Assignment 9

As I write my essays I am building relationships with my audience who read my essays. I want my audience see how I care about them and would try to persuade them on why I am writing the way I do. Although my second conference went on well, I felt I needed to maintain my controlling purpose and relate more with my audience.In my second conference which we met as a group, I was a little bit confident compared to my first conference which by then was not very good as I was still having a lot of "commonplace."

I have now learned what I need to do address the challenges going into the second conference.I have also learned to follow instructor's recommendations as I feel they are useful in looking at my essay at different angles.Additionally,the in-class activities including the group and peer interactions have been of tremendous help. For example, in the first essay I realized i fell short in a lot of what I needed to include. It turned out that I was fond of writing using "common place" instead of personalizing the essay. For example in my essay Lifelike, I thought it was an underworld trade just because I had never come across the word "taxidermy" and I backed my assumption with Susan Orlean's quote, "It was usually regarded as almost a black art, a wholly owned subsidiary of witchcraft and voodoo" (Orlean,2).

The instructor wanted me to identify my controlling purpose and writerly choices and expand on them. Her guidelines were helpful as I used and eventually helped me in my essays.So it was after I read Orlean's article that I came to appreciate the work she did and eventually broadened my understanding of what taxidermy is. I also understood Susan Orlean's strategy of writing on taxidermy which not many people write about it. Her strategy becomes clearer when she put it in New Yorker magazine to enlighten people on this profession not many people know. The author wanted us to see taxidermy as a business as well as art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of different animals onto a mannequin for various reasons. Among the writerly choices I picked from this article are:- zoology nerd, stillborn, and PETA.

 I will keep working on my controlling purpose and explain further my writerly choices citing quotations and examples from the essay. I will as well follow the guidelines on DK handbook pages 194-199.

Assignment 11

 Analysis of the essay
When I think and see how technology has taken toll on us makes me say wait a minute, where are we headed with these gadgets? I can't agree more that the computer technology have adversely affected the functionality of human beings in the way we use it. Even simple arithmetic or logical stuff that we used to do by putting our own brains to work seem to have been taken over by the computers. When I don't know the answer to anything, I google it. It has indeed brainwashed us as Sarah Stein puts it in her writing.Lots of car accidents have been caused by drivers who are driving while surfing the apple products. Many lectures have been missed by students who instead of paying attention, get preoccupied with the twitter, facebook and all sorts of social during lecture. I blame the arrival of technology that has deprived the attentiveness that was being witnessed before the arrival of these goodies.

So what do we do when everybody seem to be doing it and getting updated with the technology? I am not against the technology as I am in it as well. I believe these are some of the issues that Stein was confronting and the dilemma of this innovation cannot be wished away! The commercials are as well in the rise yet people know what they want even before it is advertized.

[Group Work] Reflection

It was a well thought idea for our instructor to organize the class into groups as this resulted in a successful and engaging discussions with each other. I was personally impressed with my group which came out with creative ideas as to what Sarah Stein implied in her theoretical framework. The group input was phenomenal as attested by other classmates.I believe when people get involved in creative assignments, something good comes out of it. We were able to come up with an Ad within an Ad essay! Isn't that cool?

My peers in other groups did exceedingly well. What caught my eye is the Rhetorical history of the Macintosh. The question: " since Apple was a small company at the time, do you think this helped in their revolution?"I believe Apple did their homework knowing very well that they were starting a fight with a Big brother, a Goliath and they understood the risks involved including being vilified by their business rivals-the IBM. Apple's resilience has proved over the years to be a company to beat in a modern day personal computer technology.Their 1984 Ad during the Super Bowl also introduced a different kind of marketing the products. As it turned out, that was only the beginning as various companies started spending millions of money especially during the subsequent Super Bowls.

The other Ad that caught my attention was the creative artistic piece, the Rhetoric context of the 1984 Ad. I learned from this Ad that the terminator by Arnold Schwarzenegger was released in 1984. Furthermore, Ronald Reagan became the president of the United States of America in 1984 and was credited for having brought down the Soviet Union bringing about democracy and freedom in the communist republic. Sarah's capture of Ad resonated well to the many viewers of the 1984 Super Bowl as an icon of revolution at the time.

Assignment 10

1. What might have been the reason behind Sarah R. Stein writing her essay in such way that discourages one to continue reading her lengthy narrative? Might she have been tasked to write a paper that word count was significant?

2.Who might have been her target audience considering the big words used?

3. If she is asked to write the article over again, will she write differently?

As I read the "1984 Macintosh Ad", I recall these are the times when the Western world was introducing democratic systems to countries that were either being ruled by dictators or communist regimes and other types of political systems that had not embraced democracy.The comparison Sarah has made between regimes and the computer companies, is interesting. The revolution that was being televised in the 1984 Super Bowl Ad was a projection of the freedom that Apple was to bring to the world of computing and replace the oppressive Big Brother-IBM.

Although the Ad aired only once, its effect on technology advertising has grown over the years.
Sarah Stein's article is so academic that is hard to be understood by laymen. Maybe she intended to be a preserve of the academicians.

Assignment 8

I am impressed by the way my peers formatted their essays, with most of them having striking similarities in their essays. It is interesting to note what we have been learning in class actually come to light in my peers' writing. This of course, I think is a huge improvement since the beginning of the semester.

To give an example, in reading one essay, I thought the writer approached the analysis of the essay with an open mind, a clear flow of controlling purpose running through the essay. One of my peers thought that considering the feeling of the audience should be of importance in writing. This is something I had not considered and it is obviously a learning experience. 

Additionally, I think the inclusion of quotes in the essays is important as it emphasizes context of the writer, as well as indicating the proper understanding of the material. The use of direct quotes also breaks the monotony and provides a different and inviting flavor to the audience.

The difference between my peers’ essays and mine is the fact that I didn’t know of taxidermy before and the claim I made of taxidermy being an underworld trade. Although I made the claim, I seem to enjoy wildlife and on several occasions  visited museums and zoos. I had no idea how animals are brought to life. Susan Orleans’s essay has educated me on taxidermy and what taxidermists do to advocate for animals especially the ones in the verge of extinction.

I have learned from my peers' essays and will use their way of writing in my future essays by being open-minded and having a good flow of my essays. I need to quote more to emphasize the writer’s ideas and support my argument with the writer's own words.

Assignment 7

I was wondering what might have motivated Susan Orlean, a journalist to take her time to research and write about taxidermy? Might she have been hired to reveal this business which in my view looks like an underworld trade? Why did she use the words like the stillborn as her writerly choices? In her writing she has used phrases like "zoology nerd", who were her target audience?

I think Orlean wrote the essay for the purposes of showcasing what taxidermy is all about. She went into depth in explaining what taxidermists do and how much the business is worth. Whether or not she was hired by self interest groups to market wildlife and bring to life some of the animals that have been rendered extinct, is something to debate about. For example, the Panda are some of the animals that are either in the verge of extinction, or already extinct.

In my view, I thought Orlean's essay was targeting people who take hunting as a hobby and turning it into a huge business of taxidermy. The exhibition that she attended is a clear testament of these facts that these profession has brought to life other trades such as sculpting, sewing, painting and hair dressing. To me, I call it an underworld trade because I did not know before that there is such a trade such as taxidermy, although I had seen dried animals in the museum and other outdoor stores like the Cabela's, I had no idea how that was done. I therefore commend Orlean for bringing this trade to light. I like wildlife and I think I am one of Orlean's targeted audience. I credit Orlean for her essay of Lifelike because it reminds me that if it were not for the artistic work of taxidermy, I would not have known that dinosaurs and other extinct animals ever existed. 

Assignment 6: Choices

Susan Orlean's choices are clear in all her writings although she did not lay bare her personal opinions.
She cleverly immersed herself in the taxidermy competition that was held in Springfield, Illinois.
It is obvious that where she chose to do her research was at this championship where she was able to interact with taxidermists and get firsthand information in her research.

Being a journalist makes her reporting more credible because of her thorough work unlike if it was being done by a layman.It makes her work credible as she uses plain language and saying it as is.As I read this article I imagine how creative people can get. To have an idea and use that idea to make an image of the animal is incredible! If it is not creativity at its best, then I don't know what it is! Taxidermists seem to appreciate and love animals in a different perspective to a level that can bring them back to life by mounting them on mannequins. It is only the breath of life that these animals are missing. According to Orlean, to be a good taxidermist, one has to be good at sewing, sculpting, painting, and hairdressing, and mostly one has to be a little of zoology nerd.

In this article what the writer is trying to accomplish, is no matter the profession, if you put all your effort, you will be successful in your business.The taxidermists take the competition very seriously. They make animal look exactly as if it had never died.The writer's controlling purpose is to make the reader know what goes on in the taxidermy business and share how these artists dedicate their time what they truly love-taxidermy business!
By using the writerly choices like the zoology nerd, Orlean is trying to show how passionate the taxidermists are and how they take their work seriously. It impresses upon the reader what inputs go into bringing taxidermy competition into success. It is the hard work of these men and women who participated in the Springfield, Illinois taxidermy competition that is the reason for the essay Lifelike. The writer being a journalist makes her more credible and her ethos are clear in the manner in which she chooses her words. For example in her essay she says...knowing that the doors would peel back to reveal maybe a man and a moose, or a bush pig, or a cougar --was much more exciting than the usual elevator wait in the usual Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Assignment 6

Susan Orlean's article gave me an idea of what taxidermy really is. I had no clue until when I read the whole article about taxidermy  and what taxidermists do.Her grammar and description of the happenings at the championship make her stand out as a writer. She brings out her observations in a very candid way that can appeal and resonate well with her targeted audience.

Although the taxidermy championship was in Springfield Illinois, she wrote the article for the New Yorker to convey to the readers about the business which according to her research is a multimillion business.For her to have taken initiative to participate in the taxidermy competition and report about it is commendable job that is worth noting.

I was wondering how many animals would have been there if all the slaughtered animals' were skinned properly and used for taxidermy purposes. It would have been scary to see how many animals have been killed! It would be an amazing site to behold. One of the quotes that I found interesting is when she was interviewing one of the competitors who said" I love deer," one of the champions in the whitetail division said to me. "They are my babies."

Her writing reminded me of some places that I have seen dried animals; it was at the Cabela's outdoor store. I would think the article was intended for those people like hunting or people like animals or like to make art through sculptures of animals.

Assignment 5

It seems as if she wanted to write about her experience of Taxidermy Championship, but I think it ended up being an article to discuss about ethical treatment of animals, an issue of whether it is ethical to love animals that are alive or that are dead

I think she wanted to make the article interesting and informative especially about the Taxidermy trade and the history of how it all started way back in 1971, and continued to the point of Taxidermy Championships in 2003. This seems to be what she wanted her readers to achieve, and she wanted her readers to achieve. She tried to inject a sense of humor, but the article is filled with all things animals, that one has to be quite keen to understand the whole objective of the article. 

I am a little bit disturbed by the fact that they take the very life of an animal that they are advocating to preserve. Saying, “my babies” and other worrying descriptions “… the Panda was actually pretty easy. I just took two black bears and bleached one of them. Then I sewed two skins together…” (p.3)My question is, how do these people claim to preserve life of a dead animal?  

I do not think she was aware of the impact the article would have on the readers, as I think her

main aim was to explain the history and the development of the Taxidermy championship but in

the process has exposed a serious issue of animal abuse, as I would call it.

As I began to read this article, I was wondering what it was all about. I thought I was just about to embark on a boring article, but it turned out to be quite interesting. Orlean’s applies a unique writing style of blending historical background with her personal experience of the 2003 World Taxidermy Championship. This topic in itself is quite unique and very interesting, as it is something that not many people can consider writing. This article is full of creepy discussions for example when she talks about “skinning an animal and then stretching its hide over a mannequin and sewing it into place (p.2)”

Taxidermists seem to make little distinction between loving animals that are alive and loving ones that are not. "I love deer," one of the champions in the whitetail division said to me. "They're my babies." (P.3). The unfortunate thing is that killing animals as recreational hunting activities has become a booming business in America. The Taxidermy is so consumed about making a profit that they are not aware of the abuse of animals they are doing. In fact “taxidermy is now estimated to be a $570-million annual business, made up of small operators around the country who mount animals for museums…” (3.)

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with a business that required being the best …"at sewing, sculpting, painting, and hairdressing, and mostly you have to be a little bit of a zoology nerd” (3.)

Questions for class
To be honest, before reading this article I did not know what Taxidermy was! Did you know what it was?

If you were Susan Orlean, how different would you have reported observations?

Now that you have known what Taxidermy is, do you intend to participate in your own way in preserving the animals and possibly support those people or societies like the Humane Society who devote their time in helping animals that have been neglected?

Printed Text

 

I found this printed words, and I thought it is interesting.

INANCIENTTIMESMANUSCRIPTSWEREWRITTENINALLCAPI

TALLETTERSTHEREWASNOSPACINGBETWEENTHEWORDSAN

DNOPUNCTUATIONSOMETHINGLIKETHIS

 

In ancient times when manuscripts were in capital letters,there was no full stop or separation between words. And although I wondered how they used to make sense of such a sentence, I still think that that they made some progress toward innovating writing and reading that continued to improve until today's standards. I think that the reader would take a longer time trying to figure out what exactly the sentence means, unlike today's writings that have clarifications statements, such as commas, punctuations, paragraphs, small and capital letters etc. All these are useful for understanding and making sense of the sentence, as they create a clear separation of each word.  

 

 

Reflecting on Revision

It is interesting to note the similarities we share with my classmate-Cameron Bazan on his write-up about Sedaris's article.The context,purpose and the audience is amazingly the same according to our two essays.

The new thing that was captured by Cameron on Sedaris's article is the issue of the September 11 2001 tragedy that still linger in peoples' minds. He brought out the point as to why people acted in an uneasy attitude towards the airport to be attributed to those bad memories associated to the airports, planes and terrorists.

I liked the way he brought out how people are judgmental to people they don't even know. I think it is a human tendency to make opinions about people or things which might not necessarily be a true representation of the facts.

My Weekend