Author: kendalldfischer

I define audience, in reference to writing, as anyone who reads what is written.  Audience is very important in writing as it can drastically alter how something is written.  Depending on the intended audience language and tone may differ greatly. 

With my definition of audience in mind, I went into the documentary and the text searching for who the intended audience might be. The most frustrating part was a I had a hard time pinning down a specific demographic in regard to either the documentary or the text.  Chris Wilcha in his documentary “The Target Shoots First,” speaks just as he does in daily life, detailing his monotonous days within a corporate company.  He communicates without pretention and shows a first-person view of his experiences.

Anzalduas text may not have such a broad audience base as Wicha’s documentary, she uses a lot of Spanish words and figurative language. Her writing was full of emotion and written for an audience with a better understanding of language. 

Prior to reading Anzaldua’s, “Home to Tame a Wild Tongue” it didn’t dawn on me how important language is to audience.  Anzaldua is not only bilingual but speaks different dialects of both English and Spanish.  Depending on who she is communicating with she speaks a different form of language.  This is interesting because she is constantly considering her audience and changing the way she speaks to better relate to the other person. 

My definition of audience remains the same but the importance of considering audience when writing was reinforced. Writing with an audience in mind helps the writer better connect and communicate with the reader. 

Bitzer defines rhetorical situation as a natural context that encourages spoken word.  In other words, “utterance” is necessary for the situation.  The key terms that Bitzer associates with his definition of rhetorical situation are objects, relations, events, persons, and exigence.  So, according to Bitzer a rhetorical situation requires an audience, an exigence or issue, and constraints.

I don’t really have my own definition of rhetorical situation as I had very little understanding of the concept prior to reading Bitzer.  When I first read the term rhetorical situation I assumed it was alluding to a situation that involves some sort of issue or argument. 

An example of a rhetorical situation that occurs every day could be a court case where a defense attorney is working to defend his client and convince others of his innocence. In this example, the audience would be the jury of peers, and the exigence would be the argument of the weather or not the defendant is guilty.  Some of the constraints involved could include the fact that the situation is taking place in a courtroom, at 8 AM on a Monday morning or that this specific case was high profile so the jury may have some preconceived ideas of the case. 

The action or reaction to a rhetorical situation decides the genre.  for example, imagine you receive a notice from your child’s school that your child is being bullied.  There are many different actions you could take, you could do nothing, you could go into the school and talk to the teachers, or you could write a letter to the parents of the bully.  The choice you make in reaction to the situation will decide the genre. 

I would describe genre as synonymous with the word category. When we’re talking about genre of writing this would include different types of writing such as fiction, essays, poetry, nonfiction and so on.  In the past, I have written all different types of genres most recently being essays for school assignments but I have also taken a creative writing class in the past where I wrote fiction and learned to write poetry. 

Bazerman does not see genre as a type of text but as a type of action.  Therefore, he believed that we should organize and analyze writing by “genre systems.” This differs greatly from my definition as my definition is much more simplistic categorizing writings by subject of the text. Bazerman by contrast determines genre by the intended action of the text for example a course syllabus is intended to communicate expectations of the class to the students. 

All of the commencement speeches that I have heard included the same basic building blocks, including pieces of wisdom and advice from the speaker’s own experience.  Commencement speeches are meant to be inspirational and motivational; Collins’ speech includes these signature traits. One commencement speech that I decided to read and analyze was Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. Steve Jobs started out his speech describing his humble beginnings, and ended with an inspirational story of success and triumph. He offers his advice on how to succeed in life and the lessons he learned through his own trials and challenges.  The other commencement speech I decided to read was J.K Rowling’s commencement speech at Harvard University in 2008.  She also followed the same sort of outline, including inspirational stories of her own failures and successes. 

I think that Collins’ actually differs from the other two speeches in several ways.  Collins’ speech isn’t as personal as the other two, Rowling and Jobs both detailed stories from their lives whereas Collins kept his speech more about his point.  Collins also makes an intentional effort to not be a cliché in what he was saying in his speech.  Though he does keep his speech unique and interesting it has the same message as the other two speeches.  All in all, most commencement speeches, cliché or not, have the same theme of motivation, inspiration and hope for the future. 

J.K Rowling https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/06/text-of-j-k-rowling-speech/

Steve Jobs https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

My definition of writing would be the act of putting spoken word down on paper.  Writing is something that allows one to express ideas with language and is an unspoken form of communication. Success in writing, at least in my mind, would entail writing something that effects the reader.  Meaning that writing should be done with purpose, and that intended purpose should make the reader think, feel or reflect on what was read.  I don’t really consider myself a writer, at this point I only write when it is an assignment for school.

Some words that I associate with writing are, words, language, stories, communication, ideas and text.  What I learned from reading Billy Collins commencement speech was specifically about the importance of poetry.  Collins describes how poetry is used to make the reader “slow down” and take account of one’s life and live in the moment.  He emphasizes the impact writing and poetry and related it all back to how important it is to experience life and be grateful for every moment. 

By my definition of successful writing I would say that Billy Collins was successful. He wrote passionately and movingly about the positive impact poetry can have on someone.  Other ways I could classify the success of writing would be if it met the intended purpose and audience.  I would say that Collins did successfully convey the point he was intending to make.  I would add to my list of words art, and essential.  Art because I really interpreted what he was saying as an art form, and essential because he describes how at one time poetry had a crucial and important role.