The Only Real Alternative to War is Rhetoric.

     Hey all, I recently stumbled across a book called "Everyone’s an Author" by Andrea Lunsford, and it really is a very interesting read. In the first two chapters, Lunsford expands upon the ideas of Wayne Booth, who said "The only real alternative to war is rhetoric". According to Lunsford, thinking rhetorically means to take a text for example, think about what is being said in the text, gather your own research and information on the text, and then when you have a substantial amount of information regarding the topic of the text, you can form your own response and opinion in regards to what was read.
In addition to thinking rhetorically, Lunsford explains how it is important to be able to analyze what you find - what he calls doing your homework. A good example would probably be buying a new laptop. Before you can just go out and buy any old laptop, you need to step back, assess the situation, and ask yourself important questions to narrow down your search and find the one most suited for you. What is your primary reason for getting a new laptop? Do you need it for work or for a special program? Are you going to be sharing it with others? After you ask the basic motivational questions, you then need to actually start researching the specs of some laptops. Which has more efficient battery life? Which has more programs beneficial to your needs? Which brand/type gives you more bang for your buck? Prioritizing your wants and needs can also help you to narrowing down your search. This example is really what we should all be doing when we think rhetorically and we need to analyze it.
Now, getting more in depth: what is a rhetorical situation? A rhetorical situation is where we have the following: a genre, an audience, a purpose, a stance, context, a medium, and design. Genre is simply the topic the situation is reflecting or based on. The audience is whoever the situation is aimed at and who's attention is trying to be grabbed. Purpose and stance is basically why are you in this situation and what is your place in the situation (think persuading your friend to go to see your favorite movie: your purpose of persuading her is so that you can see the movie, and your stance is in favor of your favorite movie). Context is what is known about the topic of your situation and what has already been discussed about it. Medium and design is where the situation is occurring (spoken, digital, print, media, etc) and how you will arrange it so that the design attracts your intended audience.
A good example of the rhetorical situation and these elements in play is when Lunsford refers to the works of Watson and Crick in their discovery of DNA. They sent in an essay to a magazine that was widely read and revered by the professional science community (their intended audience). They carefully introduced their findings with words like "we suggest" and "in our opinion" and even politely denies the findings of a past scientist. Their use of a subtle approach to the new structure of DNA caught the attention of more readers than if they had just blatantly refuted their peers findings and arrogantly proclaimed that they were the only two right. They knew that in order to gain popularity from their audience they had to write in a respectful and approachable way.
What I think Lunsford is trying to convey is that it is extremely important for writers to think rhetorically. Without careful consideration of the context, audience, genre, and even medium, what is written might not be as good as it could be. It won't be as impactful or as attention-grabbing. By thinking rhetorically, a writer can take the right steps in writing a piece that will be successful in conveying their opinion, and eliciting discussion from the intended audience.
Now, do some rhetorical thinking of your own and read the chapters (linked above), and tell me what you think!

This Just In: "Children Have a Sensory Need to Taste Danger and Excitement"

     When I was younger, I've had the privilege of getting to play outside either through the streets of my neighborhood, or out by the river bank upstate. But get this: my mother was no where to be found. Shocking, right? I can already see the angry parents with pitchforks and torches outside my mother's door. Fortunately for me, my mother was never a "helicopter parent" (which is a phrase I'll get to in a few, I promise). I was allowed to roam the streets with my friends, and walk around with the town kids, I was allowed to build make-shift tree swings, all while my mom was at home, watching TV, cooking dinner, or doing whatever else suited her fancy. It's not that she didn't care about me or my whereabouts - in fact, it's quite the opposite. She always incorporated independent development into my childhood. For instance, when we went to a deli, pizza place, or drugstore, she'd give me the money to buy my things and had me go to the cashier myself. My mom encouraged my own independent playtime and social time because she knew it was an essential part of growing up.
     Hanna Rosin, author of "The Overprotected Kid", said that, "children have a sensory need to taste danger and excitement". Rosin talks about unsupervised risky play and how playing alone in an open environment is needed for a child to fully develop and overcome fears without their parents looming over them all the time. I completely agree, and my childhood experience is a prime example of that. While I'll spare you ALL the details of my very adventurous childhood, I will tell you about what I feel is the most important: playing with fire. Even Rosin explains that fire is not necessarily a bad thing for children to be around. In fact, it actually can help them learn control and responsibility. I have had many experiences with fire growing up. My family has a summer home upstate. It's a tiny two room house built by my great grandfather with no heat and electricity only during the warm weather. Fire was a big part of my summer experience because without fire we'd be freezing our toes off in 30 and 40 degree weather when the sun went down. I had to learn at an early age how to start a fire in our fire-burning oven, and how to maintain one in both the small oven and the giant fire pit out in the backyard. One time, while my mother was on the other side of the house getting a barbecue ready for dinner, I decided that I'd invite my friends from the town over to the fire pit so we could have a barbecue of our own. I told my mom I was heading out, and went to all my friend's houses. Soon enough I had a group of kids from the neighborhood following me to my backyard. All my mom said was, "have fun, be careful!" So with my little group, we took sticks and marshmallows (all the hot dogs were being used by my mom) and went down to the fire pit. I added some small sticks to the fire in addition to the few logs in there from the night before, then put some paper plates and cardboard just like I've seen my mom and grandpa do a bunch of times. We stuck marshmallows on long skinny twigs and roasted them over the fire. At one point, my marshmallow was melting off my stick and was going to fall into the fire. So, with my child thought process, I decided that I really needed to save my delicious treat from falling into the fire. I caught the red-hot marshmallow, hit my arm on the edge of the fire pit, and got a burn on the side of my arm as a result. My friends thought they were going to get in trouble, so they were all running home within a few seconds of the incident. I towed my stick up the hill to my mom and told her what happened. I didn't cry, I didn't want my mom to think that I was too much of a baby for the fire pit. My mom just sighed, told me that now I know what not to do around a fire, and then wrapped my arm in a bandage with soothing cream on it. Nothing else from her; no scolding, no lecture, just a shrug and a simple exchanging of words. The burn on my arm didn't kill me, nor did it cause some life shattering problem. It was just a burn and I learned not to go too close to the edge of the metal fire pit.
     My little fire fiasco as a kid growing up was something that I felt was dangerous, as well as exciting. I was controlling something that could hurt me. It was scary and rewarding. When I started to get a little too comfortable around fire, I learned my lesson. I don't cower and hide around a candle or a flame, and I still continue to spend my time upstate around that fire pit. Unsupervised risky play is essential to a child's development. Exposing children to simple "dangers" won't suddenly kill them or have some terrible effects on them. It teaches them how to be responsible, and how to handle themselves around dangerous (and not so dangerous) situations. Being around fire, I learned what to do and what not to do, how to start it, put it out, lower the flames, and stop it from smoking too much. I've gotten tons of burns, and it hasn't induced an uncontrollable fear of fire (unlike some children I know who are only scared because their parent's never let them go near it). Because of my experience, I am more independent and I know how to take care of myself when my mom can't be there, and probably most importantly I know not to save my drooping marshmallows from their fiery fate.
     A very important part of my experience was the fact that my mom didn't overreact. It's not that she didn't care enough to freak out, because she did in fact care a lot. The main reason why I don't make a scene whenever things don't go my way or whenever I get a little bruise is because my mom taught me to handle small problems on my own, and that complaining and seeking extreme attention will get you nowhere. I see this especially when I think about the way my aunt treats my cousin. Growing up, I'd always witness my aunt overreacting over my cousin's every scrape and cut as though it was the end of the world. My cousin picked up on the attention that her mother gave her every time little things went wrong, and would make a big scene every time something happened. She'd trip and fall and be crying for hours as her mom did everything from getting ice to getting her ice cream just to calm her down. Everything was the end of the world for my cousin, and she knew that if she cried and depended on her mother, eventually she'd get what she wanted. Now starting high school, she has had a rude awakening as she realized that the world does not revolve around her and her every need. This dependance she developed for her mom has inhibited her ability to take care of herself and handle situations maturely and independently. My mom's nurturing yet calm reaction to my fire incident taught me how to fix myself up if I get hurt, and that it's not the end of the world if I get a little burn. My mother went back to allowing me to play alone, which was important because I was allowed to socialize and test out different social skills by myself without having to depend on her to help me make friends or to solve issues (unlike my aunt, who called the parents of whoever made my cousin mad that day, and solved the issues for her).
     Unsupervised risky play is absolutely a necessary tool for children to grow and develop. Without allowing children to make decisions socially and allow them to explore their environment on their own, they are coddled into depending on their parents and are uneducated in fixing their own situations without relying on the help of others. Specifically fire, because in the right environment fire is a great way to help kids learn responsibility and make them feel like they are in control of a task. The only downside to fire is they could get burned, but no normal child would continuously keep putting their hand over the fire after the first time it happens (trust me, I am proof that children are smarter than you think when they learn firsthand just how hot fire is). So parents, do me a favor and let your kids off their leash for a while. Let them explore and play by themselves with other children. Don't hover over them and act like the world is collapsing when they get a minor cut. If they do something stupid, chances are they learned their lesson and wont do it again, so no need to try to take it away from them (it'll only make them want it/want to do it more, I promise you). And finally, trust your kids. They don't need to have their hands held throughout their entire life. They can take care of themselves, trust me.
     Even after the marshmallow disaster, I still spend time with my neighborhood friends at that fire pit to talk and have a good time, especially before going off to college. In fact, I'll probably be back there in a week or so too before the snow falls to catch up with them about school, drama, life, and really good s'mores.


















   

Shitty First Drafts

     Prior to reading Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott, I felt as though my first drafts of any kind were supposed to be immaculate - the holy grail of drafts. I felt pressured to impress my peers who helped edit and my superiors who were supposed to evaluate and revise with me. Even with personal writing, I used to get frustrated when the words weren't forming into the magnitude of thought and emotion in my head. I was a mess, to be honest, and still am a mess (sometimes). But after reading Anne's wonderful little article on what's known as the "shitty first draft", my eyes have been opened to a whole new way of looking at the dreaded first draft.
     Lamott uses what she describes as the child's draft approach, where you just get it all out there and let your thoughts and feelings on the topic run wild and free. Then you can edit and fix it up, take tidbits of your child-like mess of a draft, and construct a well-flowing piece of writing. I had never thought to just spill out everything I had to say and then work from there. For a long time I've just been struggling with trying to make sense of it all in my head rather than just getting it all down and looking at it fresh on paper.
     This is something that I've been utilizing with my draft for my seminar on risky play. Instead of my usual struggle to get down a perfect first draft, I went about it the child way and just wrote down whatever I thought on the topic and my experiences with risky play. From there, I found a lot of quotes and pieces that I would be able to bulk up in my essay and expand upon. I also found the best personal experience to use regarding risky play (for the life of me I couldn't decide what childhood story would work best, but getting it ALL out on paper really worked)!
    In my honest opinion, the shitty first draft is now officially something I look forward to rather than something I dread. I encourage everyone to read Lamott's article, especially those struggling with the writing process. If you get rid of the idea that the draft has to be some sacred text of perfection, and focus on letting your inner child wreak havoc on the page instead, I promise you that you'll never look at the first draft the same way again. Who knows, you might even look forward to it!

Sounds and Words: Finding the Unique "Sounds" of Blogger's Writing Styles

     Upon reading a few blogs, and noticing their distinct word choices, structure style, and their flow of the post itself, I decided to post about what type of sound each blog writer would be. The blog posts from Alex Horton, Chicago Pop, and James Loeffler, definitely have individual sounds that are unique to how they write.

    Alex Horton's writing style, based on his post "On Getting By" would definitely be a trombone. As he is writing, I can imagine the feeling of a deep, inviting, and regal-like sound coming from the writing. A lot of elements are in play to help contribute to this classy-style sound, like his military status and the dark colors on his blog, but mostly the way he talks. His style of writing is very dignified, yet speaks to the reader as though he's close friends with them.

     Similarly, James Loeffler emits a classy cello sound based on his writing. When I hear cello, I hear classy, regal, black-tie event type sounds. Loeffler has the writing appearance of a wise old soul, who is completely presidential in his words and structure. When reading his blog post, I could practically hear the deep, formal vibrations of the cello playing.

    Lastly and probably most different, Chicago Pop's blog post gave me a happy and comical feeling,  like an intro to a family sitcom from the 80s. His funny, and talk-speech type way of writing makes him inviting, like an old hilarious friend. His blog post takes readers on a journey through a chunk of his life, almost like the stereotypical theme music from The Brady Bunch or Leave It To Beaver.

     All writers have a specific sound, and this is just an example of how unique every writer can be.

The Real Writer, Battling The Illusion Of The Inspired Writer

      Hello all! I recently read an article which I'm sure many of my readers can relate to called The Inspired Writer Vs. the Real Writer by Sarah Allen. Allen focuses on how real writing is not how many people perceive writing to be. While many believe in what she calls "the Inspired Writer": the writer with precise clean lines and prose where writer's block isn't even heard of. Although a lot of people (especially those who feel their academic writing skills are not up to par) can envision any professional writer as this god-like being, they'd be surprised to know that it's usually not the case. Allen discusses how her colleagues also suffered from poor writing skills, and - to my surprise - even Allen herself has suffered from the perils of writing throughout her undergraduate education.
     This took me back to my junior year of high school, after three years of rigorous writing classes which centered around essays and grammatical structure, my writing skills were put to the test in a college-level philosophy course. Learning about philosophy was intriguing, and fun, but out of nowhere halfway through the course my professor reminded the class of the 12 page paper "we should be starting soon." Even though I had previous experience with writing, I felt extremely underprepared for 12 pages of non-stop writing on the morality of torture. I was bewildered. Torture? Really? All that was running through my head was: how can anyone ever write 12 pages on whether or not torture is morally justified?! In the end, I only managed to achieve a B on the paper, after pages and pages of just reiterating what I already covered in the very beginning. I felt it was near impossible to expand so much on a topic to cover 12 pages. With my bad experience over with though, I've been constantly mentally preparing myself for the workload college has to offer (like the 8 page essay that's set to be due on my birthday, uh oh!).
     Allen gave me hope though, when describing a similar distaste for writing while also expanding on why she writes anyway despite all the nauseating work that goes into it. She says, "...there's the emotion, revelation, clench of teeth, slackening of shoulders, or any other response, that a text elicits from even it's own writer." This is important to me, because although I find writing to be a pain, all the work that goes into it is definitely worth it in the end when your best end work shines through the rubble of rough drafts and trashed ideas.
     Something I also found interesting about Allen was her "formula" for writing about academic topics. She introduces the idea of imitating other writers, specifically ones who you feel are superior to you in terms of writing. Now, the vague idea of it sounds like it's borderline plagiarism, but I see what she means. Allen doesn't mean just taking people's ideas and writings, she means that the writers we look up to we should be influenced by. She talks about a writer from which she uses the same structure when writing a paper. Clearly, if you consider a writer to be phenomenal, there must be something structurally they're doing right, and you should take that in and allow yourself to be influenced by that for the sake of bettering your own writing. It shouldn't cloud your voice, rather it will make your voice and ideas heard more clearly.
     Other than imitating, she also discusses the importance of getting another person's opinion on your writing. Not just have your friend or mom take a look at it, but really ask your professor or another person who is a professional writer to revise your work and see what needs to be changed. It's important to get your professors input to see what needs to be changed to get the best grade, but also another person to help make it more of a working text to be graded.
     This article made me feel much better and much more prepared for academic writing in a college setting, and most importantly allowed me to let go of the illusion of the "Inspired Writer". I hope it's done the same for you guys, my readers, and best of luck to you when your next writing assignment is leaving you stressed and feeling inadequate.

The Play Deficit

     After reading The Play Deficit  by Peter Gray, I'm surprised that there's someone other than Rosin who is encouraging the use of risky play; every adult seems to want to restrict their children more and more these days so some new stance on the area of children's freedom is refreshing. Similarly to Rosin, he talks about his days as a child, roaming around with pure freedom in his neighborhood, knowing his parent's only concern is him being home in time for dinner. Rather than using the phrase "risky play" as Rosin does, he refers to this type of play as "hunter-gatherer". He explains it as having to make compromises and decisions without the help or reliance of his parents, and how his time playing unsupervised with other kids of various ages in his neighborhood helped him to discover rights and wrongs, and a great deal of problem solving. He stresses the importance of hunter-gatherer play with the example of young animals and how they play a lot more than adult animals. Gray talks about the zebra, and how like many prey animals, partake in play focused on dodging and running. This, Gray theorizes, is how they learn to run from predators, which he labels "practice theory of play".

     Gray's stance on children's play, although explained differently, directly parallels Rosin's article in the reasons why children need risky play and hunter-gatherer play. Although Gray doesn't explicitly discuss the importance of implementing dangerous aspects such as Rosin suggests with fire, both explain that free play is something very crucial to a child's development. It allows them to figure out the world on their own in small ways with other children, and the unsupervised aspect allows them to break out of their shells and do things they normally would shy away from if their parents were looming over their shoulder. It promotes independence, social skills, and respect for others. Both Rosin and Gray perfectly execute the same idea of the need for more unsupervised playtime as a child is growing and developing.

     While Rosin leans more towards the idea of dangerous factors in risky play helping children overcome fears and develop independence, and Gray focuses on the importance of hunter-gatherer play (which is excruciatingly similar to risky play, I promise you) and how it can teach a child important skills and is a very good tool for learning, they both conclude that unsupervised play of any sort, and allowing children to get a feel of the world on their own without the burden of their parent's short leash is crucial to a child's development and igniting their independence.