Rhetorical situations and analysis

If I were to explain what a rhetorical situation is to one of my friends, I would tell them that it is a series of rhetorical events that should be explained in context. It has a certain audience, a problem to address, and explanations. If i were to explain to them what a rhetorical analysis is I would tell them that it is broken down to help you better know what you are reading. The writer breaks it down into four categories, which consists of writer, reader, text, and medium.

When you are writing online, I think you mostly appeal to ethos because credibility is especially important online considering there are many things online that are false. Also, you should make sure that what you are saying is true which is what ethos explains. You want to make sure its your own words and the truth.

The definition of kairos could be said to be the right moment. In other words, its an action thats fitting within its cultural environment.

Based on this reading, some modern concerns I see with the weblog would be that people may misinterpret them or they could flip the stories around. People use weblogs to post things whether it be anonymously for the sake of just writing or it be for others to actually read. Either way, anyone can read your posts and that could turn into being a very good thing or a very bad thing. My concerns would be that it is so easy for someone to find anything they want to know about you on media these days, especially if your blogging about yourself, which could either get you in trouble or even worse could get you hurt.

In the reading it talks about contemporary social forces that promote mediated voyeurism. There are three main points that are: pursuit of truth, desire of excitement, and the need for involvement. Voyeurism is important when it comes to weblogs because theres always that chance that you could see something that shouldn't be there, something inappropriate maybe. That could be apart of the desire of excitement.

Three questions I have about the reading are: Why are people so naive as to what they put on any type of media? Why should voyeurism be important? Why have reality shows become so popular now?

While watching the question and answering for Obama, many of the politicians would compare Obama to past presidents. When they would ask Obama questions, they would resort back to saying the a former president did it a different way, or ask him why he wasn't doing it the same way as a past president. Also, I discovered that the politicians would compare present Obama to himself in previous years.

Some of the Questions the politicians would ask Obama were about tax relief. The first man who asked him a question asked why he wasn't doing it like Kennedy. Paul talked about the idea of increasing spending by 84%. Shelly talked more about tax increases. Jason talked a lot about how he said he was going to do a certain thing, and never actually did.

The tone of the speakers shifted between each of the politicians. The first guy had more of a sad approach and he used more of pathos to talk to the president. Paul Ryan was more informational and stuck to the numbers. Shelly was very negative and had a lot to say. Last, Jason was mad and he was very disappointed. He even told the president that. He also had a lot to say.

An example of Logos would be when they talked about tax increases or decreases on spending. But if they did so, businesses would go out of business and people could lose their jobs. So president Obama wanted to wait another year. Pathos, I gave an example in the previous paragraph, about the first speaker. Lastly, an example of ethos when president Obama talked about how the economists need to back up claims for employment.

The blog I chose to write about is a fashion blog called The Thought Process of Getting Dressed. The title explains the whole blog. Its about a woman who is trying to figure out what to wear to work. She has a very long thought process about all of the things that could play a role when picking out an outfit. This blog is very relatable to everyone, because everyone may go through something like the woman in the blog does in their everyday life. She contemplates all of the things that could affect what she's going to wear to work, whether it be the weather, the distance she has to walk, what she feels most comfortable in, etc. She wakes up late and thinks to herself, "Now I definitely won't have time to fix my hair" and goes on and on about the outfits she could possibly wear. She tries on at least five different outfits and still wants to change at the end.

I think the ideal audience for my blog would be woman in their late twenties who live in the city. I think this because the woman from the blog thinks about what to wear based off of having to walk 89 blocks to get to where she is trying to go. She doesn't want to take a taxi because she hates them. So, she thinks about her shoes and she says she doesn't want to wear heels because that would suck to walk 89 blocks in. Also, the designers and types of clothing she talks about wearing are very popular and pretty expensive, so you have to believe that she has a well paid job. Woman in their latex twenties would relate to this blog the most, so I feel that they would be a good audience for this blog.

After looking at the comments on the blog, I realize that the audience actually is women in their late twenties. They all find the blog very relatable. They find the blog very funny because its exactly how they act and react in the morning when they are trying to figure out what to wear. They seem to value that the blogger is actually just like them and it helps that its so relatable to woman, so there are more readers because of that.

I think that the blog works well with the audience because it is so relatable. I can even relate to it but in a different way. I can relate to it because i still have a thought process of getting dressed in the morning but before school and not work. It may take a long time to get ready in the morning and I too, change my outfit a few times. But every girl does that. So that is why women that are older may relate to it more, because they aren't going to class, they are going to this job.

In this reading, James Paul Gee defines literacy as a very broad term that is made up of many parts including discourse, acquisition, and learning. He explains discourse as an "identity kit" which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act and talk so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize. Then, he compares acquisition and learning to each other. He says that acquisition is subconsciously acquiring something by exposing yourself to it without formal teaching, while learning involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching. He also explain primary and secondary discourse. Primary discourse he defines as oral mode developed in the primary process of enculturation and secondary discourse as involve social institutions beyond the family and require one to communicate with non-intimates (such as schools, workplaces, stores, government offices, businesses, churches, etc.). He then goes on to say that literacy is the control of secondary use of language or secondary discourse. He says that any discourse, primary or secondary, is for most people most of the time only mastered through acquisition, not learning.

I think that this did change my understanding of literacy because naturally you think that literacy would come from one who has taught you to be literate. But after reading this it made me think that literacy is more like common sense and in the fact that you should be exposed to it and that you learn more from it that way than you would if a teacher or someone would teach you. James Paul Gee says that acquisition is how one masters literacy and not learning. I think that this affects my own literacy story because it tells me that i've been thinking all wrong about what literacy is and how I master it. I should be focusing more of my surroundings and in the natural world more than in the teaching world. It tells me that I need to learn more from myself than from a teacher.

Ong argues many things in his writing. He starts off with saying "Literacy is imperious. It tends to arrogate to itself supreme power by taking itself as normative for human expression and thought." He talks about how literacy is used more in high-technology cultures. He argues a lot about how in our world, if a certain discourse or language mostly is not written down, they are not really literate. He says that is what most people think. But some people cane be orally literate and thats what most people think. He writes "of the 4,000 or so languages spoken today, only around 78 have a literature (Edmonson 1971: 332)" Ong goes on about this and shows how some people tried to teach orally literate people how to be literate in writing as well by giving them and alphabet and all that but they did not understand. He say that orally literate cultures are losing their languages because they have no way of remembering it really and that the languages that are being written down are most remembered, especially the history. Which is easier for them to remember so they can read, rather than just remembering a memory. He then goes on to say that if one were to say that language is writing, is uninformed.

I always knew I wanted to be on my high school's dance team, but I knew that getting my young, shy self to try out would be a battle. I knew that if I ever felt uncomfortable about something there was no way I was doing it. But the dance team was different, I told myself that I was going to try no matter what. To be honest, I was scared out of my mind. All of the older girls scared and intimidated me, not to even mention the head coach. She was a whole other level of intimidating. But even with all of this, I knew high school was going to be different and I wanted to start it out being apart of something. So whats better than to do what I love? Dancing was the perfect fit. To finally start getting ready for tryouts, my studio dance teacher helped me. We had private practices together to go over all of the things required to be able to do to make the team. I was starting to feel more confident about myself from these practices and I knew I had a fighting chance. I was ready to try out. I was ready for the next chapter in my life.

All throughout elementary school, I had the same best friend, Stephanie. We danced together and we were inseparable. We did duets and trios together and always danced in the large group dances together as well. When we got into sixth grade, our studio that we danced at together shut down. So we all had to find a new studio. Stephanie and I then chose different studios to dance at, and this is where complications started to happen. Stephanie and I started to drift apart. We were both so competitive with dance and competing against each other didn't help. We had different friend groups in middle school so we rarely saw each other. Then there started to get tension between us and eventually we stopped talking.

As tryouts started to roll around, I didn't know how it was going to be trying out with Stephanie. We rarely talked, and by that I mean we never talked. I knew that if we were going to start high school, we needed to grow up and move on from the past. So I decided to start being nice to her again and it made all the difference. We ended up becoming closer friends than we ever were before. My high school career would not have been the same without her by my side, whether if it was for dance or just a friend.

Getting ready for tryouts, in my private practices, we went over many different dance moves. Form a single turn, to a middle leap, to even seconds. I fought and I fought hard to make sure that I nailed all of the tricks and made sure they looked the best of my ability. All I can remember from that time is seeing and hearing my dance teacher tell me how well i've been doing and how well I was going to do. Seeing myself dance in the mirror of my studio, feeling the sweat drip down me as I worked as hard as I possibly could to be able to prove to the high dance coach that I belonged on the dance team. When tryouts rolled around, I remember seeing all the returning girls and the looks on their faces as they knew they were good, and they definitely were. I saw all of the new girls and the looks on their faces. I didn't stand out anymore because we were all nervous and scared together. This was good to know, because at least now I knew I wasn't the only one worried about the outcome at the end of the week. We listened to the same song for most of the week, learning our dance. I never forgot that dance or the song that went along with it. It is forever stuck in my head to remind me of my first tryout and the week that changed my life.

"I said we could have everything."
"we can have everything."
"no we can't."
"we can have the world."
"no we can't."
"we can go anywhere."
"no, we can't. it isn't ours anymore."
"its ours"
"no it isn't. and once they take it away, you can never get it back."
"but they haven't taken it away."

I like this dialogue because it shows the couple bickering and it shows how one of them is so optimistic and how the other one just shoots them down and tells them that their thoughts are not true. Hemingway's way of writing is different from other writers because he uses a lot of dialogue. Honestly, to me, I got a little confused about what he was talking about half way through the writing, so i had to go back and re read it to get more of an understanding of the reading and the meaning behind it. But i think he shows a realistic relationship and how they are not always perfect.

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-3052-9_37#page-1

This article is about dance and how it is a literacy. It talks about many things pertaining to dance and how someone could be literate in it. One thing it says is that, you don't have to be a good dancer to be literate in dance. He says "the literate person is sensitive to moving bodies and their meanings and willing to think and inquire about them." which is very true and I think that this article does a great job at trying to explain the literate people of dance and how it can be anyone but you mostly have to appreciate dance to understand it.

This article could help me with my paper and show value to it by giving the readers another explanation of how someone could be literate in dance. This article could show them how I may be literate in dance and have a reasonable explanation as to why and how I am.

Works Cited
Camerino, Oleguer. Mixed Methods Research in the Movement Sciences: Case Studies in Sport, Education and Dance. New York: Routledge, 2014. Book.
Cashmore, Ellis & Ernest. Making Sense of Sports. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2010. Book.
Dyck, Noel. Sport, Dance, and Embodied Identities. Simon Fraser University: Aug. 2003. Book.
Koutedakis, Yiannis. “The Dancer as a Performing Athlete.” Sports Medicine 34.10: 651-661. 1 Aug. 2004.
Morgan, William J. Ethics in Sport. United States: Human Kinetics, 2007. Book.
Murphy, Shane. Imagery in Sport, Exercise and Dance. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2008. Book.
Rowe, David. Sport, Culture & Media. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill International, 2003. Book.