Stupid Lord of the Rings

The following was written while I watched Fellowship of the Ring. I toyed with the leaving in my commentary or deleting it and decided to leave it in because it shows me having a dialogue with myself while writing. I think that's incredibly interesting (not my thoughts, but the idea at work here) and thought I would keep it in as a short research piece demonstrating the composing process.


I write my response while watching Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is about to die and I'm totally going to cry (again) so in honor of our discussion about technology I would like to say the great thing about word processing is that tears on the screen don't make the ink run.

"The Technological Nudge: Word Processing Is Rapidly Becoming Word Publishing"

I am still not sold on the whole word processing is such a big deal debate. This is no doubt because the first things I wrote were on Wordstar and thus much of my rhetorical education has been using word processers. I would agree that it is worth researching rhetorical techniques of images and words, but isn't that already labeled under advertising? And along side the "what are we preparing student's for" discussion it would make sense that if students were being taught how to prepare a business presentation then this sort of images/words rhetoric would be important to cover. But if we are talking about composing--what can be gained by practicing with images and words? I think there is something to be gained, but I don't know that freshman composition can do it justice. It seems like in order for it to be more worthwhile than highschool projects we would need to severely complicate the discussion of rhetoric and that is the question this article seems to be asking (or the chapter from the book rather) but doesn't quite answer, though, perhaps it does later on.

Crap. Gandalf just died and even though I know he comes back I'm totally sad. There's some powerful rhetoric for you. Elijah Wood does cry a lot in this movie, though.

"Microsoft Word"

I found this article helpful and insightful. I also pretty much said "duh" while I read it. Again, I grew up with computers so perhaps that changes my approach to them, but who are these people that think Microsoft Word is okay? Who are these teachers that don't know to tell their students not to use grammar check? Who are these people that think grammar check is a good idea? If they're English teachers then they need to be quickly eliminated without prejudice. If they aren't English teachers at all but people in the business world then they have nothing to do with our students until after school and that's a matter of politics, not writing. I mean, I suppose it is good to point out the obvious--one never knows what people are going to think is a good idea, Titanic is proof of that--but is this really new knowledge? I guess this is something I need to discuss further in class.

Boromir is about to go down now. This has got to be the most depressing post I've ever written. And yet I keep watching...there's rhetorical theory to be mined here.

"The Internet-Based Composition Classroom"

I was incredibly surprised by this article. Not only have I now read something for school that talks about MOO'MUD but they did so in way that I found amazingly helpful. This is perhaps the first article that discusses the uses of computers in a way that seems self-aware of it's limitations. They acknowledge what they hoped to gain in this article as well as what they wanted to avoid. There didn't seem to be the narrow sightedness that has challenged some of our previous articles in relation to the internet and I appreciated their dialogic look at their research. It is always pleasant to see a theorist using the theory she is promoting.

I appreciated what was said about the benefits of the computer classroom--I also appreciated the way the internet chats were used in conjunction with (a big factor) face to face interaction. This article actually made me rethink my own writing education. I spent many formative years on a MUD myself and now I have to ask, how much of my comfort with language was affected by that? Do computers shape writing ability or affect what is already there? I think that is, maybe, the next question in this discussion. But then, that is the question facing most of composition pedagogy.

And if I may digress for just a moment, I'm having a thought spawned by my emotional reaction to LOTR. Along with computers, how much of our students rhetorical ability, writing style, dialogism, etc, is shaped by the movies they watch? This is a topic we haven't read anything on yet, but it seems like an important issue. So many people in society today watch movies, a lot of movies, and doesn't the type of movie watched in some way shape how we view the world? How we construct meaning with language? There is an image/word dichotomy for you, not to mention music. I knew there was something worthwhile in my remarking on the movie.

Oh, Sam is running after Frodo. There's a homosocial versus homesexual discussion just waiting to happen.

"Undistributing Work Through Writing"

I enjoyed reading this article as I know next to nothing about technical writing. I found it very informative as well as indicative of exactly the issues Susan and Dr. J have been bringing up throughout the semester. I find I can't help but think back on the myriad of theorists (Bizzell among them) who have discussed the importance of recognizing "discourse communities" and being able to move back and forth. In that way, along with skills such as interpreting information, basic writing (what we now do in 101) and technical writing speak to the same skill set. I can't help but wonder if technical writing is best treated as "next step" in writing education. Should we teach directly to it, or should we begin with basic writing/thinking skills and then offer it after something like 102? But this, of course, brings us back to what are basic writing/thinking skills and that is, in some ways, the driving question of all the articles we've read.

I think technical writing is more challenging is evident through Slatterly's discussion of the number of texts writers must manage. This is a significantly different process than what we are currently teaching to in freshman composition. I believe, perhaps, that these skills can be shaped through exercises like the research paper, but doesn't approach what is needed as Slattery points out on page 317. Back to my earlier question then, how do we best prepare students to learn about this either in the classroom or the workplace? And what would the value be of making all student's take such a class, or at least all students in a business oriented profession? Would it be better to "prepare students for the workplace" in something like that?