Jordian’s English 207 Blog

According to Dictionary.com a Narrrative is “a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.”

I believe the purpose of a Narrative is to tell a story, give an account of an event, and/or share an idea. I think narratives make stories easier to understnad, and in the past reading narratives have given me a better grasp on the writer’s intentions. My most recent experience with narratives were in class looking at examples as well as writing/creating a narrative for our visual narrative assignment.

During class on friday I met with my writing group and gave them a brief description of my outline for my visual narrative. I presented my thoughts behind what I wanted to accomplish and how I planned to do so. Although we’ve viewed example of what a visual narrative is supposed to be, I was still slightly confused of what to do. After discussion with my writing group and listening to their ideas for the project, I gained a better understanding of what was expected. Ironically, one of the members in our group had the same plans for her visual narrative. Although our outlets and presentation styles differed, it was good to talk with her to gain more ideas and help her with hers. 

The first thing I felt I needed to do to move forward with my visual narrative was get a concrete outline for what was all going to be in my visual narrative. This will allow me to further my creativity while presenting. Since I am using iMovie for the first time, I will need to have this outline done ASAP and use the rest of the time on making a good (1st) video. 

While discussing our narratives I spoke with a fellow group member, who was also planning to make a video for her narrative, about transitions and word (text) usage during the narrative. This was one of my major concerns as I wish for my narrative to flow well. Transitions will play a big role in whether or not the video flows well or not. I will take this advice as well as the groups constructive criticism to construct my narrative to the best of my abilities.

For my Visual Narrative project, I intend to outline how literacies play out in my daily life. I plan to use iMovie to make a short clip which will illustrate this. A breif outline of my content includes: I plan to go through each type of literacy and include pictures of me engaging in these literacies throughout my day. For instance: In the morning I wake up and read the newspaper as well as check the news on CNN.com. I will have a picture of me doing so and include this in my narrative.

So I read the “What is CC?” article and I understood what it was saying but I don’t quite get why or how that is going to help us with our narratives and citing our copyrighted sources. So I don’t know if I necessarily have a direct question but maybe I need more clarification. 

The other reading was pretty much self explanatory.

We use visuals to interpret text through images. Many visuals are used to shorten up a inteded message. For instance, instead of having a sign that says NO SMOKING, we may just see a slashed cicle with a cigarette in the middle. These visuals relay a message through images.

As stated above, many visuals are created and/or designed to relay a message to its intended audience. This relaying of a message is communication through visuals. Although visuals include images, visuals play a major role in communication because of the many differenct ways visuals can be used. Visual literacy allows us to interpret these different tools of visuals.

In my future career, I imagine that visuals will play a major role. I am a marketing major and have a strong interest in marketing via print media, commercials, ads, billboards, etc. All of these types of marketing use visuals to relay a message.

As a college student I engage with hundreds of different people during an average week. From sitting in class with my 20-30 fellow classmates to walking in the union and being bumbarded with fliers from the hundreds of different organizations on campus. During class today we discussed the different forms of literacy that included; writing, communicating, reading, speaking, understanding, interpreting, and a few other actions that can be defined as literacy;

Reading: Textbooks, magazines, news websites, notes, Etc…

Texting via cell phone, Cell phone conversations

Communication over the WWW: Facebook, Email, Blogs, Etc…

While taking English 207 I expect to sharpen up and improve my writing skills. I expect that using this blog will enhance my ability to effectively express my thoughts through writing. I believe literacy is the ability to read, write and interpret. I think the majority of us write either because it is required or we use it as a tool to jot down some of our thoughts. I think alot of the writing that we see is censored information that limits are knowledge capacity. From the news, to our text books, pretty much everything we read has to be approved for publishing. So I believe although some write to inform or express thoughts and feelings when answering the question why do we write, it is also important to ask what is what we write censored and why?