1/28/2020 1 Comment A Letter to my Author-SelfFor this post, i read A Fable for the Living. This piece hit extremely close to home with the current struggle of the loss of my mother, but allowed my to connect to it on a level that inspired me for this blog post. The story goes as a middle-aged bride to be loses her fiancé and for 2 years ceases to give up hope. This idea of determination connects to my letter for my own drive to do well and never give up in my writing process.
Dear John, The connection I have to you and our similarities are like tending a garden, I put time and effort into you, I see you grow but heavy rain and dark days kill my progress, that wont bring me down, I am determind. My loss is hard and you know it too, but there is always a rainbow after a rainfall. I will only tend to you more than I was and long to see the fruits of my labor. Your exposure to the light and the good it gives you feeds us both to become stronger, never let your pedals wilt in the darkness you stand in, for the sun will rise again tomorrow, this harsh weather you endure is not permanent, let it be a reminder that every flower on this earth has stood through similar conditions at some point in their lives. Let your colors grow vibrant, full and aweing as the rainbow you live under, your roots grow deep so these hellish winds will never push you aside. Live until the sun ceases to rise, live until the bees spread every last bit of pollen you worked so hard to produce, so that your posterity can thrive, saturating fields with color. I cant wait to see your progress John, I will plant your seeds, give you food and water you every day, but only you can grow, your are the only thing in the way of your own pure beauty, don't let anything on this earth stop you from that. Sincerely, John Bullock
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1/23/2020 0 Comments Creating my Multimodal Website Why are we creating a website for our English Composition I course?
Why are we creating a website for our English Composition I course? I'd like to begin answering this question with a shoutout to go check out Sabatinomangini.com, this is our professors website, it is very organized and even has everything we need for the class on it, no textbook! Within the “English Composition I” tab, you see it's password protected, it's no secret that the password is “Makemeaning”, that password is the very reason we use a website to project everything we do in class, to make meaning to our work. By putting all our work on a website it gives us the option to express ourselves in every aspect, or on the topic of multimodal composition, all 5 modes that are attributed. This allows me to express my work the way I truly feel it. This, in my opinion, is much better than the traditional way of writing every assignment on paper just to hand it to my professor and that be the end of it. Now my work is seen by not just one but many people, its makes me feel more proud of my work and pushes me to work hard on it. Do the Borton-and-Huot criteria seem similar or different from the criteria we would use to assess a traditional print essay? Why or why not? Yes, Borton-and-Huot’s criteria almost mirror what a modern college students outline for a traditional Essay would look like. As stated from Assessing Multimodal Student Work:
What are the seven sample criteria Borton and Huot suggest writers use to assess a multimodal composition? The seven points of criteria (as stated in the previous question) are: Conveys specific purpose, identifies specific audience, employs effective tone, organized around controlling idea, uses transitions, synthesizes relevant information, and uses detailed description. Purpose: This is the meaning of what you are trying to write about, think of purpose as your target, and you have to hit the bullseye, hitting that bullseye means you have 100% effectively made proper meaning to your writing, in other words, you got your point across without confusion. Audience: This is pretty self explanatory, your audience is your fans, make them happy and entertain them with interesting material. Knowing what they want to hear is key to getting their attention. Let your audience be part of the template of your writing, but don't let them control you completely. Tone: Tone is a very interesting topic, the term “I love you” is normally said by people in one specific tone, that tone is considered compationite, yet that same term and be said in the opposite tone and still have the same meaning to it but some may take it differently. This example being if you were to scream “I love you” it means the same but your tone has changed the way the person perceives that statement. Using your tone properly is another big part of writing, if a topic you are writing about makes you mad, let your audience know that by giving an aggressive tone. This helps the reader further understand your writing. Organized: Organization is crucial to any aspect, whether it be writing or everyday life, so don't let your writing run all over the place! Before starting your work, always have a plan, this once again helps the reader follow your writing but also doesn't deter them from reading it as well.One common way is to make each topic a separate paragraph, or when making lists of items use bullet points. These little things make your writing much more appealing to look at, ``and goes a long way when it comes time for that work to be assessed or graded Transitions: This point of criteria I personally think belongs in the point of organization, transitions if effectively used are to really help the reader know when you are moving on from one topic to another, without them one may get confused. Why i believe this is by adding transitions you really are just further organizing your work, but do you them nonetheless they still help a lot. Typically one would use these in the beginning and end of paragraphs, stating new ideas, or bringing the reader back into a topic talked about earlier on in their writing. Don't confuse your audience, use transitions! Synthesize: To synthesize is to analyze, it means to take your evidence regarding your argument or topic and state information from it to prove your side. To do this effectively one must analyze their evidence and provide: quotes, pictures, statistics ext. This helps to provide a solid base to your argument along with connecting said information back to your writing. Analyzation is a main topic assessed in modern schooling and to some it can be quite challenging, do not let this intimidate you, prove you point and back your statement up with what you can. Detailed: This is another self explanatory topic, but just as important, being descriptive is tell someone what you want, you want a burger without tomato, then you say you want a burger with no tomato, if you don't one will not know what you want and you probably will have to go dissecting your burger and pick the unwanted tomato out of it. This goes the same way for writing, if you don't specifically state what you want to say, just don't rely on expecting the reader to understand what you meant implicitly. Give your reader a mental picture of what you are saying, this may be through the use of pictures or other ways, but clearly get your point across with as much description as possible. As a website author who will create your own web page content in this course, how would you rank the importance of the four C.R.A.P. principles of design on a scale of 1-5? Please provide a brief rationale to support each design principle ranking. First off, you, being the one taking time from you day to read this on my own website, I thank you. I take great pride in my work and want the best for my readers. This being said, I take criteria I personally think will benefit me. The C.R.A.P principles of design are in my opinion very helpful, some more than others but in all a great resource for myself designing this very website I highly suggest you check it out! It’s all C.R.A.P.: Four Principles of Design. The acronym C.R.A.P stands for: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity, these four terms helps an author create their website or page the way they want it, while also being appealing to the public. With a ranking of 1-5 with 5 being the highest rank, I give the first principal, contrast a ranking of 4, because it plays such an important role in design, as a writer, I want my big ideas to stand out, so my audience can see the bigger picture. The advice given from the Contrast principle is to make headers a different color than the rest, or bold the big idea and change the color of your text to possibly color code your larger pieces of writing. For this reason and as I find it helpful, I give it a 4. The second principal is repetition, i found this principal to be so helpful I changed a large part of my website’s layout because of it, there tips on repetition stated to make associated things of the same topic not only the same color but in the same area of each other, you don't want to go searching around a website looking through different sub-categories just to explain one topic, also not to overuse the same phrases or transitions throughout you work. For these helpful tips I give this principal a 5 for its effectiveness to improve my work. The third principal is Alignment, and personally I did not find this helpful as i see this principal to be more common sense than helpful. As stated it says to make columns and keep things aligned such as if you choose to make your writing left aligned then make everything left aligned that pertains to that specific topic, if not everything. To me this was not helpful, I had known to do similar things from the start yet still in a way a good reassurance that my decision was the right one to make when aligning my work. Due to it being less helpful than the rest I rank this principal as a 2. Lastly comes Proximity, this was also very helpful with making my work easier to understand. The article had stated to make all pieces of writing relevant to each other close together so the reader knows they are all part of the same topic, for example, i have a tab on my website labeled “blog” within that tab i have all my blog posts, thus my blogs are in proximity of each other respective to its tab. This principal helped me group my work into manageable chunks that i could then organize into its proper tab, because of this I rank this principal as a 4. In all this article improved my work tenfold and helped me better achieve the look i have in my head. What does the C.R.A.P. acronym stands for? The acronym C.R.A.P stands for when your work is less than adequate and you want to make the work better, one would follow the 4 four principles previously stated from the last question and ask themselves can they do better in any of them. Personally if found almost all of them to be helpful, i'm sure if you or someone you know is struggling they could benefit from these as well. Always remember to use resources to help you through difficult tasks, like making your own website for example. Take one step at a time and you will do great! As a website author who will create your own web page content in this course, how would you rank the importance of the five modes on a scale of 1-5? Please provide a brief rationale to support each mode ranking. In my English Composition I class, we use 5 modes: Linguistic, Aural, Visual, Gestural and spatial. These modes are used in our class to grade our work in every aspect. As a website author these modes are important to me as I use them as my rubric for my website. My rankings for them are as follows:
Personally I do not, They state that Multimodal writing is any piece of writing that uses more than one mode of the 5 modes previously talked about. But does not have to use all 5 modes in order to be considered a multimodal piece. For example if i wrote a piece using the Linguistic, Spacial, and Aural mode, to me that would be a standard essay. It wouldn't have pictures, or a way of captivating the audience other than its word choice and spacing. Or a letter to my Mom, it's only words on a piece of paper how is that considered Multimodal? In my own opinion, I highly disagree. How do Ball and Charlton define "multimodal" writing? They Describe it as anything more than just words on paper, anything that used more than one mode to write it, their idea is multi-modal does stand for multi mode, but just because you use more than one mode is it really captivating as well as something that used all 5 modes? I disagree. 1/23/2020 1 Comment The Proust Questionnaire Hello! Welcome to my first blog post, today's blog post is about the Proust Questionnaire, Created by Marcel Proust, is a 35 question parlor game meant to show the true nature of one’s self. This fun activity makes you question how you seen your everyday life a little different, check it out! The Proust Questionnaire
1) What is your idea of perfect happiness? My idea of happiness is having perfect self confidence, and the wellbeing of the ones I care about around me, without the people that have showed me how to be happy I don't know what I would do. My other idea of perfect happiness is to have someone to talk to, someone to care for, my whole life never revolved around anyone but myself and the others who cared for me, to have no one to lean on makes it difficult at times to really get by, someone that would benefit just the same as I would from being around them. 2) What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is letting go from responsibilities and having them pile up on me, stressful situations, and death, all of the above makes my skin crawl. Its the fear of one day slipping and having to keep up with unmanageable work to the point I give up. Or one day waking up to find out that I am no longer with the ones I care so deeply for. 3) What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? My inability to remain organized when I need to be and the procrastination of things i need to get done. I am not the type to willingly become motivated if Its not something that interests me. I wish I could become more focused on tasks at hand no matter what they are. 4) What is the trait you most deplore in others? Dishonesty, and disrespect, they play a huge role in everyone's lives and becoming a liar does not get you far in life. Later in this blog it asks you (question 9) what occasion would I lie and my answer there only fits to very specific events, even then I am not happy that I say something untruthful to someone for them to believe one thing when something completely different is truly happening. 5) Which living person do you most admire? I most admire my Mom, Dad and Brother, they have been by my side my entire life. My connection to them has grown so much since I was ypunger and the bond I have shared with them has become so strong that I cant see anyone of them not in my life, they will forever and always be. 6) What is your greatest extravagance? My greatest extravagance is my passion for 3D printing and my passion for fixing and making electronics. Its not very common but its my passion to say the least, since I was a little kid playing with legos I always knew my calling was in the field of robotics and technology. 3D printing then became my focus when I was around 14 ever since if been inspired by its possibilities. 7) What is your current state of mind? Stressed, and worried for my family, severe family issues have been brought up and we are all not taking it well, Family is such an important part of living happy. When times of grief come through, the remaining members of the family are brought closer together to help each other in hard times. 9) On what occasion do you lie? When it's best for the person to not know the truth, not that I condone lying, but situations where one person could benefit from not knowing. Such as, if someone is told that a person they care about is doing okay, when they really are not, to make that one person feel less stressed about the situation. 10) What do you most dislike about your appearance? My Acne and my smile, i do not like it because its looks as if i am trying to force a smile out, it never looks natural. My smile has always somewhat made me self conscious, I don't know why, but I just wish a had a better smile. 11) Which living person do you most despise? I have no true enemy, i try to be friends with anyone rather than look at them as a threat. Along with this the golden rule is a big part of how I make relations to a person, I will always treat someone with respect, unless they give me a reason not to. 12) What is the quality you most like in a man? Respectful and humble. Somone who presents themselves as a trusting person and will respect decisions you choose to make and help you through them, never bragging nor intimidating. 13) What is the quality you most like in a woman? Nature lover, someone who enjoys talking about life and everyday struggles. 14) Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “I don't know” (IDK), It's become so common in society to use the term and its somewhat annoying to an extent. 15) What or who is the greatest love of your life? I haven't found them yet. 16)When and where were you happiest? Summer 2017 on a Norwegian cruise to Jamaica and the British virgin islands. 17)Which talent would you most like to have? The ability to sing. 18) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My ability to focus more. 19) What do you consider your greatest achievement? Designing and building my own 3d printer. 20) If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I would become a Dragonfly, my mom always loved them, seeing how she is now and the probability of recovering, it will be my symbol of her. She is a big part of my life and I will never forget her, she is somone I will always keep close to me. 21) Where would you most like to live? California because of the weather and I could always be around the beach. 22) What is your most treasured possession? My life is the best gift ever given to me. 23) What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? My mother being in the hospital for brain injuries. 24) What is your favorite occupation? CNC Technician, or working for a cad design firm. 25) What is your most marked characteristic? Easy going. 26) What do you most value in your friends? The way that they care about me/ have my back. 27) Who are your favorite writers? Steven King. 28) Who is your hero of fiction? Captain Underpants. 29) Which historical figure do you most identify with? Nikola Tesla. 30) Who are your heroes in real life? My Mother and Father. 31 )What are your favorite names? I don't have any favorites. 32) What is it that you most dislike? Racism. 33) What is your greatest regret? Mistakes I made in highschool. 34) How would you like to die? Peacefully, next to all of my life's achievements. 35) What is your motto? Rainbows after rain. |
John BullockI use this blog to explore the idea of meaning making writing. ArchivesCategories |