Blog #5 “Writing a Discourse”

     In this blog, I will write about my experience in understanding discourse writing. I started to write this blog four weeks after first reading of “A Lover’s Discourse” by Barthes. At the beginning, the subject of the discourse was vague to me. After discusing this subject in the class a couple of times and after I have read the post, ” How to Write a Discourse” by Mr. McGinnis on the boardsheet the picture of the discourse started to clear up for me. Also, my understanding was strengthened after reading couple of last semester’s students work on their Wiki pages.

     The first difficulty that I faced when I was thinking about what discourse I will be writing was finding the main resourse for my discourse. Selecting the subject for the discousre was not hard since the recommendation was to choose a subject that the writer has experienced for an extended period of time. At the beginning I thought about two discourses: “An Architect’s Discourse” and ”A Father’s Discourse.” I finally chose the father’s discourse because I thought that it is more generic and the required resourses could be found easier.

     Writing a discourse could be defined as a way of writing a text which examines and identifies experiences that we encounter in certain role that we as a humans wear. The method of elaboration and expansion in discouse writing is achieved by examining how various resources like a novel, lyrics of a song or a movie deal with a certain moment of recognition that could be felt while one is living a life of a certain role or character. There are benefits for the students while they search for resourses for their discourse . It widens and enriches the research capabilities of the students and help to expose them to various readings in orde to find how a certain resource deals with an identified phenomena.

     In the end, I found the discourse methodology an interesting and a creative way of writing texts effectively.      

   

Flickr assingment

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9800841@N04/

Preliminary research report

        I will be writing  a father’s discourse for this final assignment. The father plays many roles in the life of a family. He has the constant role of supporting the family. Also, a changing role in regards to his children as they grow from infancy to adulthood. Besides, he has to maintain an ever renewable relationship with his wife for the healthy existence of the family, which they have created. Fatherhood is the greatest opportunity to have children and watch them grow at various stages of their lives.

      The father goes through many circumstances and experiences while he is performing his duties in the institution of the family. Sometimes he faces challenging conditions which require from him a wise solution to maintain an effective role in the family. He should always deal in a loving manner with all members of his family.

       I have chosen this role since I am a father of two daughters who are at the ages of sixteen and seventeen respectively. Also, I have been married for nineteen years, gone through a typical family’s experiences, starting from the point when the family was created with two persons, husband and a wife, and expanded after the addition of new children to the house.

       The primary text I will be using is Chicken Soup for the Father’s Soul. This book contains many stories that convey a wide range of experiences and emotions that will face a father. It is a book used to provide advice and knowledge to a new father, a to-be father, or a granfather. A father at any stage of fatherhood can read the book and enjoy the interesting, thoughtful, and momentous stores. The stories range from the tribulations of a new-born baby who is looking for support and care, watching that human being grow, learning and passing through adolescence to maturity. Also I will have other secondary resources that will help to build my discourse. I thought about utilizing the TV show “7th Heavean” which examines the life of a big family of a husband and a wife who go through many trials of any American family. In the show, the father encounters many critical family situations that he endures, but tries to use wise judgement to create a happy ending.

     My discourse structure will be built of six figures. The titles of the figure are respectively: balancing work and family, special moments, adolescent challenges, helping the wife, maintaning a lovely home, and care of growing children.    

“Blog4″ Text Transformation

     Text transformation is an operation which is conducted upon an original text to give it a new character, flavour and impression. Various techniques are used, such us mimed, rewritten, articulated …. etc.  for text transformation without changing the original meaning of the initial text. Some text transformation methods end up with a text of completely different content, such as the method called S+7/N+7. This dictionary method requires the writer to look through the dictionary for a word from the original text, then count and choose the seventh word beyond the initial word and use it in the new transformed text. This technique has been uesd in the example in the hand-out for transforming Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. It seems that the approches available to transform the text could generate and endles numbers of forms of the first text.

     The text transformation concept is found in music. I want to mention a song that I listened to when I recently attended a concert for the Band “The Fray.” This band presented the song “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira using different musical instruments that maintained the interest of the original song, but added a new flavour. Experiencing new atmospheres is one of the objectives of text transformation. 

     From my readings of the text book I found Queneau’s methods and trials of text transformation very obvious. I was able to understand what he wanted to accomplish by his different methods clearly. The precision method is interesting and comical; in it, he describes the scence of the action in terms of length, width and height. Also, he decsribes his story figures by height,weight and exact age. I found this very amusing, but it could not be adopted for a serious novel. Queneau’s double entry method is charachterized by describing incidents, objects and people twice. This way of transforming text provides assertion in description which might help in understanding, but some times it is redundant and monotonous.

     Text transformation is entertaining, amusing, and it is creative process from which new text could be built from many elemental texts.

Text Transformation

* Original Text (1):

I, (name), take you ,(name ), to be my (husband/wife), my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful pertner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we shall live.

                                                                                                        

* Transformed text (1) (Dictionary method)

 I am the male spouse willing to have you as my female spouse, my closest companion, my trustful lifemate and my companion as long as I live. As we all gather here, members of my blood, acquaintances and the Lord, I promise that you will see me beside you in circumistances of being diseased, ill or robust and sound, in the state of being marvelous or rough, in cheerful times or distressful times. No matter the situation, you will be given my devotion and offered my help to set your objectives, be given the feel of dignity and adoration, adjoin you in happiness and saddness, and embrace you as long as our hearts beat.

Original Text (2):

I vow to tell you what is true

That you might touch whom you embrace

because I love and cherish you

Transformed text (2): Queneau’s double entry method 

 I vow and promise to tell and disclose to you what is true and sincere

That you might touch and influnce whom you embrace and hug

Because I love and care for you and I cherish and admire you

* Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?’ He said in reply,  ”Have you not read that from the beginning the Creater made them male and female” and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be Joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” ? so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.  

 

* Love – is anterior of life -

   Posterior – to Death -

   Initial of Creation, and

   The Exponent of Earth

*You’re there by my side
  In every way
  I know that you would not forsake me                                   
  I give you my life
  Would not think twice
  Your love is all I need believe me I may not say it quite as much as I should
  When I say I love you darling that means for good
  So open up your heart and let me in And I will love you ’til forever
  Until death do us part we’ll be together
  So take my hand and hold on tight And we’ll get there
  This I swear

* Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, It is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interest, it is quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

* There are three sights which warm my heart and are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord and of men: concord among brothers, friendship among neighbors, and a man and wife who are inseparable.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Works cited:

Elliott, Joanne. Wedding Vows. Retrieved June 25,2007 <http://www.allweddingideas.com/

     weddingvows.shtml>

“Nick Lachey Lyrics” Lyrics A-Z. Retrieved June 25,2007 <www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/

nichlachey/thisiswear.html>.

Munro, Eleanor. Wedding Readings. New York: Viking, 1989.

  The new American BIBLE . United States: Saint Jerome Press, 1987.

“Wedding Vows”. Retrieved June 22,2007, <http://www.poemsfree.com/wedvow.html>

 

Blog3:Sleeping Beauty

          Adaptation in writing means rewriting the work of others. Adaptation could be beneficial in the way that new details and description are added to the original work. Such additional work could involve more elaboration in the description of the scenes that put the reader in a richer environment and various moods. For example, is the rich description of Charles Perrault of the scene of the castle when the prince entered it. The writer gave the reader an image which describes the deep silence and the echo of death that was everywhere in the castle. Also, he pictured all the sleeping figures in the castle weather standing, lying on a couch or on a bed . The reader could not feel this comprehensive description in neither of the two versions of the same story by the Grimm brothers.

         Another benefit of rewriting is adding logic and explanation to the way incidents happen. The reduction of the death wish to a sleep for hundred years is clearly described in the sixth edition version of the Grimm brothers than in the earlier version of the same writers. This is caused by the act of rewriting.

         Also, the addition could involve a major impact to the original story. This is true in the case of the story written by Charles P. who extended the story beyond the awaken of the princes after the prince kissed her. Charles extended the talk about the life of the married couple after marriage, having two kids and the story of the wicked queen who wanted to eat both kids. This is a completely new addition to the story by the Grimm brothers. Although I felt that this addition is worthless, the story looks better with the original marriage end. Nevertheless, I believe addition could be more beneficial in other stories.

         Rewriting is a progression where better quality writing is added to the original work to enhance and add wealth to it.  

         

Readings- Banks and Portar

          In this week’s blog, I will start writing about my conclusions  after I read what R. Banks wrote about the two movies, Bambi and the Little Mermaid. Banks expressed his interest in the ideological facts presented from watching Bambi, but not from the Little Mermaid.

          Banks had the chance to watch the movie “Bambi” in the theatres for the first time with his brother, cousin and uncle. He was four years old at the time. He mentioned that after watching the movie he became a new person with a new outlook on life. The second time Banks watched the movie was when his three year old granddaughter stayed with him and his wife at their house. He and his wife tried various ways to amuse the little girl by visiting amusement parks and watching kids TV programs which were rare for kids at her age. In the end, they rented many children’s movies and watched them with her. None of the movies attracted the girl’s attention until they played the movie “The Little Mermaid” which seized her attention and engaged her emotionally. Banks and his wife felt that the movie wasn’t from the sort that they wished their granddaughter to watch while she was staying at their home. Banks believes that one of the ideologies of this movie was to promote rewards of female submissiveness. This ideology and other facts from the movie do not help his granddaughter to  develop her understanding of life values. Although she was still young, he still wanted her to be exposed to valuable facts of life. 

          Banks, in his essay, highlighted that he was deeply affected by the movie Bambi , but he did not explain the  ideologies and values which affected him intensely .  However, the reader can feel the ideology of male dominance represented by the father (stag) who was always away from his son and wife. Also, the reader can recognize Bambi’s significant move towards maturity when his mother told him, “If you live, my son, if you are cunning and don’t run into danger, you’ll be as strong and handsome as your father is sometime.” This demonstrates Bambi’s  future aspiration: to become like his father.

          In regards to my reading of Connie Portar’s essay, I beleive that in her children’s book she tried seriously to change the stereotypical understanding of the term “Baldheaded.” It is acustomed that the term  is always connected to a charachter who is dislikable, unlovable or misbehaved. Connie tried couragously to change this stereotype  when she created the girl named Sarah in her book who is baldheaded, but she made her lovable, intelligent and tender-hearted.

          I beleive that Connie Portar was brave in her attempt to change the pre-determined understanding of baldheaded. She was explicit in her essay talking with the big picture in mind without going through the unncessary details that will take one away from her main goal. 

Art and Writing Interpertation

          It seems that the interpertation experience of art work and writing work shows common elements between the two subjects.

          Let’s examine how we interpert artwork. Artists usually have an intention or a goal when they produce a piece of artwork. The artist might want to create a feeling of mystery, delight, hope, saddness …….etc. Sometimes the theme of a piece of artwork is so clear that it will initiate a feeling in the heart and the mind of a person that is close to the artist’s intended feelings.  We can say that a considerable amount of artwork could be interperted in a different way by different viewers. For a specific piece of artwork, one viewer could feel hope, yet another  could feel anxiety. Every human being has grown up in a certain enviroment, gone through unique life experiences and each person will react uniquely to a piece of art work. Consequently,  a single piece of artwork will create various feelings for a different  people as a result of their diverse backgrounds.

          If we try to examine writing interpertation in a way similar to that of a piece of artwork’s interpretation, we will end up with the same or near identical results. Each person with his/her distinctive background and environment will vary in their reaction to a piece of writing  such as a novel, a story or an essay. The writer could have a dominant idea, but readers could get a feeling or understanding which is different than that of the writer’s aim. This is because of the phonomena of interpertation.

          Although visual arts are considered different from writing,  they are similar when it comes to people’s experiences in reacting to the content of both the artwork and writing.    

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