere and since genre has been discussed almost every class, I find myself often walking to class or something and fixating my eyes on a sales ad or a flyer. I think about what makes a flyer a flyer and how is the author following conventions. I think it just a way to view and experience aspects of life in a more detail orientated manner.

As we shifted direction to older and younger genres, I kept thinking that language naturally gets simplified for children. For instance when someone speaks about the presidential campaign to their kid, one would tend to say the basics like the “next president of the US” nothing in depth. One usually wouldn’t discuss candidate’s platforms and the three branches of government to a 6yr old. This translation is very important when speaking of genre because the context is lost and how one approaches the audience changes drastically.

On Wednesday we mostly talked about McCloud’s piece which discussed how the author can write in a certain way that can affect how the reader interrupts the information presented. I learned how moments chosen have a significant role when directing the reader, and becomes the author’s choice to either make it clear or create distraction within their piece.

We also talked about summary and I was surprised that it was a little difficult for me to distinguish “why do we summarize? And what the point” of summarizing. But as we talked about it in class it made it clear that a summary is important to give the gist in a time saving form.

PB3a

PB3a Jacqueline Aguilar

Death By Hazing: should there be a federal law against fraternity and sorority hazing?

Background Information: This scholarly article by Devon M. Alvarez argues that there should be a uniformed law that prohibits hazing which will create a safe place for individuals to comfortably step forward about harassment they have undergone or hear about. Hazing is a form of humiliation and harassment an individual endures in order to be accepted to a certain group.  Greek life on college campuses haze new members to see how willing the student is to the certain fraternity or sorority they are pledging to. In the past 11 years at least sixty college students have died from hazing related incidents. Hazing has been prevalent since the 1800's for Greek life, and even though it has been outlawed in forty four states there still lacks a common definition for what classifies as hazing. Some states punish hazing as a misdemeanor and others just have a no hazing policy. Even though hazing occurs on the majority of college campus it is a form of cruelty that continues to remain mostly unreported, due to the secretive of Greek organizations. Universities refuse to take responsibility of these cases, claiming they have no involvement. Which creates the reoccurring issue of who is accounted for when students report hazing related incidents.

Younger Reader: comic strip

I'm thinking on doing a digital comic strip about six to eight slides. The plot will be about a group of kids about 6th grade who are the “cool” kids on the playground. They have rare vinyl records of Black Sabbath signed by Ozzy himself, they wear the lately clothes from hot topic, and best of all their parents pack them pizza for lunch. As younger grade level pupils feel beneath these “cool” kids a unique group of kids in the fourth grade take the risk of asking to hang out with the top-dogs during recess. The 6th graders usually welcome new members but under some conditions. The younger 4th graders are hazed until one of girl was asked to run over the snack store to buy them some Hot Cheetos but trips and breaks her finger while doing so. Her mother complains to the school and immediately after the school enforces new policies.

·         This cartoon comic strip should appeal to children while teaching them a moral lesson. I will try to enforce the urgency of policy making which is Alvarez's main argument, as mentioned before.

Older Reader: Medicine Bottle label

Since senior citizens always take some kind of vitamins or medication on a daily basis I decided to inform them of the danger of hazing by slapping the facts on something they look at regularly. The label will focus on an individual who was a victim of hazing within the Greek organization. It will include an actual victim

Name - Armando Villa

Location/address -   California State at Northridge

Medication: hazing

Instructions: walking 18 miles in the Angeles National Forest blindfolded, insufficient water supply

Rx# -  32050. California State laws on hazing

Refills: 0    prevent this form of cruelty

Dr.-  Attorney-at-Law  Devon M. Alvarez  

·         This is an alternative way of delivering information, as a regular person one is forced to read the label to make sure the medication is correct and see how much one need to take. The amount of attention is what Alvarez tries to grab from lawmakers in order to prevent hazing on college campuses. 

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d41c97be-acef-44d9-97ae-f777972417c7%40sessionmgr4002&vid=6&hid=4106

thlog week 7

Journal week 7

It week was very rough, having a final draft due for this class and two midterms, I was incredibly overwhelmed. But the good thing is that it’s over and onto week 8 we begin. But to reflect Monday’s class consisted of the analyzing the bones of a good paper. This means the structure and the slow of the paper. A main ingredient to making a delicious paper smoothie is a good thesis because it’s the like the first refreshing sip on a hot summer day, a thesis must give the reader of what to expect. Coming into peer editing I knew that I didn’t not write following my thesis which Is totally fine because like you said “as people think more about something, their thinking changes” well something like that haha J. I feel that peer editing is usually very helpful because after reading your paper countless time and realize how much time you have put in, one might become biased. After Monday’s class I realized that I needed more evidence and most importantly reread the prompt because it does guide the paper a certain way, I felt that each question built on the other. Im usually I don’t like people reading my papers but idk this time I was feeling confident on my paper so I shared it with my brother and he gave be great feedback.

                Wednesday’s class was very different, your entire teaching style is a complete 180 from my writing 1 class. Mostly because everything is turned in and done online usually on google docs and my past professor liked hard copies and overall very old school/high school teaching style. But I like both because I feel like all the activities we do like watching Bob Ross’s painting video have a purpose rather than just busy work. I honestly didn’t think the online class would take the entire 2 hours but I was surprised it did. It’s was a good idea oppose to missing class entirely but I don’t think I would take an only course if offered because people naturally need to be pressured to do things and with online classes there distance between the individual and the material. 

7.2

7.2 class

Journal 7.2

I thought that my WP2 went pretty well, i believe that i had plenty of previous knowledge for the prompt which made writing the essay much easier. I liked the idea of us choosing our own topics which ignites an interest so we get more involved with what we read and write. I was very happy with my sources, because my topic was prostitution it was very interesting to see all the disciplines that had something to say about it. I really liked how i found an article from a woman in the actual sex industry, it was more real life based than studies and observations. Overall i felt that my paper is flowing because i made sure i connected sentences and used transition words that kept the reader on track with my claims.

When we peer edited i though sort knew going into it that my i ended up writing something completely different from my thesis and didn't bother to go back and correct it. So beatrice commented to make my thesis more specific and give the reader a clear idea of what is to come. Beatrice also advised me to readings into my paper because it gives it for purpose and makes it seem like i know what i'm talking about.

Younger Genres

Presidential biography - 6th grade

Alphabetical letter book with mnemonics -1st grade

Manners and etiquette story/picture book  -4th grade

Superman comic book 6th grade

Disney pop up book

Video Response:

Emphasizes the brush stroke and the hand technique that the painter needs in order to paint the natural landscape properly and accurately. Advises the amount of pressure one needs to apply to give sharp edges.

-many adjectives to describe movements of the hand and brush (wiggle, overkill, back and forth,

-  lol Bob Ross assumes that everyone know there is 500 branches on an evergreen tree *i didn't*

- Both disney and Bob Ross take in consideration movement and how real life events influence how images move  and ultimately interact with its landscape.

- both disney and bob ross consider timing, from instance when disney draws the setting for sleeping beauty they were aware of the old kingdom era and drew appropriately. Whereas Bob Ross thinks about timing in the aspect of daylight, for example the way sun shadows the evergreen tree.

My attention is constantly directed to the colors and the artist's ability to project such pretty pictures.

Disney often uses similes to describe natural features, but is very heavily influenced by archaeological terms.

• They see all the richness that nature has to offer and choose to view it with respect that one would give a human being.

1. Family Guy personifies the bush giving it humor to a younger audience. And it also overexaggerates the connection and relationship that bob ross creates with viewer at home
2. Bob Ross has such a relaxed confident energy that translates to his style, he goes slow so people have a chance to digest the information as well talks about painting as a deity.  
3. Disney artists are all very intelligent and are clearly aware of keen on painting according to accuracy or the fairytale or time period.

thlog 6

Thlog 6

As we begin to look for articles for our WP2, we discussed if IMRAD would be classified as a move, and i agree with Zack that it is a move because moves don't only have to be word choices but the entire genre can be a move. As we transition into weekly tips it was made clear that verbs between the author and what is being cited, can easily make essays sound better thought out. In highschool i was in yearbook and i was responsible to write articles on sport teams. My yearbook tecaher forbid writing “alex says the game was fun” for example.So using verbs like reflects, asserts, clarifies is very familar to me in order to spice things up. Another tip that focused on the choice of words is using hedge language which allows room for error, so it does not appear to over generalized information and potentially offend people.   

In class on wednesday we discussed the difference between APA and MLA and the biggest difference is that APA values accurate dates because people that use APA are in social sciences and highly rely on current research and readings because things as always changing. I personally never been asked to write in APA format so this information is very helpful to know for the future. We then transitioned to parallelism, what i got out of this weekly tip is that arranging nouns and verbs in a consistent form and correct tense, ultimately creates an easy to read pattern that flows. We then saw that parallelism can be applied to more than academic papers but very significant pieces of writing that can determine a potential job like a resume. I haven't made a resume just yet but i know i will have too real quick and i learned that all choices that I make a writer has consequences.

As i start writing my first draft of WP2 i start feeling very nervous about addressing all parts of the prompt, i know myself and i just want to stay on topic and not ramble about something that is completely irrelevant.

thlog 5

Thlog #5

As we write about Zacks comments, I appreciated the questions being asked because instead of getting commented (good point or a little confusing) because it begins a new thinking process that never occurred to me as the writer. I realized that since i have a tight and limited space i can afford to fluff but instead to analyze more and effectively describe why do all the words i'm writing done even matter. We then analyzed the concept happiness, everyone has their own conceptual definitions of happiness thus it's very important to distinguish them from operational definitions.

In class on Wednesday we began with defining what moves means and how we represent it in real life. I noticed that the more specific we got to the words function in the phrase or sentence can change the reader's perspective but author's tone. For example “this song moves me” can mean stirring someone's emotions. This connects with writing because authors have moves within their writing pieces and once people can identify a writer's moves helps the reader better understand purpose and how well it's executed. What i observed in the wwe activity was that everyone is not the same, and as the observer it's important to recognize anming unique “moves” that people do or say in order to evaluate the sequence of patterns. This ultimately creates the reader a better critique. Anything can be a move as long as some can articulate the WHY?

I never emphasized the WHY when i was assigned readings, just read for the information that i was expected to understand. But in reality if i would have analyzed why a writer writes a certain way, it could have helped make the readings easier to follow and grasp. I really applies everywhere because for example my friend always starts singing when she's about to jump into the shower. It can be named the “beyonce shower tribute” and be her move. By her singing, it lets everyone in the apt that she'll be in the shower for ten minutes, simply notifying us the “audience” this is the same with writer, they make moves for a reason and it's the readers duty to acknowledge them.