The Image in this Post May Be Unsettling

This is an ad for Superette, a clothing line and store out of New Zealand.  It is one of many ads that feature dead, bloodied, and mangled human bodies.

Because these ads appear in popular magazines that target young adults, we can safely assume that the intended audience would fall into that age group.  Beyond this, the ads that comprise this campaign almost always feature individuals in risky situations or in surroundings that are posh or culturally significant.  As such, these ads will appeal most to young adults who see themselves as trendsetters, who live life on the edge, and who are culturally well-rounded and  affluent. 

Interestingly, I don't think the immediate purpose of these ads is to compel individuals to go out and shop at Superette.  The clothing here, for instance, takes a back seat to the setting and circumstance.  Instead, I think the purpose is to make the name of the brand and store recognizable and memorable so that when one is shopping and sees a Superette, they will be more likely to take a peak inside, just for the sake of curiosity.  And all retailers know that the most difficult aspect of selling a product is getting a consumer to enter the store. 

Shock value is the main feature of this ad, a pathetic appeal (pun intended).  The emotions evoked here are, of course, shock, perhaps even horror at the lifeless body lying in a pool of blood.  There is nothing logical or credible presented to the viewer to show that Superette does, in fact, offer stylish or well-made clothing (what we'd expect from a clothing ad).  In fact, the featured image is the antithesis of logical--roller skates and a marble spiral staircase?  Only an idiot would attempt such a feat.  

Because of the roller skates and the electric blue go-go dress, the ad seems to invoke images of a 1960s' acid trip gone horribly wrong.   We could consider this an analogy, but it is so poorly done, I won't. 

The marble staircase does exude affluence and historical significance.  These are rhetorical strategies that could be effective in targeting the proper audience for Superette.  

Though my analysis here is harsh, I think this ad is incredibly effective at meeting its purpose.  And I applaud Superette for not shying away from such risky marketing strategies.  And even though I'd never ever buy anything from Superette, if I find myself standing on a street corner across from one of their stores, I might actually take a peak inside.

Terms for GWRTC 103 Discourse Community

discourse: communication among a group of people who share a commonality (values, beliefs, goals, interests) and have a common language
rhetoric: study and craft of communicating to a specific audience, with a specific aim in mind
rhetorical situation:  the context that informs a text or discourse; includes audience, purpose and occasion (exigence)
exigence: the relevance and timeliness of a text, what makes the reader/audience care about it
audience: the people who have something to gain from reading a text; we tend to think about audience in terms of a primary or intended audience (these are the people you are thinking about when writing) and a secondary audience (people who may read your work but who you didn't really intend to).

rhetorical reading:  reading a text with an aim of understanding its audience, purpose, and exigence.
rhetorical strategy:  anything a writer does to reach out to an audience or to create a convincing argument
ethos: the credibility of a text or author; authors build ethos by establishing connections to the reader, by presenting him/herself as knowledgeable about the subject, and by being professional in all aspects of communication.
pathos: the capacity of a text to invoke emotions (anger, urgency, sadness, joy, etc).  Authors can create pathos through the use of personal stories, comparative examples, photographs, and diction (word choice), among many other rhetorical strategies.
logos: effective reasoning in a text; writers build logos through research, organization of ideas, establishing relations among ideas (such as cause effect or analogy).
claim:  the thesis of an argumentative text; a claim expresses the writer's opinion about a multi-sided issue and  justifies it by showing why the opinion is important; claims can never be indisputable facts.
so what: the importance of a claim and topic, the reason a reader should care about it; comes from this idea that readers should never read a text and think "So what?  Why should I care about this topic?"

Reading Rhetorically-Flower and Haas

As a high school student, and even an undergraduate majoring in English, I often felt frustrated with my teachers who, like many others, seemed to privilege a single interpretation of a text.  I was never one to find that singular meaning my teachers professed and I hated passionately those students who did.  Why were they graced and I was not? 

It wasn't until my junior year in college that I felt some kind of affirmation for my often subversive interpretations and analyses of texts, what I now understand to be rhetorical readings.  I was taking a class on the works of Thomas Hardy.  I had been eagerly looking forward to the class, but I soon realized that once you've read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, you've read Hardy's oeuvre.  Yes, the settings and characters change, but the stories are, essentially, all the same.  I had already written two papers on Hardy's novels and was wracking my brain trying to find something different to say for my third paper.  Finally, the evening before the paper was due (I was not typically a procrastinator, but I couldn't overcome my writer's block), I gave up.  I started writing the same paper I had for the other two, just changing character names and settings.  But midway through, I started getting angry at Mr. Hardy.  "Couldn't you find something else to say about the way society treats women, you bumbling idiot?"  And out of anger and frustration, I started writing not about how women were always victims of English patriarchal society, but about how they were femme fatales.  That they ultimately caused the downfall of the male characters.   

This was, of course, bs.  I didn't really believe what I was writing, but I figured there was at least a possibility there and I could support it.  I was playing, really.  It felt good to write something so opposed to what we had been discussing all semester long.  But at some point, I liked what I was writing.  It was cathartic.  So I took a risk, revised the beginning of the paper to match my new purpose in writing and crafted a conclusion in which I made a rather broad claim that, in having his female characters embrace the very traits men accused them of--selfishness and vanity, Hardy was being more subversive than any of us have fully understood.  Two weeks later, I received the paper back from my professor with red ink all over it.  "I disagree!"  "I just can't agree here."  "Do you really think this?"  I feared looking at the back page, allowing the negative comments to haunt my mind for days.  Finally, when I no longer cared whether I failed the paper, for I was assured at least a C in the class,  I looked.  There, written in a hand rather smaller than I had expected, was something else I had not expected: a B+.  Below it was written a brief note that even though my views ran counter to everything my teacher valued and loved about Hardy, she appreciated my unique, rather brazen, perspective.  She was glad I had engaged with the text and found something new to say about it.

Needless to say, my professor's comment made quite an impression on me.  I was finally rewarded for my reading of a text.  For a good while afterward, I read every text with a suspicious eye.  What is going on in society that might have influenced this author's views? What is he or she really communicating?  What is he or she not communicating?  How might my own interpretation differ from the common reader and why?  I still read this way, but my motivations aren't so much to prove a writer (or a teacher) wrong. More than anything, I am motivated by a curiosity and an interest in discovering how and why my interpretations so often differ from those of others.

On "Shitty First Drafts" . . . or my torturous writing process

As much as I like Lamott's idea of a "shitty first draft," and as much as I encourage students to try out her process at least one time during the semester, I'm just not a "shitty first draft" kind of writer. I think this is because I'm a thinker. I have to internalize anything before I begin writing. I might think about a writing task for days, even weeks, before I begin. In fact, I have a conference presentation coming up in April, and I've been "pondering" the paper I am going to present since September when I first found out my proposal was accepted. My colleagues who were also accepted used our very short winter break to start writing drafts of their papers for presentation. Not me. The most I've done is start jotting down a list of ideas and sources to include. This list is very characteristic of how I write. I internalize; I list. And after I have a fairly full list, I draw arrows to signify some kind of ordering of ideas. I hate outlines. I hate the indents and the silly A.s and I.s. Who thinks that way, anyhow?

Only after I have a fairly full list, complete with arrows all over the place, will I begin to write. Once I do start writing, I usually have plenty to say. If only I could get it all out without censoring myself.

This is where I envy Lamott. When I write, I constantly stop, interrupting my momentum to read what I've written. It is as if I cannot move forward without looking backward. This makes for a very long, sometimes torturous writing process. I can spend over an hour on a single paragraph. But it somehow works for me. I don't mind that I will spend twice as much time planning and drafting a paper than my peers. Where I save time is revision. I still revise my writing, but usually I can do so in one sitting, looking at a hard copy (though more and more I feel comfortable reading and revising on a computer screen). And even then, I am usually pleased with my language and content. I most often find myself reordering ideas and building stronger transitions. That's my weakness in writing, organization. It probably has something to do with all those arrows, but I'm okay with that. I wouldn't want to write a perfect draft the first time around.

A Scott Family Thanksgiving (in two versions)

I love Brent Staples's work, and I especially enjoy reading these two pieces about his ability as a black male to alter public space. Like Malcolm Gladwell's work, these two pieces make me question my own behaviors and social conditioning. Students typically prefer the MS. version--tempered in its anger, empathetic toward his "victims". Not me. I like the discomfort the version that appeared in his autobiography causes me. With a few moderate changes to wording, I become one of his victims . . . and I feel guilty about it. It is incredible a writer can elicit such response in a reader. But the real genius of his pieces is that he is able to take the same story and present it from two diametrically opposed perspectives. I think this is revision at its best. As writers, we don't always have opportunities to change our perspectives so drastically . . . but I think being open to such changes, to look for such opportunities, can lead to growth. I've been pondering a blog post I wrote last semester about my family's Thanksgiving. I've revised it in much the same way Staples has.

A Scott Family Thanksgiving: 1st version

I have many identities–I am a mom, a wife, a professor, a best friend. But within my family (in which I include my parents and my two much-older sisters), what defines me most is that I am the baby . . . even at my 30-something age. I feel this identity most during the Thanksgiving holiday.

It has become tradition that my family gather at our beach house in the Outer Banks every Thanksgiving. First, it was just the five of us, but as my siblings and I aged and started our own families, we grew to a group of eleven. This Thanksgiving, due to distance, divorce, and general disinterest, our group was diminished to seven: my parents, my husband and son, my oldest sister, one of my nephews, and of course, myself.

Typically, Thanksgiving day begins with my mother rising early to prep the turkey. While she does that, my oldest sister begins the laborious task of chopping . . . celery, onion, shallots, carrots, potatoes, winter squash . . . whatever the menu requires. And as my oldest sister chops, past holidays would have my other sister assembling. My mom manages, organizes, coordinates. And what do I do? As the youngest of the family, I have always been relegated to the role of kitchen lackey. In layperson’s terms, that means I clean up the messes my sisters and mother make.

This year, I had been hopeful that since one of my sisters would not be observing the holiday with us, I would graduate from lackey to chopper . . . or maybe even assembler. I knew better than to wish for any position of greater power . . . certainly not kitchen manager. It was with these hopes that I arose from my slumber early Thanksgiving morning with my mother . . . I even beat my oldest sister to the kitchen. And then I made a fatal mistake. I asked what I could do to help. My mother’s response? “Wake your sister.”

While I know I risk sounding whiny and arrogant, I truly cannot understand my exile from the kitchen except to think my mom looks at me and still sees the clutzy, pig-tailed little girl I left behind nearly fifteen years ago. What is most disappointing about this kitchen cast is that I am a good cook. Heck. I am an excellent cook. If I weren’t a teacher, I’d own an uptown bistro. I love being in the kitchen . . . I should be making messes . . . not cleaning them up. So it is difficult to swallow my pride and wash dishes for four hours straight. But I have the water-logged finger tips to prove that I’ve done (and continue to do) it.

I have secret fantasies of exacting revenge on the other women in my family for my exile. In one scenario, I am charged with the task of keeping my father out of the oven (this would fall under the role of kitchen manager, I am sure). I deceptively offer an air of pride and determination in successfully completing the task, but when my father comes by almost hourly to open the oven door and inhale the heady aroma of roasting bird, I step aside and answer my dad’s wink with a smile. He doesn’t know he’s become party to my vengeance. When, five hours later, my mother complains about how long the turkey is taking to cook, I mimic her confusion and frustration. “Maybe the oven thermostat is broken,” I hear myself offer. I don’t even protest when, exasperated, she removes the bird well before its time. At dinner, I sit back and enjoy the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. I don’t eat any turkey. I never have.

A Scott Family Thanksgiving--Second version

After the passing of my paternal grandparents during my early adolescence, it became tradition that my extended family gathered at the family homestead located on the New River during summer holidays--my Aunt Susie and her husband, my Uncle Johnny and his wife Ginnie, my parents, and of course the mass of children (my dad's family is rooted in Appalachia, so in all, there were twelve in our brood). As a teen, these weekend visits were the highlight of my summer. I couldn't wait to run down to the river and jump in, competing with my cousins to be the most daring. These were good times. We were family and the close bond we all shared was unique among my peers, many of whom had never met members of their extended families.

But as I grew older and entered adulthood, relationships became strained. I'm not sure if there was a particular conflict or if the tension grew over time, but at some point, a rift grew between my family and the rest, especially between my mother and my aunts. Whereas at one time, the women of the family would sit on the porch sharing stories of motherhood, my mom now sat alone (or more likely with me) on the back deck while my aunts shared a bottle of Merlot on the front porch. We all put on a good show when necessary, but when the tasks of the day did not demand it, we segregated ourselves in our little corners.

One Easter (always the first visit of the season), things came to a head.

As with every Easter, the morning began with the women rising early to start cooking. The prepping of the turkey was my mom's job in day's past, a role she had embraced. As she did that, Ginnie would begin the laborious task of chopping . . . celery, onion, shallots, carrots, potatoes . . . whatever the menu required. As Ginnie chopped, spiced, and mixed, Susie managed, organized, coordinated.

But on this particular Easter, the roles were, apparently, reassigned. Susie arose early enough to disembowel the bird herself. By the time my mother arrived in the kitchen, the bird was rubbed, tied, and ready to go in the oven. "What can I do to help?" my mother asked, showing no sign of surprise or bird envy. "Wake up Ginnie," my aunt replied. For the next several hours, my mother was relegated to the role of kitchen lackey. In layperson’s terms, that means she cleaned up the messes the Aunts made. And this has been her role in the kitchen ever since.

While I know I am biased, I truly cannot understand my mother's exile from the kitchen. She is a good cook. Heck. She is an excellent cook. She should be making messes . . . not cleaning them up. I imagine it is difficult for her to swallow her pride and wash dishes for four hours straight. But she has the water-logged finger tips to prove that she's done it.

In recent years, my mother and I have shared secret fantasies of exacting revenge on the other women in my family for her exile. In one scenario, mom is charged with the task of keeping the men out of the oven and away from the bird throughout the day. My mom deceptively offers an air of pride and determination when assigned the task, but when my father comes by almost hourly to open the oven door and inhale the heady aroma of roasting bird, she steps aside and answers my dad’s wink with a smile. He doesn’t know he’s become party to our vengeance. When, five hours later, my aunt complains about how long the turkey is taking to cook, my mom mimics her confusion and frustration. “Maybe the oven thermostat is broken,” I hear my mother suggest. She doesn’t protest when, exasperated, my Aunt removes the bird well before its time. At dinner, the two of us sit back and enjoy the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. We don’t eat any turkey. Wouldn't be prudent.

Why does everyone pick on Google?

In his article "Is Google Making Us Stupid," Nicholas Carr opines the loss of critical reading skills and, for lack of better phrasing, a healthy reading "stamina". He aims his finger at Google, allowing it to stand in for the whole of cyberspace. Personally, I think his finger is misdirected. But I do agree that the reading public today suffers from infantile attention spans, as well as an insatiable appetite for "shallow."

I hear it from students all the time--"this article was too long . . ." and "I had to take a break after the first few pages." Just last class, when I offered a warning to my students that Monday's assigned reading was long and they shouldn't procrastinate, a student called to my attention that Carr's article, when pasted into word, was a whopping 11 pages! (; ;) While I made light of the complaint, I'm sure I didn't hide my astonishment very well. When did 11 pages of text become "long"?

I don't fault my students, not really. They have, as Carr notes, grown up using the internet which does reduce the written word to small chunks of information, to headlines, to hyperlinks, and the like which all can be accessed at lightning speed. They also txt which also delivers communication, abbreviated communication, in as little time as it takes to tap "send"--unless, that is, they have Sprint, in which case it could take HOURS to deliver that text message. My point is that students have been immersed their entire lives in communication that yields immediate satisfaction--whatever one's purpose. I don't like this any more than Carr does, and I will continue to assign these terribly long and boring articles (because I think there's something to be learned from the experience of reading a long, boring text in the same way I think there's something to be learned from reading a short blog entry [something I've still not been able to master], an interactive website, a personal text message). Because, as one of my students mentioned in her blog, we can and should be both. Yes, we sometimes want and deserve to consume texts rapidly, but we also need to be able to sustain a reading of a longer text when the situation demands--like when we sign a lease on a car, or enroll in a class and receive a syllabus. To decide one is not going to read these sometimes lengthy documents is to place ourselves in a fairly vulnerable (and stupid) position.

What's audience got to do with it? Flower and Hayes's Cognition of Discovery

Flower and Hayes's piece represents a body of cognitive research about writing conducted in the 70s. While the discipline has recognized the problems of such research (for example, the think aloud protocol can be incomplete at best), studies such as "Cognition of Discovery" have no doubt provided a rich foundation for learning how to improve both writing and writing instruction.

For me, the main idea I take away from this article is that audience awareness is of great import if one is to become a successful writer--and by successful, I mean that the written text has its intended effect, whatever that entails. The expert writers recognized they had an audience that extended beyond the lab and researchers who assigned the writing task. They spent time considering what the audience would be interested in reading, how to present the topic to that audience, and how to style the text (including crafting a writerly voice) to match the audience's interests and needs. The novice writers gave little consideration to such matters.

This finding coincides with what I also have noticed during my teaching career. Often times, students think very narrowly about audience--the audience is the teacher and perhaps classmates. This is not necessarily the fault of the students, however. Most instructors, (English or otherwise, in middle school, high school, or college), rarely think about audience or exigence beyond the classroom when they assign papers. Instead, they design writing prompts which are intended to see how much a student knows about the course subject matter. But does that mean the student writer must then not think about the audience? I'd say not.

While it is always preferable to approach even fabricated classroom-based rhetorical situations as having potential audiences and exigence outside the classroom, we can write and write well in response to an assignment described above by inserting ourselves into the academic discourse of the discipline and participating as if we are equals to our professors and the scholars we have studied. In responding to writing prompts that cater to regurgitation of class content, we should strive to present our knowledge honestly. But we should also looks for ways to build on that knowledge, first by evaluating and then by asking questions of the content. Where do gaps or discrepencies exist in research and or information? What might these gaps and discrepencies mean? In doing this, we move ourselves out the realm of discovery-as-finding into the realm of discovery-as-creation, which is ultimately the idea Flower and Hayes used to structure and justify their study. Creating is a challenge, especially for an undergraduate who is still finding his/her way into the daunting world of academia. But it is a challenge I hope all students will meet head on.

On keeping a blog

I've never been one to keep a journal or diary. I'm not a "gushy feely" kind of person, and I rather pride myself on being self-unaware (a joke between my husband and myself). So to put my feelings on paper would feel a bit like a betrayal of self. But I have to admit, there is something very appealing about unleashing these bits of myself into cyberspace.

I have three academic blogs and one rather anonymous blog I keep for personal writing. Now, admittedly, I don't fill my personal blog with mush and gush. Rather, I use it to vent (about how wicked mean my aunts are to my mother) and to amuse myself and whoever else happens to find it. Having spent the last twenty years of my life writing academic papers, I have found it cathartic to be able to write about more shallow, less consequential things (such as how I think filesharing has transfered power from record executives to artists-where it should be--or how much I love the fact that it takes two hours longer to cook a Thanksgiving turkey in my house because my dad can't stop himself from opening the oven on the hour to inhale the heady aroma of roasting bird).

But perhaps more than anything, I am drawn to the potential audience of blogs--anonymous, bored, self-possessed surfers of the web. I often wonder about the search or series of clicks they followed to encounter my blog. Did I pop up under search results for Thanksgiving turkeys? Or has someone in a webring devoted to filesharing linked to an entry? The more I ponder these issues, the more I want to write, to reach out to those faceless readers who, sometimes, I've been able to connect with enough to compel them to comment on a post. And that, my readers, is a rather empowering thing, don't you think?