Rhetorical Analysis Inquiry Project

Click on link: Final Paper

Final Reflection

Dear Lil,

          Even in those two words alone, a clear distinction can be made between where I started at the beginning of my studies in writing, rhetoric, and identity and where I now stand. My initial understanding of identity largely drew upon my own religious affiliation and my undergraduate thesis where I explored the identity of Lewis Carroll's Alice as she made her way into Wonderland and through The Looking Glass. I point to my thesis so often because it is the "landmarking" artifact that drove me to graduate study, to taking myself as a researcher seriously, to an unrelenting interest in children's literature, and finally to a close analysis of identity as it pertained to child v. adult consciousness. Identity to me at that time was what I would call a "two-way street". Identity was a composite of my nature (or soul) and the social experiences impressing upon me. Even upon pressing further into the coursework and conversations of our class, I maintained this ideology for my own self-security. That is, until my security blanket was pulled from my hands. And like a child, I was left wide-eyed and wobbly.

       
          Upon reflection, I credit Julian Baggini's TED talk for the shift in my understanding of identity and the shattering of my former premise. I see now that I had to be taken aback in order to re-evaluate my idea of identity before I could move forward to begin recognizing the significance of discourse as "building-block" of identity construction. Recognizing identity as a social construction (with no illusions of a natural self) was not without its challenges. But in relenting my own authority over my own ideology of identity, I came to recognize that the "natural self" was an impression used to cover the errors of social injustice.

          If people believed that their identity and social situation was in their control, there would be no reason to seek out the social pressures which violated their own power. It felt like nothing short of a paradox. As soon as I was ready to let go of my tight grip on the core and individualized self (similar to its sister, the American myth of individuality) I could begin to see the possibilities and potential for (albeit minimal) agency.

          Upon drafting the piece, Who Am I Bringing To Class?, online dialogues began to form between myself, my peers, and my writing group. I point to the artifact below which documents my conversation on the fluidity and improvisation of identity. It wasn't until crafting and reading these pieces, Who Am I Bringing To Class, that I became aware of how much of my identity and others I associated with the past, including experiences, activities, and emotions that build layer upon layer to construct the individuals of any present time. Never once did I consider to draw attention to the possibility that identity could be influenced by future predictions or motivations. Agency then became more feasible, rather than a distance impossibility.

          The next task on the agenda, and "landmark" for my learning over the course of the term, was the Critical Narrative Project in which my examination of identity began to take a focus and streamline into my plans for a Rhetorical Analysis. 

          In this project, I chose to examine the identity of the fan (or fandom) using a narrative assemblage of perspectives from fans, non fans, society, and scholars. In doing so, Holland's figured worlds became clearer as the project came to illustrate the multiple performances that identity can convey depending upon the figured world in which it acts and improvises. Because identities are developed in social practice, they are fluid, improvised, and constantly in flux from the varied figured worlds in which people act and live. For the fan, I realized that a specific performance was being made possible through the practices of curation. A composition practice which strattles the art of creating and consuming.

After "practicing" with Gee's Building Tasks my first "aha" moment in applying these methods of discourse analysis came to me late at night with my back towards my couch and my artifacts thrown abt me on my apartment floor.

          This was the first time that I began to articulate (albeit in a disjointed format, but my thoughts were coming too quickly for my hand to keep up) how my artifacts were using language to convey an identity, draw significance to an activity, perform a relationship, or discard relevance to gender, class, or race.This artifact was one of several which had the good fortune of making it into my paper. 



          One of the many challenges of this course was reigning in my "inner geek". The amount of material that kept flooding to mind, ripe with the potential for analysis, was overwhelming and oddly reassuring at the same time.






          Above all else, this course has enlightened me to the potential and struggle that may lay ahead of me if I choose to pursue the possibilities that discourse analysis provides for fandom (participatory) culture.In conflict with the conventional assuredness that students are "supposed" to leave a course feeling, I in fact feel the opposite. I'm unsettled. I can't leave my rhetorical analysis alone. And I probably won't. I am leaving this course (but not my studies in writing, rhetoric, and identity) with more questions than answers. But I think that's the point. The signifying marker that something is going on beneath the surface. Something that will take hold.

Initial Draft of Rhetorical Analysis Project

Click on link: Draft of Final Paper

Reading & Reflecting: Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment)

Reflecting

          Kristin Arola and Anne Wysocki argue for the need that students (compositionists) explore and engage with a variety of new media texts. The basis for this argument is the understanding that writing in new media is a composing of the body (or embodiment). After engaging with this collection of essays which interweave to support and explore how different texts (including new media) interact with the human experience- the body, identity (the self) and the writing processing/composing process, I have begun asking the question- what is writing?

          Or, what is not writing? How do we classify or define it? These essays have given me pause to re-evaluate the term writing. What am I doing as a "writer"?

          I am fond of the term compositionists because it implies that what we're doing with new media is not just writing (in the traditional sense- expository, creative, etc) but composing, creating, constructing, and contributing. In considering this shift in student identification (from writer to composer), I think back on my own research for my ethnography on fandom culture within Tumblr when CEO of Tumblr,  David Karp, was quoted saying,"Today there are millions of people making stuff and putting it into the world: that's become a part of our identity, and it shouldn't be limited to people who fancy themselves writers, or who are particularly witty or talented: curation is a new, more accessibly way to express yourself." [note: curating -according to Karp- is somewhere between creating and consuming: you pull together stuff you like... Tumblr is about using the found to say something different]

          What I'm trying to consider now is whether writing is composing (curating), or is the use of new media separate from the process of "writing"? Are writing and composing/engaging new media texts one and the same? Is this "embodiment" a new and fascinating process or is it something we've been doing all along- have we been utilizing our writing to create/assume our roles/identities this entire time, only to find new way of doing it through new media texts?

          I'm also interested in the issues surrounding the binary of public v. private as it pertains to new media texts. For example, when does composing in new media become private? Is it private? And was there anything such as personal writing in existence to being with? If identity is all performance, then how does that reflect on our "personal" writing? If we're always performing, then who is our audience? More specifically, if we are composing ourselves (body, self, etc.) using new media texts, then who are we composing for? Who is our audience? And is the use of new media texts (as an influence in the composing of our identity) inherent, required, inescapable?

Reading & Reflecting: Women Without Class

Reflection

          Julie Bettie discusses the "exceptions to the rule" when examining the phenomenon of class origin determining class future. It was refreshing and even a relief to know that attention was being paid in acknowledging the agency that does (although rarely) happen for a diverse working class population. But Bettie doesn't just stop there. She asks the important questions:

          Asking how is this possible? Why are they exceptional?

          Bettie looks at both white and Mexican-American working class girls who display a potential for upward class mobility by preparing for college attendance. After examining factors including environment and family/home life (Bettie points out the urban environment where a greater access to education is present), and motivation I was particularly interested in the tensions surrounding motivation. Where it comes from? How is it evaluated?

          Bettie also evaluates the relationships between various groups of girls across race and class and concludes with addressing the forces that influences mobility in the lives of young girls. I'd like to draw attention to an issue addressed in Betti'e section, Race Matters (p161). In observing the working class (college-prep) groups of girls, Bettie notes that they articulated a "distancing" from their community (Mexican-American girls) or individual family (white girls). Bettie goes on to state that the difference in these feelings of distance is due to unavailable language for class difference. My dilemma/question comes from examining these feelings of distance. That is, how to encourage an upward mobility in class without discouraging the discourse that connects one to their respective (lower class) community/family.

          Although an upward mobility of class provides access to opportunities, education, etc. is it possible to mourn a loss of class "status" when it is perceived as closely tied to community and even one's individual family?

Critical Narrative Project

Participatory and fandom culture are figured worlds which have grown to warrant attention and significance both on the device and in the classroom. Having first become enthralled with fandom studies in my first year of graduate study while sitting under Dr. Balaka Basu’s Digital Narratives for Young People, I became intrigued by the interactions and perceptions of the fan identity. With technology and modalities strengthening participatory culture, the platform which houses this figured world has fostered the fandom identity. But this is why it’s important to look beyond the fan within its figured world. To take a step back is to examine the discourses whose commentary may commend or criticize, giving a better understanding of the identity as it creates new ways of being outside of its home platform.

Because of the social tension surrounding the fandom over what is “real” and what is “fiction” or “fantasy”, the dominant discourses of “real life” often casts the fandom as Other. In the narrative that follows these “real life” discourses are illustrated as outsider (parents, teachers, non-fandom friends, society, and scholar). However, this narrative also includes a metaperspective as the fan (fandom) indulges in the practice of commenting upon itself with a perspective it imagines outside discourses attribute.

This narrative serves as a precursor to my Rhetorical Analysis project and pushes to explore an identity using both the perspective and language of academic, social, and online discourse. In doing so, the reader will notice the ways in which these discourses appear, interact, and attribute meaning through language and image.

http://prezi.com/bchvyeuk81yx/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Reading & Reflecting: Not Quite White

Reflection

          Matt Wray's Not Quite White does an excellent job of bringing the (hidden) history of whiteness to the forefront of readers minds, especially in the context of cultural studies. But I don't believe the text manages this on solely through the organization of its content but through the choices and uses of its language. The read was engaging and clear while ideas and theory complex.

          What was perhaps most interesting was the ideas regarding Boundary Theory. It was a theory I was not otherwise familiar with but Wray introduces its purpose as a way of, "asking how categories shape our perceptions of the world" (7). And while meaning is derived from difference, I then began to ask myself what difference does the difference make? I do not think the classification and categorization of our surroundings and selves is in itself negative; however, Wray's work does give me pause to contemplate the uses and abuses that this classification practice and how it evolves over time and history.