Writing Response #10

My softball team would be a discourse community because we follow some of the 6

characteristics that make us a discourse community. On our team the common goal is to win
games, give one hundred percent effort all the time and for everyone to do their part for us to be
successful because coach always says, we're the ones that have to go to the dance together. On
the field we communicate by giving the number of the base when we are throwing their in a play
and when we are hitting coach communicates with us by giving hand signals so that the other
team does not know what we are doing. We also use our fingers a lot to tell each other how many
outs that we have. When a catcher is giving signs to a pitcher on the field she gives numbers with
her fingers to tell what pitch the pitcher should throw and to also give the location of the pitch
(inside or outside).

Writing Response #1
Eats, Shoots and Leaves and Writing About Writing both voice to you that good writing is all
about how many grammatical errors you do not have in your writing. In Writing About Writing
it explains that people who write the best are the ones who can write with ease and avoiding
making a lot of errors. WaW also states that, "Writing is not about content; it is about correctness
(p.2)." Eats, Shoots and Leaves on the other hand is talking about how people do not know how
to use punctuation correctly so their papers are grammatically wrong. Both of these books tell
you that as long as you are making as minimal grammatical errors as possible then your writing
should be good.
In my experiences with writing I believe that I write better when I have an emotional attachment
to what I am writing about. I feel that my thoughts flow with ease when I can be completely
open about my opinion on the matter at hand. One example is when I was writing a paper for my
Holocaust class about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. I am very passionate about that subject
because I have a Jewish heritage and I was able to complete my complete heart into my writing.
Another time that has shaped my view point on writing is when I can read someone else's
perspective and then write a response to what they have wrote to help them with their writing
and in return they can help me with mine.

Writing Response #2
I do not think that I'm a very good reader because I do not have a very large vocabulary. I have
never really been into reading and I am a very slow reader. I have tried to expand my vocabulary
by reading different types of books but most of them bore me so I quit reading. On the other
hand I think that I am a pretty good writer. Most of the time when I write I have a very sarcastic
tone which makes my writing more interesting, or so I believe. I have always tried to write how I
speak but that is very hard for me unless I record myself then play it back and type it out. If I am
extremely interested or invested in my writing that's when I have my best work.

Rhetorical reading strategies are ways to get a writer to make sense of the content they are
reading by constructing a rhetorical context for what they are reading. My advice to a peer on
how to use rhetorical reading strategies in their work would be to not focus on the overall
meaning of what they are writing but instead to focus more on the situation that the writer was in
when they were writing their text. I would also tell them to analyze and criticize what they are
reading so that they can get the rhetorical meaning out of it.

Writing Response #21

Sommers talks about her mother and the four leaf clover all through her essay. She says, "my
mother--who has a touch of magic, who can walk into the middle of a field of millions of clovers
and find the one with four leaves." That statement connections to myself because I seem to be
lucky like that. When I was at a softball tournament, playing with the varsity softball team while
I was in the 7th grade, I found not only one but two four leaf clovers in a field full of clovers.
People talk all the time about being lucky but Sommers' mom was not just lucky she had God on
her side. To be able to escape Nazi Germany as a Jew is incredible. I make this connection too,
because of my love of history and the Holocaust. When I was in high school I took a class just on
the Holocaust and how it affected the world we live in today. To me, Hitler was kind of lucky.
No man today would be able to go to jail and then be elected into any kind of government
position, in any country. Hitler had good intention just in his twisted mind they went wrong.
What was seriously wrong during the Holocaust was how most neighbors did nothing to prevent
what was going on, they did not try to reach out and help. "Never kiss by the garden gate. Love
is blind, but the neighbors ain't." Sommers stated that this quote one of her friends wrote in her
autograph book. This statement drew me back to the Holocaust and the statement that I already
made about the neighbors watching but never helping.

Writing Response #19

When I think of plagiarism I think of stealing someone else's work and using it as your own, and
that is wrong. In school and in life plagiarism is frowned upon because it is not fair that you steal
someone else's work and get credit for it. There are major consequences that can come from
plagiarism. In school there is a broad range of consequences, starting from getting zero on your
paper to getting expelled from school. If you were to plagiarize someone in college, you most
likely get kicked out and that would be on your record and it would be extremely hard for you to
get into a another college, let alone get a good job after that. In life if you were to plagiarize
someone at work there is a good chance that you are going to lose your job. Once you lose your
job for that reason it will be very hard for you to get another one because the next person you do
an interview with is going to want to call for a recommendation and your old boss is going to tell
them that you were fired from that previous job because you plagiarize and that will be all that

needs to be said. The message that is sent is that even though it takes longer to come up with
your own writing it will benefit you more in life not to plagiarize someone.
Yes there might be plagiarism but the consequences would not be as harsh, if there was any.
People would not be so caught with someone stealing someone else's idea because they would
just want the advancement of their careers.

Writing Response #6
The similarities that I found between Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie is that they both learned to
read and write from books. Both of their lives were centered on them since Malcolm X was in
prison and it gave him something to pass the days away by doing and the fact that he really
enjoyed it, and Alexie grew up around books. Alexie's dad loved books and because Alexie
loved his dad so much and looked up to him he began to love books as well, which helped him
"save his life."
I found that I really did not enjoy reading books unless I understood them to their full extinct.
My mom is a AP European History teacher, so has she would read her textbook every night I
would sit down beside her and have her read to me what she was reading. I began to understand
better what and who our world now was created by and how we came to be. I also really love
reading about WWII, Hitler and genocides, all those subjects really go together and I feel by
reading those kinds of books and listening to what my mom read to me that I understand now
how we are here, and how to stop major genocides and other things from our past from repeating
themselves. I do not find reading books a lifesaving act, I just do not get into them a lot. I value
my education dearly but I feel that being an athlete and being on the softball field and playing the
game I love is saving my life. I can find freedom in what I read but its not necessarily a book as
a whole but a second or excerpt of a book that can give me freedom.

Writing Response #7
The literacy that Samantha Marder discussed was the use of sports psychology that her and her
team used in order to have a better mind set in games. She also discussed that each year her team
read a book and through literacy they are able to learn sports psychology and put it to better use
and make Ohio State a strong softball team. She says that literacy has helped her every day that
she has played college athletics. I found this literacy narrative compelling because Marder talks
about how through literacy she has a stronger mind to help her in softball. If what I can learn in
Rhetoric can help me with my softball career I would be a very appericative person. This
narrative to me is like the book that my father made me read in high school called, Winning
State. Winning State was a book about sports psychology and helping to have a stronger mind
and be more emotionally stable on the softball field and off. At a younger age I had a lot of
confidence issues with myself on and off the field. I have always been smart and good in school
and athletics but there was something about myself that I didn't have confidence in. When I

completed Winning State I feel that my attitude on the field and off the field was a lot better and
I appreciate my father so much for making me read it.

Writing Response #15

The feedback that I got from the peer workshop I felt like was very helpful, even though I only
have one person in my group to respond. She said that there was grammar that needed to be fixed
and also that I needed to add some more detail but I will taking her advice and making some
of my statements more in-depth and fixing the grammar. I liked the peer workshop being online,
I feel that we can get more out of it because we have more time to read and reread what our
partners have written. If only the class would have taken it as seriously and actually completed
the assignment, I feel that it would have worked very well.

Writing Response #12

The discourse community that I have chosen to do my ethnography paper on is teachers in a high
school. I have chosen that because my mom is a high school teacher and I have grown up around
her and her teacher friends. This impacts me because as I am a criminal justice major as of now,
I have always decided that teaching history would be my fall back and so I believe that being in
that kind of environment not as a high school student anymore I could decide better if that is
something that I maybe want to pursue as a career. I will sit in on meetings, as well as their
classes and maybe during their lunch time to get a better understand of how they are a discourse
community. I will take the two days of my fall break to get my first notes to do my first draft on
then I will go back October 17 to get more notes to add onto my paper for the second draft.

Writing Response #4
1. When people use the wrong forms of your and you're wrong. It's not that hard to say you are
when writing a sentence.
2. Its and its are completely different. Its means belonging to it.
3. There, their, and they're. Same as your and you're. You should learned the difference in like
5th grade.
4. Lose and loose are not the same word.
5. Let's eat grandma. Let's eat, grandma. You're saving your grandma's life with a simple comma.
6. A lot is two words.

7. I could care less is actually I couldn't care less.

8. When people say "can I" instead of "may I."
9. When you are text and people put idk or wyd. Please will you just spell it out, it's not that
hard.
10. When people use a computer to write a paper and have spelling mistakes. You have auto
correct!