For my writing project I will be translating Mike Bunn’s Motivation and Connection: Teaching Reading (and Writing) In the Composition Classroom into two different genres. One genre will be something that is viewed by a younger audience than myself and one that is viewed by an older audience than myself. For the genre that is viewed by someone who is younger than myself I am going to write the opening script to a television show. For example at the beginning of an episode the narrator says “Previously on The Walking Dead…” but instead I will be writing as if the show is educational show for younger children on PBS or a similar channel. I will begin with “Previously on Motivation and Connection with Mike Bunn, we discussed how most students believe that writing is one of the most essential skills to learn, that writing is a lifelong skill that takes practice…” I will write 2-3 of these depending on how long each one turns out. I will not only go over what was previously covered on the fictitious show, but also give a short preview of what to expect in the new show; for example: “Today you will be learning about how teaching practices affect writing, how readers construct reading…” In each of the openings I will cover some of the main concepts of the article and attempt to do so in a simple and understandable manner, since it is intended for a younger audience.
As for the piece that is going to be read by someone who is older than myself I plan to do a live-tweet as if Mike Bunn is reading this essay at a teaching conference. I will compose several tweets that will cover most of the main points of the article. I will begin with something like “Only 15 more minutes until Bunn takes the stage! #Teachercon2016” and continue in such a manner until Bunn has actually arrived on stage. Then I will make fake tweets as if he is reading a speech for instance “Bunn says students believe writing is important but don’t like it so teachers have to make it more interesting #Brilliant #Teachercon2016” I will do all of this and still stay within the 140 character limit of twitter, even if I have to chain responses to get a full thought out. As of right now, I am not sure how many tweets I will compose because I am not sure how much information I can fit into just 140 characters. I plan on using conventions from each of these genres such as the opening of the TV show starting with “Previously on…” and foreshadowing; as well as hashtags and emoticons in tweets.
The TV show opening I believe is a good example of something someone younger than me would see because kids are always watching TV and an educational program about writing is something that a strict parent might force their child to watch to improve his/her writing. The live tweet works well for an audience older than myself because even though Twitter is mainly used by the millennial generation the people typically looking at live-tweets from something like teachercon would be teachers older than me (especially because I am still a student). I plan on using each of these to display how I can pick apart multiple genres and apply the concepts of this class to not only dissecting, but creating genre as well.
Hi! I think your children idea is super cool! This is the third PB I have read and everyones ideas are so great I'm jealous I didn't think of them! Have you thought about filming this one? I know that would be a ton more work, but even if you left the screen black and read your script (or had subtitles to go along with what you were saying), that might be cool for the reader/listener to be able to hear your voice. This way, you could emphasize certain phrases, add dramatic vocal inflictions, etc. so that the listener has a clear idea of what is really important. Just a thought!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not a big tweeter, I understand where you're going with this one too. I think this could be a cool because of the "live" aspect of it. You should definitely do a timestamp for each post so that the reader can know what the realistic time separation between each point is. Also, I would say make sure you identify the persona of your tweeter (is he a student of Bunn's or a fanboy?). I think this will help you explain your moves clearly in the analysis portion of the WP! Good job!
Zach,
ReplyDeleteYou’re heading in the creative direction that I hoped you would be. This is a really neat idea: “Previously on Motivation and Connection with Mike Bunn, we discussed how most students believe that writing is one of the most essential skills to learn, that writing is a lifelong skill that takes practice…” What I’m wondering, though, is: what is the Bunn ~show, exactly? Is it a TV show? An educational roundtable? A cartoon or something? And also: who, exactly, would the audience be? How can you take Bunn’s emphasis on motivation, reading, and reading-writing connections and make it relevant to kids? And on another front: what, exactly, is your goal for this piece? That the “viewer” would be able to see….? What? I think that you should run with this idea because it’s a cool/outside-the-box one, but I think you need to iron out the details to articulate what, exactly, you mean here.
The “live-tweet as if Mike Bunn is reading this essay at a teaching conference. I will compose several tweets that will cover most of the main points of the article” is a 110% fantastic idea. I love it. Some questions for you (some of which will require some light background research) are: what conference? Who, exactly, is there/tweeting, and why? Are they going to just bust out hot-take reactions? Will they engage in conversation or Twitter battles with each other? What will the participants’/respondents’ goals be? In order to make this genre “come to life,” you’re going to need to make these people come to life. You can do it, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with. ☺
Z
Zach,
ReplyDeleteYou have some killer ideas and an article that I think is really cool. For the younger audience, an opening script sounds perfect for your article and that there is real connection between the two. What I would really like to know is what route will you take? Will it just be a transcript or will you actually make the video? Going off what Amy said earlier, you can add more emphasis to certain phrases and add suspense like the t.v. shows do. Either way I think you're set with this genre transformation.
For the older audience, i think a live tweet feed is really interesting. I think you can even add some replies/comments/reactions from people who use twitter daily. The only concern I have is the length of each genre transformation but I'm sure you'll balance it out.
These are some good ideas and I can't wait to see what you end up with
-Edwin
Zach,
ReplyDeleteAwesome ideas! I can see that you put a lot of thought into the genre transformations. The TV intro is very creative. The specific language and tone of these openings are very distinctive, so I think it is important to capture that as best as you can. Something that you might want to consider adding on immediately following the “Previously on” is the actual intro of the show. This could give people watching a better idea of what the show is about and who your target audience is. I love the live-tweeting idea! I think looking at the article as a speech made by the author is a really cool perspective to take. The use of hashtags and emojis will also add some life to the genre transformation. One thing to consider is also adding re-tweets into the mix. This could add variety to the live-stream and would also more closely mimic an authentic Twitter feed. Great job!
-Alexandra