Pre-reading Exercise
“Make a list of all the ways you get ‘help,’ of any kind, in
your writing. Where do you get ideas, advice, feedback, and assistance?
The writing that I do consists of writing about literature,
so research is a big part of where I get my ideas.
1.
Internet
2.
Sources
3.
Scholarship
4.
The professor whose class I’m writing the paper
for
5.
My mentor
I don’t often get assistance for my papers. I did use the
student writing center once, and it was a huge help. However, being able to
submit a draft to the center takes planning ahead, and I am a procrastinator
who is usually rushing to meet a deadline.
Summary
In
his text “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” James Porter argues that
by teaching students to look at texts as intertextual- that is, as containing ‘traces’
of other texts that have come before- educators can begin to move students away
from thinking about arguments as completely original. Instead porter argues
that a Writer’s originality comes from being able to “to create new meanings”
(90) or “alter the Text in some way” (93) from the other texts or traces. Porter
also argues that it is not writers who create discourse, but the readers, who
interpret texts that were created with them in mind.
Synthesis
Porter’s
piece recalls several different pieces we have red thus far. Right away, Porter
mentions the writer as “a collector of fragments,” recalling Kleine’s
hunter/gatherer model and applying it to the writing process rather than
reading (87). Porter also mentions “building a framework” as something the
writer does, which of course goes back to Greene’s concept of framing
(87). Furthermore, Porter’s idea
that all text are intertextual goes back to Greene’s idea that argument is a
conversation and that to successfully enter a discourse community, one must do
his or her homework by seeing what other people have said before. More
substantially, in this article, Porter challenges the notions of an author’s
creativity and originality. Like Sarah Allen, he argues that romanticizing the
creative genius writer as detrimental to students. Also related to Allen is
Porter’s discussion of the discourse community, which Allen portrays as a
perpetually “alien discourse.” Porter sees the discourse community as
constraining to the writer, but he does not necessarily think that it
completely eliminates originality. Lastly, Porter mentions how much the
audience shapes the text itself. By presupposing the audience’s expectations
and interpretations, writers create a text accordingly. This recalls both
Berger’s and Kantz’s ideas about audience interpretation and their role in the
rhetorical triangle.
QD
4. I think that judging a piece of writing by its ‘acceptability’
within a certain discourse community is an appropriate evaluation for
upperclassmen and graduate students, certainly. But I don’t think this idea is
at all accessible to freshmen students. I can’t forget Allen’s discussion of
the “alien discourse.” Adhering to the conventions of a given discourse, even
if it eventually allows for creativity and originality in other ways, seems so inaccessible
to younger students. How will they be able to navigate an original statement
when they won’t even be confident enough to know what is the “right” topic to
explore?
5. Porter makes connections throughout his piece to other “fragments”-
the Eco pieced, Vygotsky, the Declaration of Independence, and so on. His argue
is that intertextuality constrains a writer, because he or she must acknowledge
what has come before and makes it impossible to be completely original, as no
text is without traces to other texts. But there is room for an original,
creative argument within those confines. Porter finds room by suggesting both that
community-oriented writing is not a bad thing and that constraints on writing
focuses it, but does not necessarily kill creativity.
AE
1. I was actually thinking, while I was reading, of doing
this activity in class. Here is the commercial I would show:
Some of the cultural text I see is that the mother is
dressed very traditionally feminine, which is significant in explaining her own
discomfort with her daughter’s lack of femininity. The house setting suggests
that the family is upper-middle class, which becomes significant when
considering the intended audience for this commercial. Perhaps most important ‘text’
or I guess context of this commercial is an awareness of traditional gender
roles for young girls and boys. I think the biggest question with this
commercial is whether or not the audience is supposed to sympathize with the
mother or laugh at her discomfort. I do think that the joke is on the mother,
but sometimes I think it would be lost on an audience made up of the
traditional, upper-middle class American family who really is that
uncomfortable with gender fluidity.
MM
Porter’s piece hasn’t changed the way I think about writing
because I had already agreed with him to a point before I read this. But this
piece has made me think more about actual collaboration on writing and how it
would really just be an extension upon what Porter is describing i.e. “collaboration”
with writers across time and space-writers who have come before you.
I really enjoyed Porter’s piece and I have a soft spot for
it because it was the first dialectic notebook I did with Dr. Gradin during
orientation. I think the students will like the parts about the Declaration of
Independence (and the point that Jefferson could have been called a plagiarist)
and I also think they’d enjoy looking at commercials for Intertextuality. I do
think, however, that Porter’s ideas about writing for the community discourse
might overwhelm them as will his notion that creativity and originality is
really only possible within the confinements of the discourse community. I’m
awaiting our 5890 class to see if there are ways to makes this more accessible
and less daunting to them.
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