Thlog 1

 

This week has been a fantastic introduction to Writing 2 and the material that we will cover during the next few months. Though I have not kept up with personal journaling and blogging as frequently lately, I am excited to get back in the practice of expressing myself through the written word. Right from the start, this class set a great tone with the first reading "Writing Spaces". I have never experienced course material in the form of a comic, so this was a refreshing and stimulating read. The main takeaway that I got from this piece was that writing and rhetoric permeate all areas of our lives, and affect us in a broad variety of ways. In our everyday lives we will experience rhetoric on television, radio, online, and even in our conversations with others, making critical analysis an essential skill which we must use to navigate our lives.

The second reading of this week involved Dirk’s “Navigating Genres”, which thoroughly explored the application of genre in various contexts. While reading and annotating this article I began to grasp the idea that genres give us a framework in which to organize and classify our writing. This concept really resonated with me, as I am constantly searching for ways to improve my efficiency in any endeavor – genres allow us to follow a recognized structure instead of writing blindly without rhyme or reason. An essential part of Dirk’s piece touched upon “the value of teaching genre awareness rather than acquisition of particular genres”, which I found to be quite an insightful concept involving being taught how to think rather than what to think.

All in all, the introductory week of class has been a positive experience so far, and I feel as though I am already getting back into the swing of things with my writing technique!