WP3: Bazerman Transformed

Older Audience Transformation: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8FXUB2Y5mTOallKbXVBQVBDZVk

Younger Audience Transformation: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8FXUB2Y5mTOcTlXckdER0duc0U

Chadwyck Moore

De Piero

Writing 2

May 29, 2016

Conversations in the Classroom: Transforming Bazerman’s Conversational Model

            The academic article I chose to transform is Bazerman’s A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model, which covers a new method of teaching writing. Bazerman proposes to approach writing with a focus on the individual voice of the author instead of the traditional reading drills, the key point being to emphasize and develop a writer’s individual voice over teaching writing as a discipline. This is accomplished by having students comment on one another’s work and refer to readings in a “conversational” manner--a focus on engagement and analysis of the text. For the transformations, I aimed to create something for the classroom. I played with the image of the teacher referring to a handbook on how to teach the class and the student’s consulting a poster as a reference.

When working for a younger audience I got to thinking about what kids liked. This got me reminiscing about being in elementary and how the classrooms were decorated. I recalled being in class, seeing posters related to the subject on the wall, and wanted to create something similar. The students I was aiming for would be of a younger age, elementary school (6-13 year olds) specifically. I decided upon this audience because I felt that this age group would be the ones to be taught the conversational model, as learning under the new model should start as soon as possible. Being pre-teens—a rather unfocused stage in everyone’s life—I knew that the audience would expect something to grab their attention. Their lives as students (and the infographic meaning to be a reference) would also mean they would need the graphic to be easy to understand. The kids would also expect entertainment, bland readings are hard to push through and for a pre-teen, Bazerman would be a Boreman!

To meet their expectation of ease of reading, I focused on my framing and visuals. McCloud places emphasis on the importance of visual framing in how the viewer reacts to a piece. Since confusion is not a reaction I wished to incite, I chose a no-nonsense format that clearly separated each section of information. Every header is placed evenly apart from one another and assigned their own little block. All images are viewed from the side or at a slight angle and placed in a uniform fashion. These framing decisions continue into the visual aspect. Posters are expected to be visually appealing and the appearance is what attracts viewers in the first place. These images are used to keep the student’s attention as a visual aid can aid with understanding. To further meet the visual expectations of the audience, I added the use of color to the image. Black and white posters do not inspire attentiveness, so I made sure to make the poster was colorful. The combination of color with entertaining images encourages students to pay attention to the poster.

McCloud states that the intensity of presentation can help the viewer care about what they are looking at. Taking this into account I began to research class posters and found that each one used small images. I figured that these images exist as attention grabbers –and knowing I needed to grab attention—I decided to add my own drawings. These images reference one of Bazerman’s main ideas and are adjacent to each header. Each one is presented in a comic style to better appeal to elementary schoolers. My personal favorite is the “Rhetorparrot”, who represents Bazerman’s criticism of students who practice the traditional model sounding like parrots. The parrot (like the other images) is a quick reference for students; they can look at the parrot and remember what they should not be doing. These daring doodles ensure that even the most spacey student will have to come down to Earth to view!

I used a variety of moves to appeal to audience expectations.  My “Candy Colors” are used to grab the attention of the viewer and make the poster more visually appealing. Color makes the poster more fun to look at; the images looked boring without color. A better looking image means a more attentive viewing of the piece. In addition to color, “Fanciful Fonts” were placed throughout the poster. Multiple fonts were used to keep the information pleasant to read. Since the poster is a visual medium, the way the information is displayed is just as important as what is said. Times New Romans is a perfect font for an essay, but it’s a bland way to draw attention. By using “fanciful fonts” I was able to ensure that the viewer of the poster would be more likely to read what is written.

            Sticking with the idea of the classroom, I aimed to appeal to the teachers of these elementary schoolers. My goal when transforming Bazerman’s piece into something for the educator was to maintain his information, like his descriptions of the model itself, but to shift it into a clear how to. The handbook is a visually appealing alternative to the full article, providing key info for young educators to shape their class with. The audience would expect to see the important parts of the conversational model, as they have likely read the article themselves. Teachers would also want any reference that was provided for them to be professional and easy to understand, a reference handbook shouldn’t be complex. To meet these expectations I made moves that aided focused on the visual appeal and content of the handbook.

            I used professional language without the defining of terms in the manual. I decided to write in this manner to create a sense of credibility. Since the manual was written for professionals who already possess some knowledge of English, I felt that it was unnecessary to provide them definitions to terms. This move provides a sense of “insider knowledge”, something noted in Boyd’s Murder Rhetorically and can build a sense of credibility to the work. This credibility is necessary for a handbook; no teacher would want to refer to a book if they felt the author wasn’t knowledgeable.

No one wants to read a dry manual. To avoid this, I used images, colors, and fonts to create a visual appeal to the handbook. I got the idea from my employee handbook at the library; the ideas are separated by colored headers and accompanied by images. By using images the booklet avoids being a block of boring text. Throughout the manual I changed the font style, color, and size. I made this decision to make the handbook more visually appealing. I got the idea to shift the fonts from Writing Spaces where they varied font styles throughout the comic for effect. Even though this was more professional genre, I felt that the same concept could be applied. I changed the size of the headers that open chapters and colors of sub-headers to make the handbook easy to follow. By playing with the font, I was able to make the handbook easy to follow and easier on the eyes.

            My transformation of Bazerman’s A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model into something applicable to the elementary school English classroom was created with the specific needs of each audience in mind. I had to take influence from the class readings as well as real-world examples to create something useful for the classroom. Through varying writing decisions, I successfully transformed Bazerman’s model into something that  the two separate audiences could understand.

Works Cited

Bazerman, Charles. "A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model." College English 41.6 (1980): 656-61. JSTOR. Web. 29 May 2016.

Boyd, Janet. "Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. By Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 2. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor, 2010. 87-100. Print.

Enterprises, Trend. States of Matter. Digital image. Teachchildren.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2016. <http://www.teachchildren.com/t-38120.html>.

Library, UCSB. Library Student Employee Handbook. Santa Barbara: UCSB Library, 2013. Print.

Losh, Elizabeth M., Jonathan Alexander, Kevin Cannon, and Zander Cannon. "Writing Identities." Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 113-39. Print.

McCloud, Scott. “Writing With Pictures.” Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York. HarperPerrenial, 1994.

Publishing, McDonald. Algebra Poster Set. Digital image. McDonaldpublishing.com. McDonald Publishing, n.d. Web. 29 May 2016. <https://www.mcdonaldpublishing.com/p-718-algebra-poster-set.aspx>.