John Duffy
“Think of writing as an activity that involves communicating information, or making an argument, or expressing a creative impulse.”
John Duffy
“But writing is equally an activity that involves ethical choices that arise from the relationship of writer and reader”~ John Duffy
While rereading, reviewing and discussing John Duffy’s excerpt from Naming What We Know, these two quotes stuck out to me. As I went through and reread Duffy’s excerpt, I learned that, while writing is a tool that can be used as a format for communication and expression of thought, it also has a deeper meaning… it’s that writing has this beautiful and amazing way to build human relationships, some that stem from the writer-reader relationship/experience, which express human values and virtues in the form of questions. Questions that Duffy states are “explicitly and deliberately, implicitly or unintentionally addressing what moral philosophers regard as ethical: What kind of person do I want to be? How should I treat others? How should I live my life”.
As a reader myself, these are types of questions that appear in most books that I read today or when I was younger, whether blatantly stated or disguised as underlying themes. An example of this that came to mind was when, in my Children’s Literature class, we read and discussed a picture book called “The Most Perfect Snowman” in which the author had hidden themes such as bullying, respect, and kindness in the context of the book. Another example is in the novel The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins, which depicts an underlying theme of what could go wrong if countries idolize and stress war. Now that I’m older and so-called “wiser”, although I might be still working on that term, I’ve learned that books that have that author-reader relationship, typically have hidden themes in them because author’s are trying to express their thoughts onto their readers and hope that they make an influence on them.
Brooke & Grabill
Playing off of Duffy’s excerpt and view on writing, where he believes that writing involves ethical choices and builds on this concept of human relationships, stemming from reader-writer responses and relationships, Brooke and Grabill take a completely different approach to writing, one where they believe writing has and always will be a “technology for thinking and communicating”. To me when I originally read this, my first thought was “ok, this is where things get a little dicey” because, let’s face it, when most people hear the words “technology” and “writing” together in the same sentence, they will most likely think that something bad or horrible is about to happen. But the further I read into the excerpt, the more I truly understood what Brooke and Grabill were trying to express to readers, it’s that writing can be described not identified as a form of technology. It’s one that enhances and innovates the way we build those major connections between writers and readers, specifically writers when they write. ( Duffy 1.8)
Brooke & Grabill explain this very early on in their excerpt, stating that “early inscription technologies enabled the organization of social practices (like commerce), and innovations in the organization of writing itself, such as the emergence of the book, helped create new social relationships”. What they mean by this, is that before technology was a thing, or, shall I say, had a big influence on the world around us, writing wasn’t something that was to be perused, like that of automobiles and kitchen appliances (Brooke & Grabill 1.9), but over time, as technology grew, it became the greatest thing that ever happened to humanity, as it started enhancing and innovating the way we saw, participated and communicated to each other through writing.
After finally going back and reviewing this excerpt, I finally understood this “picture” that Brooke and Grabill were painting for their readers, they were stressing this idea that writing has “tools to produce writing ( pens, keyboards) and those media where writing takes place (pages, books, screens) are all part of what we mean when we describe writing as a technology. Tools and Media shape what we are able to write and the ideas we can express, and they condition the expectations of those who read our writing”. Essentially telling readers that technology can be used as something that enhances and modifies the way we write, bringing out new connections and expectations.
Dylan B.Dryer
Still playing on this grand idea that writing plays on ethical choices and builds writer-reader relationships (Duffy) and that writing can be described as a form of technology to enhance and modify how we write today (Brooke & Grabill), we turn to Dylan B. Dryer who in his excerpt discusses the concept of “how a particular word is defined and understood” or in basic terms, how does or why does this word have this particular meaning?
To be quite honest, when I first read this, I was a tad bit confused as to what, exactly, Dryer was trying to express to the audience. I originally thought “was he [Dryer] trying to express that words actually have different meanings?” or “This word means this…. but actually doesn’t?”, but the more I went back and thought about the reading, I grasped the overall meaning. Its that the “meanings of words are relational, meaning that they acquire their meanings from other words”. This quote really drives the point home of what Dryer was telling audiences, it’s that in language itself, many different words that would sound or look the same have different meanings depending on the context in which you are using them. With the effects of technology in today’s society, it changes every aspect of context in languages, some of which we use to communicate with friends, family and even professionals.
Michael Carter
I’ll be honest, real honest here, typically I love to read, long or short books… ALL THE TIME, but this long reading The Idea of Expertise by Micheal Carter, sort of threw me for a loop. Don’t get me wrong, in his essay, he has some great details about what it means to be an “expert” in your chosen field, but geez man! The length really got to me, who needs to be writing 23 pages about what it means to be an expert? Funnily enough, this was something that we were just discussing in class a few weeks ago.
Anyways, let’s get down to business. In his essay, Carter essentially explains to readers that there is this concept of expertise in writing, one that takes Cognitive Rhetoric and Social Rhetoric, both of which focus on Local and General Knowledge, and blends their perspectives into a concoction that offers a different view of how expertise develops over time and how it operates in writing contexts. In basic terms, it means how writers develop skills through their general and local knowledge, which could be developed through practice, problem-solving, and acquisition of specific strategies.
Carter explains this through the psychologist E.L. Thorndike who explained that, in the context of education and teaching writing, the need to “develop curricula that focused on local concepts of education-specific instruction in specific areas- which led to the rise of the practical education movement”. In addition to this, Carter also explains that, in terms of the Pluralistic Theory, that expertise develops in five different stages and throughout those stages the novice or ‘newbie’ develops more and more experience as they learn new skill sets, similar to how a five-year-old would learn how to ride a bike, or how a swimmer ( like myself) learns how to develop their competitive swimming strokes, it all comes down to problem-solving, acquiring specific skill sets generalized to that specific sport or activity, or as Carter called it General and Local Knowledge.
Tying in the title of the blog, having the access to certain AI writing tools, access to various information, having feedback systems, collaborative tools and more can all influence how we cognitive and socially grasp the general knowledge of writing, while also enhancing and innovating the way writer-reader responses can encourage readers of all ages to think about morally and ethically acceptable morals, while helping them reach newer and better connections with each other.
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