How Do You See It?

With all the digital media out there we put less emphasis on words v.s. visual things. Sometimes when listening or reading text we take it out of context, but with a picture next to it we may see it different. This technically means we are inadequate in understanding visual literacy. However, we tend to be more visual and feel as we are witness's because of all the available material to us. Why is this?
Terms discussed in class can explain to us why we think this way.

Master Narratives: these are rooted deeply in culture and context. Master narratives are powerful and enduring stories within particular countries, regions, cultures, or groups. They arise from the rich social heritage of particular communities and settings, and reflect shared hopes, concerns, and aspirations.

 Persuasive Themes: persuasive themes come to life through visual content: the people, places, and things employed within a specific visual message. They are also augmented and enhanced by technical factors and choices such as lighting, camera angles, and music that help position the content, set the mood, and reinforce the image.

Audience Resonance & Effects: these have indicators that vary in strength and directness. Indicators of audience exposure, for example, center on general media access data and try to ascertain who potentially may have received a message in the first place. Indicators of resonance and attitudinal effect involve evidence of “buzz” and observed sentiment, while indicators of behavioral effect focus on observed audience reactions or, if reactions are unattainable, reports and commentary reference salient actions or behaviors that could be associated with exposure to a given piece of visual media.

Compare and Contrast: you compare things that are alike and contrast differences between to two items (pictures).

Windows of Opportunity: Gaps that may be filled in by other stories, new stories, and perspectives omitted from or slighted in the original narrative and that these gaps may impact the human tendency to finish what is perceived as incomplete.

Compare and Contrast

Today in class we thoroughly discussed visual rhetoric and compare & contrast types of essays. We discussed the ways to go about writing a compare & contrast essay as well. When writing a compare & contrast essay we should switch the two around to contrast & compare. Why? Because when we view things throughout the world we usually start out by identifying main differences in them. After that we may or may not form comparisons between them.
Another important piece of a contrast & compare essay is the structure to which we write it in. we should go about writing this in two ways, either side by side or subject by subject. Side by side introduces picture one with the scene then picture 2 with the scene. Following that sequence is season with picture one then with picture two, and so on. In subject by subject we take the scene, season, and people content and describe it for picture one then following that is picture two. This is the appropriate way of going about a contrast & compare essay.

Visual Rhetoric

Have you ever had a problem visually describing a story? Well, the essay on visual rhetoric gives us just the example we need to visually enhance our story. Katherina Lorenz gives us a description of the Pompeian painting and then explains to us why the picture is the way it is. She goes on to explain that these paintings were not created just for visual pleasure but to give us an insight in Pompeian painting. By learning to make a more structured visual rhetoric we can improve the way our narrative comes across and give better understanding to our audience.
An example of a visual rhetoric would be on page 670, the last paragraph. She explains the picture of Scavo De Principal Di Montenegro and that both Andromeda and the Satyr figure are dressed in lightly colored garments and have a bare shoulder. She includes that Perseus and the Satyr both have short hair and are closely intertwined in the picture. She concludes by saying that their are two visual viewers here, on that interprets Perseus as powerful while the other interprets the Gorgoneion as powerful. This description of a visual rhetoric gives us just what we need, a good visual description of whats happening.

Make Your Story Better: Cause and Effect

I came to class this morning with my paper in hand ready to read and get this presentation over with for the semester. I was tired and feeling dull as I usually do in the wee morning hours. The night before I had persuaded myself that I was going to volunteer and present my paper in class. However, I didn't. Why? Because it all started when I didn't have my morning cup a joe. The cause of all this came down to sleeping through my alarm and the effect was not presenting my paper.
The example above gives a clear understanding as to how cause and effect gives meaning in a story. Without a gripping story line there is no feeling and meaning to the story. It takes a well designed approach and the use of cause an effect to grab the attention of the reader. All in all, everyday there is a cause and an effect in our lives that gives us meaning and importance all we have to do is write about it.

Why Peer Review?

Peer review is important because regardless of how good you are as a writer, you still make mistakes. inside your story people should be looking for the basic story grammars, good sentence flow, correct grammar and punctuation and always, does it make sense?When it comes time to revise your paper it's always good to have more than just one person read your paper over. The reason is to have different people read it so your not just stuck to one persons opinion on how to fix your paper. One other way to revise your piece of work is to use the writing center and have somebody go over your paper with you. This will take some time but is definitely worth it in the end. All in all, peer review is necessary and just another important part in the writing process that we need to get better.

Write a Better Narrative

In the last 4 years of doing peer review during English nine through twelve I can tell you that writing a narrative takes not only structure and composition, but interest and emotion to captivate the reader. You have to want to write the narrative and have some level of interest to your topic for it to make sense and be enjoyable to the reader.
 The basics that underlie your narrative are story grammars as presented in the last blog as well as the usual grammar and composition. However, what actually makes the narrative great are the little bits of information that capture the reader and bring them into the story. As stated in class, you could use flashbacks of awesome events that happened previously in your life or you could flash forward to the desired future you wish to make the story more interesting.
When you put all of these things together; the story grammars, composition, and other extra bits of information, it can make what seemed to be an average narrative, into a great one.

Reaching A Desired Audience

When writing a narrative it is important to note that you have to have a purpose for writing it. Whether your writing to inform, reflect, persuade or evaluate there has to be a purpose to it that attracts the audience your writing to. A good way to begin a narrative is to understand what the assignment, or narrative in this case, is supposed to be about. Once you have your topic in place you can begin brainstorming, researching, or creating a diagram of the events to take place in your narrative.When starting your narrative it is crucial to have a thesis statement in the introduction to clarify what your topic is about. After that you have the main body of the paper and the conclusion which restates the thesis statement. Inside the narrative are story grammars, these story grammars make the narrative come together and have meaning. The story grammars are setting, characters, plot and theme and they all make up the narrative. The setting determines where and when the story takes place, the characters are what gives the story meaning and they usually consist of antagonist and protagonist in the story, the plot is the events that take place and the theme is the central message in the story. If we include all of these components and strategies in our narrative then there should be no problem grabbing and keeping the attention of our audience and having a complete narrative.

Taking everything that I learned above I will now give an example as to how it is used in a narrative.

When I was thirteen years old I was a bit of a trouble maker when around my friends. When the weekend came we were always outside, messing around, doing crazy things. On one particular night my friends Dominic, Logan and I decided to go around the neighborhood and ding dong ditch some houses. House after house, right in a row, we rang each doorbell and ran. It wasn't until 3am when we saw a police car and then things got intense. Most of the time the police just drive around the neighborhood and tell us to go home and stop causing trouble, but this time they got out of the car and we ran. We ran south from the houses we just hit and headed back to Dominic's. We finally got back and were amazed to see how much of an issue we caused. All night we saw nothing but black unmarked cop cars driving down the street looking for what we thought, was us. It wasn't until the next morning that we found out that the west side of our neighborhood had been broken into and that is what caused the police and undercover cars to show up. In the end, the lesson we learned was that we were faster than Fort Wayne , IN, cops.