Friday, February 5, 2010

Rush-Write

What is the rhetorical intent of our Seeing and Writing textbook?

Post your rush-write as a comment to this post.

18 comments:

  1. The rhetorical intent of the Seeing and Writing textbook is to use visuals as well as text to persuade the reader towards a certain viewpoint. The pictures in the text help us to better understand the power of rhetoric in visuals as well as the written word. The text is usually in response to another work, such as a piece of art. One example of how the text was able to enhance the art was in the “Badge of Honor” piece. The interview with the artist give new meaning to the piece and was able to explain the artist’s intent in creating the “Badge of Honor” exhibit. The textbook also gives us examples of written works created with rhetorical intent. These help us to see how rhetoric is used in writing and how we can make our own rhetoric stronger.

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  2. I think that the texts in “Seeing and Writing” sometimes serve the point of the Devil’s advocate, allowing you to think about the pictures in a new way. One specific example of this was with the photographs of scenes from the United States (Mount Rushmore, the bus stop, the old store and whatever the last one was). Each of them had some kind of a meaning you could attach but when you added the text, it was very easy to get an entirely different meaning from them.

    This, to me, is an example of the intent that “Seeing and Writing” has. Its purpose is to allow students to think about a topic in a different way to help them to strengthen critical thinking skills. By just having an image (in many cases) I find myself just focusing on that and interpreting it in the way that my ideology allows. But many times, through the text I am given an entirely different interpretation that enhances, not destroys, my own.

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  3. I think that is is amazing how well the Seeing and Writing book uses differnt media to show rhetoric. I will admitt that I was doubtful as to how much help the book would actuallly be. Part of this was because of all the pictures that I saw as I flipped through the pages. I read the section on Taking Pictures, and realized that I agreed with the author in the use of them. By having pictures with the text, you get two views of the same concept. At first it may look like they don't go together, but it causes you to stop and think about the subject to try and find the relationship between them. I love the quote where it says about photography "it is a way of a least tacitly, often explicitly, encourageing whatever is goin on to keep on happening." Picutres make concepts and moments last forever, and thus always keep them in your mind.

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  4. The rhetorical intent of the Seeing and Writing textbook to combine the use of visuals with the written text. They are trying to prove that text combined with visuals creates a greater impact than just having words alone. We are a very visual people and visuals can stir a great amount of emotion within us. Images can say much more and portray much more than words alone can express. If an author is trying to move their audience to some sort of action, the use of pathos is a create motivator. Also, often the use of visuals can completely change the context of the text. The text or the image can mean one thing alone, but when combined they can create a greater effect or even destroy whatever it was that the other was trying to portray.

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  5. In my opinion, the Seeing and Writing Textbook seems not only to be a writing aid, but also works at expanding the viewpoints and minds of the readers. While it offers up a veritable plethora of reading examples and photography for analysis, it can be said that a great deal of the chosen examples are those that are unusual or even completely unfamiliar to Middle America. Photographic examples are often rife with distant landscapes and foreign troubles while text examples frequently feature the lifestyles and thoughts of ethnically diverse individuals, such as the essay written by the Indian-American writer. Because the user of Seeing and Writing is expected to analyse these examples instead of simply glossing over them, the author of Seeing and Writing appears to have expected the reader to learn something about life and people beyond that of simply learning how to write to them.

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  6. The rhetorical intent of the Seeing and Writing textbook is very evident. The book uses ethos, logos and pathos in the different sections or articles. The texts are all similar because they all use some sort of rhetorical device to get the idea across. The visuals overall show the rhetorical devices. You see a picture and you either like it or you don’t. Then you go and read the article about it and somehow the article imprints these new ideas in your head. You go back to look at the picture and you see something you didn’t see before. You have new found respect for it. It means something more than a picture of a bus stop, or of a cluttered room. You see the person who created it, and what inspired it all in one. The use of the rhetorical devices in the article embeds these new ideas that flow and create ideas of their own. They give new emotions or logic. They make the artist seem to know the subject in and out. They increase understanding of the way the world is. The rhetorical devices creep into your mind and plant these new thoughts whether you realize it or not. You can fight the ideas, but they are still there being pushed around by your mind’s eye. The rhetorical intent of the book is to show through using rhetorical devices the way that they influence people.

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  8. "Photography has almost become as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing." Wow what an attention getter. An the reading went one the importance of photography and how it is an event that captures a moment in time are discussed. Their stories and lives are documented for all to see. Then the photos on the following pages each tell a story of the people inside it. In the posed photos we choose how we represent ourselves. But in the candid shots, we are represented how we really are.

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  9. I think that the rhetorical intent of this book is to use different pieces of art to illustrate opinions. Many times we do not get to see a picture and know the story behind it or know what inspired the literature. Through the use of both imagery and text this book gives readers more perspectives which may improve the chance of influencing and enlightening people. Also there are many sections in which several different photographs are used which I think is good because different personalities will be hooked by different subjects. For example the pages with all the different people with their cars would interest some, yet others may be more apt to look at an old photograph of a woman and learn its background. Having an image with a description or story along with it can be much more powerful.

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  11. The texts in the book "Seeing and Writing" combine very well to make the entire book a pleasure to read. They all coherently and cohesively fit together to make a unified text that presents how writing, the world, and art all fit together nicely into a stimulating experience, should one but look around oneself day by day and see everything that is going on. It makes the audience, i.e. the reader, want to see everything that the authors describe, see everything that the artists see, and understand what the text overall is trying to achieve by putting all of these elements in together.

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  12. The seeing and writing book as is all about understanding things in a new way. Everything that they have is a presented in its original form but also has a analysis for you to go to and compare with. Many times it has a visual that help you understand the text that you are reading. It is interesting that they never give you the analysis or the explanation first but rather let you try and understand what you are seeing.
    A lot of the chapters try and have you find similarities or differences between pieces of writing. You are trying to look for a central theme that links everything and be able to understand it. The thing I love most about this is the cover. It makes a ton of observations that are really not that amazing. They are trying demonstrate that you don’t have to have some great epiphany in order to write about something. You just have to look at it and ask questions. All the elements in the book are open to interpretation by your views. That is what makes this book unique. If there were not words already on the front of the book I would see something different then the author did. An English book in high school called this lens of life.

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  13. Rush Write
    I would have to say that the Rhetorical intent of the Seeing and Writing text book is to help students or readers to come to understand writing styles and Rhetoric by using real literature, or real forms of art that have been even published to creatively help us learn more clearly, real life examples of Rhetoric. The Text are all very different at times and yet they all work together to help us understand and analyze a writer piece and the writing tools behind it. The visuals of are great help adding to the understanding of what is happening and rhetoric tools that are available for us to use. I found that in the piece we read “Imagining Homelands” which had no visual, many of the audience at the time (us) found it hard and difficult to read.

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  15. Rush Write
    When I think about the Rhetorical intent of the Seeing and Writing textbook, I think about how the visuals and text are intertwined. Take any article in the textbook that has an analysis with a photo. Without the text, what would the picture be like? It would be an average picture with a million different interpretations. But with the text, the picture can be elaborated on. Text describes the visuals, possibly taking them to a different level than if they had otherwise not been written about. It goes the other way too. Visuals have the power to complete text. Sometimes rhetorical text has an added value when a visual is paired with it. You simply cannot get the same effect with a different context. Actually, what comes to mind is a sculpture by Michelangelo, The Pieta. I’ve seen the Pieta in Italy and have had the chance to research about Michelangelo and his works. The Pieta would not have the same emotional effect if it was in a different context, such as a painting. The 3-Dness of it makes in unique, powerful, and textured. Something unique about The Pieta is that is has writing on it. It is the only statue of Michelangelo’s that he signed. With that little piece of text, many conclusions have been drawn. From those few letters, one can conclude that Michelangelo was a zealous artist that was eager for recognition. Or maybe he was a proud young man. Or maybe it goes along with the legend that Michelangelo overheard a crowd talking about how the sculpture was created by a more famous artist, and that Michelangelo wanted to make sure he wasn’t confused with someone else. This is just one example I thought of that presented a deeper meaning added due to text paired with a visual.

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  16. The whole book of seeing and writing has a lot of pictures which truthfully didn't make sense to me for an English class. But after reading sections from the book the pictures with articles add a boost to the overall effect. It has more meaning. An example of this comes from my reading about Taking Pictures. Its starts off with an article talking about how important the camera is, how it needs to be at every event making lasting memories. The picture of the tourists demonstrates that point. The next pictures are that of birthday parties where a person went to different parts of the world to celebrate his birthday. The next article talks of how pictures can be misleading. You can look like you are the happiest person alive in a picture while really you are not. It then has pictures of girls making funny faces. The picture might not show the "real you." Momaday talks of a lady who did not like her picture because she did not think it really represented her. The last article talks of how this memory of a picture was actually the wrong memory. The whole point of this unit about pictures is that picutres have became an important part of events and daily lives. But these pictures can be misleading and forgotten. But the pictures add to the article as well as the article adds to the picture.

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  17. The rhetorical intent of the seeing and writing textbook is to convince its reader to realize the depth of communication. The content is diverse and demonstrates communication spawning for any feasible situation. The text has a combination of both visual and writing elements; however, both mediums communicate with audiences, so the same concepts are employed. The text adopts a sort of avant-garde feel, with pictures of random old ladies, bus stops, collages of various dainty squares, and full page images with no explanation, (probably to keep focus on the image). It seems to me that the authors try to make their style cool and appealing to young college students. It worked for me; I enjoy the text.

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  18. The rhetorical intent of the Seeing and Writing textbook is to demonstrate the significance of visuals and design to make a piece of writing more palatable. Particularly in "new media", readers have difficulty reading long, uninterrupted articles.

    The book also demonstrates the value of visual art to enrich the content. For example, the piece involving pictures of quaint, idyllic, or pedestrian scenes conveys a new perspective on those scenes in the text. The two media compliment one another.

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