Chapter 5, Section 5.1

When you read with the grain of a text, you see the world through the author's perspective, apply the texts insights to new contexts, and connect its ideas to your own experience and personal knowledge.
When you read against the grain, you resist it by questioning its points, raising doubts, analyzing the limits of it's perspective, or even refuting its argument. It is very important to read a text and be able to analyze and really understand it. You should be able to summarize it's ideas.

Both, reading against the grain and reading with the grain are extremely important strategies. There are suggestions for both listed in the text.

Suggestions for reading with the grain:

• Listen to the text, follow the author without judgment.
• Try and see the subject through the author's perspective.
• Add support to thesis with your own points and examples.
• Apply the argument in new ways.

Suggestions for reading against the grain:

• Challenge, question, and resist the author's ideas.
• Point out what the author missed or overlooked.
• Identify what is unsupported or inaccurate in the argument.
• Rebut the author's ideas with counter-reasoning  and counterexamples.

There are a variety of things that make college reading difficult and prevent you from reading effectively. Some things that make it difficult are: new subject matter, vocabulary-unfamiliar words or language, unfamiliar rhetorical context-not knowing the author's purpose or intended audience, unfamiliar genre-different genres require different reading strategies, and/or a lack of background knowledge-not understanding culture or context.

Some strategies for overcoming these difficulties and reading like an expert are:

• Reconstruct the rhetorical context. (Ask questions about purpose, audience, etc. Look up info about the author.)
• Take notes
• Match your reading speed with your goals.
• Read a complex text in a "multidraft" way.
• Use summary writing.

Summary writing is a condensed, abstract version of the text. It demonstrates your understanding and can help you retain what you read in order to analyze the text and create new views and arguments.

Chapter 13, Pages 309-317

Ideology is a network of basic values, beliefs, and assumptions that tend to guide a person's view of the world. If you keep an open-mind as you read, your initial stance or opinion may be swayed or changed. Ideology is subject to change. Your views may change during further reflection of a topic. It may also be changed as you read what other people point out about a topic with an open-mind.

A classical argument involves two components: truth seeking and persuasion. Truth-seeking is diligent, open-minded, and responsible search for the best course of action or solution to a problem, considering all possibilities and points of view. Persuasion is making a claim and justifying it convincingly so that the audience's initial resistance to your position is overcome and they are moved toward your position.

It is important not to think of an argument as a fight. Think of it instead as promoting understanding, new ways of seeing, and change. Another view of an argument to avoid is a pro/con debate. Debating is two-sided with a clear winner and a clear loser. Controversial arguments involve many points of view and are much more complex. Rather than fight or debate, argument is both a process and a product. As a process it is fact-finding, information gathering, and consideration of alternative points of view. As a product, an argument is someone's contribution to the conversation.

The goal of argument as process is truth seeking: the goal of argument as a product is persuasion. There are five skills and stages of development that will help you grow as an arguer.

Stage 1: Argument as a personal opinion. The argument is passionate, but there is no reason or evidence why someone should agree with your opinion.

Stage 2: Argument structured as a claim supported by one or more reasons.

Stage 3: Increased attention to truth seeking. Often willing to change their positions when they see the power of other arguments.

Stage 4: Ability to articulate the unstated assumptions underlying their arguments.

Stage 5: Ability to link an argument to the values and beliefs of the intended audience.

Chapter 13, Pages 329 & 330

Informal fallacies are when the reasoning in an argument doesn't necessarily lead to a sound conclusion. Sometimes fallacies are unintentional and just happen, other times they are intentionally used to deceive the audience. A fallacy is basically anything that could potentially be an invalid argument. The text states a list of fallacies.

Chapter 3, Sections 3.1 & 3.2

Section 3.1 talked mostly about angle of vision. I learned that angle of vision can be an extremely effective strategy in persuasive writing. Angle of vision makes it so the reader can only see a topic or subject from one point of view. It controls what the reader sees. As the writer, you can reveal what you want your audience to know and what will persuade them of your prose, and you can conceal anything that would broaden their view to think another way. One example of angle of vision used in the text was the difference between a description of a party to your friend versus the description of a party to your parents. The same story can be told in entirely different ways based on what you want your audience to think.

Strategies to persuade through angle of vision:

• Stating point of view directly
• Selecting some details while omitting others
• Choosing words or figures of speech with intended connotations
• Creating emphasis or de-emphasis through sentence structure and organization

The main thing I learned from 3.1 was that the writer controls what the reader sees. "In an effective piece of writing, the author's angle of vision often works so subtly that unsuspecting readers - unless thinking rhetorically - will be drawn into the writer's spell and believe that the writer's prose conveys the "whole picture" of it's subject rather than a limited picture filtered through the screen of a writer's perspective."

Section 3.2 was about Aristotle's Logos, Ethos and Pathos. These are strategies used in persuasion. Logos is the appeal to reason. It would point out why, "logically" your argument is correct. Ethos is the appeal to the character of the writer or speaker. It is not so much the ethical character, but the way that the author is credible or gives them the right to have a stance on a topic. Pathos is the appeal to sympathies, values, beliefs, and emotions of the audience.

Chapter 18, Skills 18.2 & 18.4

Ladder of abstraction is when words can be arranged from being extremely abstract to being very specific. When you describe things in such a way that the reader almost feels as if they are reliving the story, it evokes images and you are low on the ladder of abstraction. When you are low on that ladder you are being extremely specific and descriptive.

Concrete words are descriptive words that invoke images and sensations. They can transform a story from being bland and boring to being lively and enchanting. You can get the same point across without using concrete words, but the story will be a lot less entertaining and engaging and a lot more bland. Sometimes using unfamiliar and unique language or words can confuse the reader. As long as you elaborate and explain what you are saying, it can puzzle and excite the reader for a brief moment. They can look forward to finding out the meaning. Even the sound of the word itself can invoke imagery and sensation.

When you use metaphors you can make literal words and experiences more exciting and tangible. Sometimes it is hard to explain an event and write it out so the reader can feel and experience the emotion that you felt during the actual event. "Figurative language abounds when literal words fail." Using metaphors can make a picture more clear and make an experience more realistic and exciting. Trope is a synonym for figurative language. There are more way than just metaphors to use figurative language. Ambiguous words can have double meanings. These words can immerse the reader deeper into the imagery and story.

Chapter 18, Skill 18.1

When writing a narrative it is so important to make it into an engaging story that is unpredictable and entertaining. You can easily list off a timeline of events and get the same point across, but the point of a narrative is to express and explore. Try and tell a story by describing and showing the events rather than just explaining them. There is a four criteria for a story.

1. Depiction of events through time
Let each piece of the story unfold through time and make a small story out of each event. It will make the story more engaging if you treat each event as an event that only happened once and point out the significance of each part of the story through time. This is a much better way of writing than just listing off events in order.

 2. Connectedness
Each event in a story must be connected to each other. Every event in your story should be significantly related to the theme or the point you are trying to make. Only mention events connected to the main point of your story.

3. Tension
Tension is like the hook. Conflict keeps the reader engaged and interested in what the resolution will be.

4. Resolution
You don't always have to clearly explain the resolution. Especially in narratives, the theme or resolution can be implied or inferred. "The resolution is the point toward which readers read."

It is important to incorporate each of these four criteria in every narrative in order to create an engaging story rather than a "chronology."

Chapter 6 Literacy Narratives & Questions For Peer Review

In an autobiographical narrative you don't state your thesis you slowly reveal it in a creative and artistic way. On the spectrum of closed to open form writing it would definitely err on the open form end. There are certain writing techniques and strategies for this type of writing and this genre. In order to make an autobiographical narrative engaging you don't necessarily need an interesting story or a miraculous event in your life. In order to make it engaging there needs to be a question behind it just like other genres of writing.

An autobiographical narrative can be about anytime that you experiences something or thought a certain way that made you have an epiphany. Sometimes you can think a certain way about a person and then once you hear about them or understand why they are the way that they are, your opinion of them completely changes. This would be an epiphany to write about but you don't just state the facts, you make it into a story. You can make it engaging and you can make a seemingly insignificant event into a meaningful life experience.

"As you generate and explore ideas, your goal is to develop a plot-a significant moment or insight arising out of contrariety-that you can develop with the storytelling strategies of open-form prose. If you are still searching for ideas, the following questions might help."

• Questions arising from your achievement of a new status
• Questions arising from challenges to your normal assumptions about life or from your failure to fit or fulfill others' expectations of you
• Questions arising from conflicts of values or failure to live up to values

Chapter 16, Skill 16.4

When you revise your writing, you need to review it as if you were a reader rather than the writer of the paper. It is very important to read it as if you were another person who thinks in a different way. If you edit your own writing as the writer, it will be really difficult to catch mistakes and to notice when something doesn't make sense. As the writer, whatever you wrote will most likely make sense to you even if it may not to someone else. Try and become a reader when you edit your papers. When you peer review other people's papers and have them revise yours, you get better at editing your own writing as a reader.

It is very important to revise other people's papers in a helpful and constructive way. When you make comments or suggestions it is very important to be specific so that the writer understands exactly what to change and/or improve in their writing. The goal when you are revising is to bring parts of the paper that need to be worked on to the writer's attention and to think of other ways they could possibly improve their work. This could be suggestions on improving an overall thought or idea. It could even be suggesting a different point that they didn't consider. Play "the devil's advocate."

When it comes time for someone else to peer review your essay, give them a couple of questions regarding your paper that they could respond to. Ask them for help on any specific part that you struggled with. You can also ask them for any advice concerning your paper. Your peers may have great suggestions that you didn't think of! Once it is revised, take the advice you received for what it's worth. Reconsider your ideas and continue to revise and keep in mind what other people suggested. In the end remember that you are the writer.

Chapter 1, Concept 1.3

Subject matter problems are questions behind the thesis you are writing about and rhetorical problems are questions about the audience you are writing to. Not all good writing follows a specific set of rules and the rules of writing vary depending on the genre, audience, style, etc.

Thesis-based writing is more unified with topic sentences, support, and other elements that fit the typical "5-paragraph essay." While narrative-based writing is much more expressive and creative and doesn't follow the typical set of rules for writing. Closed form prose fits more under thesis-based writing and open form prose would be under the category of narrative-based writing.

Closed form prose is when you write in a structured way with points and details in support of an "explicit thesis." It is very predictable writing and it is the way that most essays in college are to be written. Typically in closed form prose writing, the writer states a thesis and introduces what he/she will talk about. This introduction is followed by topic sentences and supporting evidence.

Open form prose is quite the opposite. It "resists reduction to a single, summarize-able thesis." Open form prose is a completely different style that is more creative and story-like. There are many different literary techniques used in open form prose that help create writing that is more powerful and memorable that a typical, 5-paragraph essay. Many close form rules are broken in open form but it works because it is a different way of writing. Although this way of writing is more artistic and free, there is still a focus and it is still organized. 

I learned a lot from this section of the text but something that stuck out the most to me was when it stated that, "Exploratory essays are aimed at deepening the reader's engagement with a question and resisting easy answers." This sentence really sums up our problematizing a topic assignment. I also liked the way that it explained how the rules for good writing vary according to rhetorical context.