group 6 collaboration journal

One major concept associated with this course is the effectiveness of editing and revision. This has been stressed various times throughout the course whether it was in one of the textbook readings or through practice. Coming into this course I rarely revised my own work let alone even ponder letting someone else do it. My mindset and attitude towards this process has drastically changed. Although this concept was forced on me thanks to the mandatory writing conferences, I have grown to welcome the help. Everyone thinks differently, so as a result others can offer a different take on your paper. This is especially effective when you have a rough draft, which is another major concept of this class. Rough drafts weren’t something I did much of in high school. Usually the teacher would just assign a due date for the final draft. Much like revising my papers, I rejected the notion of having rough drafts. One of the readings I believe it was called, “Shitty Rough Drafts” I thought explained the effectiveness of them very well. Sometimes just writing your ideas down in an essay form can spark something great.

Genres are a major concept of this course because everything falls into a genre. All pieces of literature fall into some form of genre; therefore, genres are unavoidable and are all around everyone. According to Dirk genres are rhetorical situations that are created when something happens over and over again and receives the same response each time. Once we experience a particular response to something we start to understand that response as “normal” and it is expected of us to continue to respond to particular situations in particular ways.  Some forms of literature, movies, and songs can fall into many different genres at the same time making it hard to form a fill in the blank formula for writing different genres. Each genre has certain characteristics that classify it and help to distinguish different genres. There is not set rule for writing; however, all writings will have similarities that allow the to be categorized into different genres. Genres are very important in the world because they allow us to expect certain responses from certain things.

Audience plays an important role in writing by being a main reason of why people write. Audience is a person or group of people which a writer is directing his thoughts and words to in order to tell something. Different types of audiences can also change the way that the writing is discussed and how it is taken. The opinions of the audience may differ from reader to reader but the message that is to be conveyed should always stay the same. A writer may direct certain writings to certain groups or audiences and other pieces to other different audiences.