Journal #8

I would define collaboration as two or more people sharing ideas to create something together. In The Daily Prophet, hundreds of kids all over the world submit articles for a newspaper created by Heather Lawver as a community for Harry Potter fans to join together to make something they can all enjoy. In this news article, collaboration is used in several different ways. Firstly, there are many authors contributing to the paper, which is a form of collaboration in and of itself. There is another way that these individual articles are put through collaboration- when Lawver goes through them and checks for spelling, grammar, and content. This is her making changes to the original drafts sent in to her, which is definitely a form of collaborating. This collaboration can be difficult, as Lawver has to decide how much control to take on in another person's writing. She has to decide what can and cannot be put on the site.

Collaboration is necessary for publishing a novel, as it has to go through an editor, and many people usually read through drafts and suggest things to the author. When writing a paper for a class, some people seek help from a friend or from the writing center. This is a form of collaboration because the author is not the only one contributing to the text. Collaboration is important, though not necessary, in everyday writing. In a to-do list or a text, there doesn't need to be any outside help with the text. For a tattoo however, collaboration between the tattoo artist and the customer is beneficial. Also, graffiti in gangs requires collaboration because the gang members need to stay consistent in their tagging. It really just depends on the purpose and medium of the text whether or not collaboration is needed.

Journal #8

Collaboration is the mixing of ideas to create a final project that is cohesive and a representation of all the participating groups. In the reading the Hogwarts newspaper is the project for which a number of children put together different, original stories to create one newspaper that is put online and shared with the world.  Collaboration involves sharing ideas with one another like the students showing their work to Lawyer for editing and lawyer giving them style and grammar help.  Collaboration requires listening to the ideas of others and objectively evaluating them. By evaluating them I mean deciding what can contribute to your final project and what cannot.  This is probably the most difficult part of collaboration because of the reflection involved in the process.

            Collaboration is essential in all forms of writing. A great amount of collaboration goes into writing a novel, obviously because it must go through a strict editing process.  In everyday writing collaboration can be equally important. Collaboration is important for everyday writing texts like social media posts. When someone replies or comments on a post to a social media site they are essentially collaborating with the author of the post.  An essential part of an everyday writing text is that it provides a solution to a rhetorical exigency. This is important because a rhetorical exigency needs to be solved through rhetoric, which inherently invites collaboration in order to find a solution. Collaboration isn’t necessary for all forms of everyday writing because some forms are purely personal, such as a scrapbook, and do not require collaboration with other people.  

Journal # 8 Collaboration

Collaboration is an important, yet overlooked, part of everyday. Collaboration can be defined as a cluster of ideas combined to form a final product. I think collaboration whether in texts, movies, etc. is very common today. The reading by Jenkins on "Why Heather Can Write: Media Literacy and the Harry Potter Wars", describes the contrasting views of the Harry Potter series, but also demonstrates some of the readers collaboration of the text. The Harry Potter series alone, is a collaboration. The movie collaborates the book, and so on and so fourth. What I found particularly interesting in this article, was how Heather was able to incorporate teens to help put together "The Daily Prophet". Being able to collaborate with others, Heather was able to have a more successful product. In everyday text, we see many things that are collaborated. Movies, books, etc. Even things like scrapbooks, an everyday text we talked about in class, can be argued to be a collaboration. A scrapbook requires the person making it, to acquire memorabilia... Possibly from other people. Making it a collaborated text. Things like mixed tapes can be seen as everyday, and those are also collaborated. A tattoo might be thought of by a specific person, then shown to a tattoo artist, and a friend, and then more opinions and ideas are brought about the tattoo and then the tattoo is put on the person as an overall collaboration. Overall the majority of everyday texts we use are collaborated.

Journal 8

To collaborate means to work together with others to complete a project or to work on an activity. In Jenkins’ “Why Heather Can Write,” Heather Lawver is introduced as a teen who was inspired by the fact that J.K. Rowling’s novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was getting kids to read and wanted to promote literacy in her own way. Thus, The Daily Prophet, an online “school newspaper” for the fictional Hogwarts, was born. Heather recruited kids to write stories and columns for the newspaper, involving the kids in the writing process. She even personally edits each story to get it ready for publication. She encourages the kids to review the revised versions of their stories for issues on style and grammar so that they may learn from their mistakes and become more effective writers. Remarkably, Heather is able to create the revision process of writing through her newspaper. The newspaper allows the kids to gain experience and knowledge through consulting with other writers and bouncing ideas off of one another while also expressing their thoughts in an accepting environment. Children of various ethnic, racial, and national backgrounds “formed a community where individual differences were accepted and where learning was celebrated” with the help of the newspaper. In everyday writing, collaboration can be found almost anywhere. As Emily said, scrapbooks are an excellent example of collaboration in everyday writing. Considering scrapbooks as a social event, everyone shares their ideas and opinions with each other to help someone visualize their thoughts and ideas and transfer them into the form of a scrapbook. 

Blog Post 8

Collaboration by definition is the action of working with someone to produce or create something. Writing can be done by collaborating but you don't have to collaborate to write. It helps to collaborate with someone when you are trying to create a piece of writing. Peer review is a huge part of collaboration not only in the writing world but science and math. Having someone else look at your work improves your work because you may have missed something or something could be added to make your work better. As Taylor mentioned, in life usually more than one person is involved in creating something. For scripts, there is a team of writers that put their heart and sole into one script for a movie. In business, usually when you write something you have to go to your superior to get it approved and they usually change some things while reading it. 
In everyday writing, collaboration is used constantly. Scrapbooks are a great example. When my mom made scrapbooks, she hosted scrapbooking parties where all of her friends came together and collaborated and shared ideas with one another. My mom is not a very creative person however, her friends helped her with more of the creative aspect of scrapbooking while she might have helped them with the writing portion. Tattoos are another great example. Like the guy in our case study, he had someone make a tattoo then another person actually put the tattoo on his body. When you have something that's going to be permanently tattooed on your body, you want it to look good. You have to get a bunch of opinions and ideas from different people till you get the exact design you want.

Journal 7

Collaboration is a necessary part of every kind of writing. Weather it be just peer review at the final stages of a project collaboration helps the work become complete. Think of it this way, if one is writing a non autobiographical piece that is meant to the reader perspective on a certain topic and ultimately influence their way of thinking, this must be approached from all angles because every individual is different and you never know which approach is going to resonate with them the most. Collaboration can help achieve this because that person will be able to give insightful pointers as to a way you can word something or how you can approach it and touch your target audience better.

As far as plagiarism goes, I don't believe most collaboration is plagiarism because other peoples works are what mainly inspires us. We see others and either think we can make what they done better or start to create our own views on topics because what they have shared with us struck a chord in our minds and made us want express our own point of view on a topic. Professors do it all the time when they teach. They give the students knowledge out of a copyrighted text and then the students start to formulate their own ideas and solutions to exigencies. This is the base of national fellowships and new discoveries across history. Something can be created from nothing, but ingenuity most often comes from stream of consciousness that started with things we learned somewhere else. I'm all for collaboration in less controlled environments and no one should be afraid of it.

Journal #8

Collaboration is the sharing of ideas between people, which can be with the permission or without the permission of the person. In the reading, there is a "war" between the people who created Harry Potter books/movies and the readers who wish to create by collaboration. Although the readers do not wish to copy every aspect of the Harry Potter series, they do wish to integrate certain ideas into their films/stories/comics/etc. I think that collaboration is very widely practiced in literature and cinema, because they hire creators and writers just to collaborate to make the best version of what they want to publish/show in theaters. Collaboration without consent is what I like to think of as "legal plagiarism," it's when someone uses the ideas of a published source (or even just a person) without permission. 
Collaboration is used often in everyday writing, even when people don't realize it. I can't even count how many times I have written a status that was in collaboration with, or in response to, someones status or picture. Tattoo's are often collaboration because there can be so many people involved in the making of the tattoo. There is the person who thinks of the idea, and they may collaborate with family and friends, then they may also collaborate with the tattoo artist; and the end product is marked as "their idea" once it is permanently etched into their skin.

Extra Credit

From“Black Vernacular: Architecture as Cultural Practice,” I learned that ones life situation cannot have an impact on imagination. The author was clearly not from a high class family because she says how she's from a neighborhod where all the houses are the same and unimpressive, she refered to them as "small shacks". I found it most interesting how the author designed her dream house, I have never thought in detail how I would design my house if I could. I really like how the author exaggerated the point that no matter you're financial situation you can still dream big. One thing that really stuck out to me was how the adults in the authors life looked at architecure in comparision to how she did. They built houses that would acommadate their needs, not what they wanted. The author talked about how she would build many areas for reading, but that's not how her family looked at it when building their home; I think their financial situation played a major part in that.

Journal 7

In Gladwells "Social Life of Paper, he is defending the use of paper over technology for most of the article. The relationship between paper and digital text  is viewed differently among people. The author clearly favors the use of paper due to it's ability to be physically moved around and changed. Gladwells points out multiple times how it's beneficial to use paper in a group setting as you are able to write notes and make changes to yours, and others work.  I think everyone can agree one medium will never replace the other. Both are extremely beneficial in certain situations. As much as it would be much more organized just to use computers , I don't think a world like that is possible. Pieces of paper are always readily available for little notes or reminders. I don't think this changes anything in terms of everyday writing, whether you write on a piece of paper or type it on a computer it could still be everyday writing. The content of what is being written determines if it fits in our definition of everyday writing, not where it is written.

Journal #7

Digital and print texts both occupy space in our world. Digital texts occupy themselves in much smaller (and becoming infinitely more so), spaces while print texts take up much more space on our desks, nightstands, work environment, or even our cars.  One of the principle questions asked in this text: If paper is seen as becoming increasingly outdated and wasteful, why are we using more paper now than ten years ago?  I think the author does a nice job of analyzing the mystery of print, by discussing more than just its inefficiency compared to the digital stratosphere. As humans who (most of us) contain emotions, we are more likely to become attached to something that is tangible, like a stack of papers we have arranged in a certain order. We like having piles of papers and such on our desks because it makes sense in our brains, each of those papers contains a specific reason for its position. While there exists many theories on why we maintain a strong relationship with paper, in my mind it is simply relevant that we have. There has been technology available for decades that would allow us to completely, or near completely diminish our demand for paper. However, we stubborn humans like to stick to our old habits. I personally believe the reverence for paper in the workplace is not unlike family traditions passed down from generation to generation. These traditions, or habits, span such a great timeline that the youngest members have no connection to why they do what they do. I imagine in the workplace the answer is a resounding, "It's always been done this way."

I don't foresee the use of paper declining significantly in the near or moderately near future. Some of the journal entries pointed to technology as the distinct reason for why a decline in paper is all but upon us. However, they are missing the observations of this text. In a process called creative destruction, the new and relevant technology will always replace the obsolete, as long as demand exists for this to happen. As I previously argued the technology to send the practice of writing items down on paper has existed for a long time now, but there is no demand for it to take over the practice of writing on paper. While some point to digital instead of print billboards, and devices that type what you speak as evidence for a 'digital revolution', I see them as legitimate alternatives, but alternatives nonetheless. For whatever reasons, reasons I believe are open for debate, the fact remains paper is here to stay.

Journal 7

While print and digital are two very different mediums of everyday writing, they set out to accomplish the same major goals: to convey a message, and to act as a form of communication, even though they set about doing so in two very different ways. They are both judged by the same criteria of what makes something everyday writing, such as the purpose, the place and scene, and whether or not it is institutionalized.
I personally disagree with the notion that digital forms of everyday writing will never be able to completely replace print forms of everyday writing. While there is certainly still a niche for print forms of everyday writing in todays society, at the rapid rate at which technology is advancing, and creating better, simpler, and more efficient ways to complete daily writing tasks, it seems like it is only a matter of time before it is completely replaced by digital forms. Some examples of how this is being done already include sending text messages and emails, taking notes with a phone or computer, and adding events to digital calendars as opposed to physical ones. As digital forms of everyday writing begin to replace print forms of it, it won't necessarily change what everyday writing is, or what it means, it will simply change the way that most people encounter it. As time goes on, and technology evolves, it seems like it is only a matter of time before a digital form of everyday writing evokes the same thoughts and emotions as the print equivalent.

Journal 7

The relationship between print and digital text is that the two are very similar in purpose, although one is a more modernized form.  The two forms of text serve the same purpose of conveying a message, although our society is much more accustom to interacting with print text.  For us creatures of habit, it is hard for our paper dependent culture to change our practices so suddenly for the efficiency of digital texts.  Like Claire explained, getting a Kindle seemed like a good idea in theory, for it would save her money and space by not buying books, although in actuality, familiarity is what we cling to and the Kindle has served her little use.

For this reason, I would deem it safe to conclude that neither digital nor print text will replace one another in the near future.  Their is a logical sense of efficiency with the use of digital text, although we really place a liking to print and I believe our culture is not fully ready to let go of that.  As stated in the article we read, even though technology has come a long way Air Traffic control still heavily depends on scattered piles of paper and sticky notes covered with coordinates to keep track of their planes.  Even though, as Logan mentioned, it would be exceptionally safer and more efficient to move all this information onto a digital form, I think it will take time for our society to completely let go of using print.

In terms of everyday writing, nothing should really change.  Both print and digital texts can be considered everyday.  The only complication is that everyday writing values being personal, and often print is seen as more personal than digital.  Although as time progresses I believe our society will continue to embrace and personalize digital texts.  As we become accustom to our rapid growth in technology, we will start to embrace digital more.  Although even years from now, I believe paper will never quite be eradicated.

Journal #7

The relationship between print and digital media is that they can both be forms of everyday writing used to convey a point or as a means of getting a message across. Print and digital media are also both used as forms of communication and/or information. Although we are living in a very technological age where basically anything and everything can be found online, I do not think that one medium, such as digital media, will eventually overcome and replace paper. Like mentioned in the article by Gladwell, “Every country in the Western world uses more paper today, on a per-capita basis, than it did ten years ago.” Not only that, but psychologists and ergonomics experts  also mention that, “when it comes to performing certain kinds of cognitive tasks, paper has many advantages over computers.” I totally agree with this statement because having information on a computer compared to paper is not always the best when taking into account all the work that needs to be done. For example, I would rather take notes in class  by writing it down on paper rather than typing it on my computer because I can actually see and take into account the physicality of the work I have to do and the information that I must memorize.                                                                                                                                                                    Although I do not think that one medium will totally replace the other, I definitely think that digital media will, if not already, outweigh paper. As people and time change, so do technological advances. In the 21^st century, we have learned to use and incorporate technology into our everyday lives because it makes living easier and more efficient. In some aspects digital media is definitely better and more useful than print, but this is not always true. I do not think that paper media will ever truly go away because of its simplicity, but I absolutely think that it will dwindle and become less prominent because of digital media. I think that this greater reliance and use of digital media will change everyday writing in the many forms that it already takes and will take in the future. Digital media will only expand the forms of everyday writing that we already know of in due time. 

Journal #7

Print and digital media are both essential in society today. They both serve the same function, which is to communicate information to others. Print texts can be altered in the real world, but can not be shared with as large a group as a digital text. In "The Social Life of Paper", Gladwell talks about a chocolate manufacturer and how the buyers had folders of papers organized in such a way that it had to be explained by the individual. He says that "the much advertised advantage of digitizing documents- that they could be made available to anyone at any time- was illusory: documents can not speak for themselves." I think that there is something about a tangible text in front of you that makes it more accessible because it is in your hand and parts of it can be pointed at and explained by a person in front of you. That can't be done by simply giving someone a pdf of the papers and leaving them to navigate through it. I do not think one medium will completely take over the other, because there will always be a need for the tangible and a desire for the digital. Print text can be annotated and moved, unlike digital text, which is more useful in sharing with larger groups and opens up the opportunity to communicate and collaborate over distance. 

I disagree with Andrew's opinion that print texts will be eradicated, mostly because even though there will inevitably be advancements in technology, there will still be a want, if not a need, for paper. There is something sentimental about print text that cannot be found in a digital medium. I'm not saying there will be a need for the print text, but there will be some people who decide to keep old copies of books or letters from their great grandparents or something. I think that in the future paper will be preserved and given some historical value, if nothing else.

Journal #7

The relationship between print and digital media is that they both serve generally the same purpose. They both are a way of communication through writing. Whether it be a tweet or a hand written letter, both are used to communicate. In the article it talks about how Air-traffic control still uses printed forms than they use digital forms. The arguments made are reasonable, but in todays day and age its time to upgrade to more digital. Im not saying exile print forms completely but substitute more digitial not to only be more efficent but also to be safer. The article stated that the Air-traffic control desks are cluttered with pieces of paper and sticky notes of information regarding the airplanes flying. This result in the Air-traffic control making mistakes leading to disasters. If they had more digital forms of information it would be more efficient, quicker, and secure.

In my personal opninon I do believe that digital media will overcome print text as years past. Technology grows every single day. Think about the past one-hundred years or so. The spike of technology development has gone through the roof. Or even think about the technology development over just the past ten years or so. The first mobile cell phone was created in 1990; now we have smart phones just fourteen years later. Everything is turning to the use of technology and digital text. I visited my cousin who is in second grade and found out that roughly ninety percent of the work they do in class revolves around the use of technology.

In regards to everyday writing with the "take over" of technology and digital forms of media I believe that the use of print forms of everyday writing will slowly fade away. Im not saying that print forms of everyday writing will vanish completely but the majority of it will be converted into digital forms. A good example of the switch to digital forms are billboards. The invention of digital billboards made it possible to have multiple advertisements at once instead of a single one. Also the invention of digital billboards my guess made it more cost efficient for buyers looking to advertise. Think about how many more digital billboards you come across on a day-to-day basis. Digital forms of text and media are becoming the new form of everyday writing due to the rapid growth of technology.

Post #7

The relationship between print and digital media is that they compliment each other in some aspects but digital out shadows print in some situations. No I don’t think one will fully replace the other medium. I think that although technology is being such a big thing it is never going to completely overcome paper, and I believe that Gladwell made that point in his article. When he talked about the stacks of paper that people have on their desks at work, and how it makes sense to them and lets them realize what’s important and how much work they really have. I think that its easier for people to really grasp the concept of how much work they have and manage their time through paper rather than digital. In digital you cant really tell how much work you actually have because its all compressed into smaller files. For me I prefer to use paper and I don’t believe that Im the only one out there that feels that way. Another point that he made was that paper is better to use while really trying to grasp what it is saying because you can make notes on it and highlight things. This is important for the worker to do, but it does not necessarily mean that the costumer should see this. In that aspect I believe that paper is better for the worker while digital is better for the costumer in the work place. Although I believe that paper and digital media will not overcome each other, I do think the prominence of paper will fade a little. I believe everyday writing will go down in size but we will see more everyday writing when it comes to things like Facebook posts, or twitter and instagram. 

Journal 7

            Digital and print media both share the same purpose in life.  They are both used to convey a message to an audience so that more people can become aware or become more informed about a certain topic.  Both print and digital texts convey these messages in a very different ways.  Gladwell states in “The Social Life of Paper” that print media is tangible, meaning that you can touch it and feel it and put it where it is most convenient for you.  Digital media on the other hand is not any of these things.  Yes, it may be at ones fingertips, however it is not able to be physically touched or moved to where it is most convenient for an individual. 

            I disagree with Emily, in that I believe that one day in the future, one medium will completely replace the other.  I believe that with the advancements in technology in just my lifetime have been outstanding and that there will only be more, new, more advanced technology.  I think that one day digital media will travel along with us much like print text does but it will be on a potable screen, not on a piece of paper.  I don’t believe that this day will come anytime soon, but that day will inevitably come. This will change every day writing because it will mean the end of handwriting, and a certain personal charm that goes along with any hand-made object.  This will mean that the definition of everyday writing will have to be expanded in order to cover the new world of technology. 

Journal: Print and Digital Media

Ever since the start of the digital age, where computers and digital technology began to permeate our lives more frequently, there has been much competition between print and digital media.  Print and digital media both compete for the same goal.  They both are used for the communication of ideas but as technology becomes user-friendly and more accessible to a larger number of people, the digital forms of media seem to be taking over.  The article by Gladwell suggests otherwise because paper sales have increased in the last ten years.  This suggests that while digital media is easily accessible to the general public, it still cannot replace the major benefits that attract people to print media.  For example, when an editor is revising a newspaper article, it is easier for the editor to scribble notes on to the margin of a physical sheet of paper then onto the margins of a word document on the computer. These notes serve to be more functional because they can be written anywhere on the piece of paper and can be made to be very specific and clear.  The article also presented the idea that print media can be organized in a manner that is much easier for the human brain to understand.  Piles of paper serve as a mental organization that only the organizer understands completely.  This form of organization is only possible with a print text in your hand.  The organization in this case very closely follows the way the organizer’s brain functions. The tangibility of print media is its main advantage because of the human nature to lay things out in an organized manner in front of themselves.  With all the available information in front of you, you are likely to figure out problems much easier.  

Journal #7

   The main difference between print and digital media is that one is tangible and one is not physically available. What was argued in "The Social Life of Paper" was that because paper has a physical and
permanent presence it has many advantages over digital writing. Because writing on paper is permanent and tangible it can be easily distributed, annotated, and organized. It is also the best medium for interaction between groups because with paper you can write over or next to the original text to guide the original idea, you can skim through the paper, and can visually see how involved somebody is with your text based on how the are handling it. Also, because they have a physical presence they can be organized in any way, the article made examples of the messy desk and of the method of "piling". In this way, papers can represent active thoughts that are not yet finished. They can represent thoughts that are still in workshop, thoughts that have been completed, and thoughts that are urgent. This is the art of piling, a system that has been on going since the paper was first used in the office. Still the desk may look cluttered and unorganized to the misinformed viewer, but to the user is makes perfect sense. In a way, it represents our cognitive brain, processing many complex project and ideas at once.
   According to the article paper use has exponentially increased since the 90's, even with the resurgence of digital technology. So, I would say paper is the dominant medium but neither can be truly replaced.

Journal 7

Print and digital media, although having the same purpose, convey this purpose in completely different ways. Gladwell talks a lot about these differences in "The Social Life of Paper". He states that paper is tangible which basically means that it is physical so we can do whatever we want with it. Paper is spatially flexible meaning we can put it wherever we want in any layout we want to. Paper is tailorable. We can draw whatever we want on it without disturbing the original text on the paper. He talks about how an accumulation of paper, which may be too cluttered for some people, represents active thinking. With all the papers spread out everywhere, it's kinda like our thoughts are spread out everywhere. He talks about this in the example of the air traffic controllers. How even though the air traffic controllers use technology for monitoring where airplanes are, how fast they're going, where they're going, and at what altitude they're at, they use paper to print all that stuff out. This proves that digital and print texts can work together towards the same goal.
One medium will definitely not replace the other medium completely. I agree that digital media is definitely taking over this world however we will always need paper to do things. For example, in math I use paper to write out all my problems and work through them. It would be very difficult to do calculus completely on a computer. Everyday writing can still exist on digital media, so everyday writing shouldn't change all that much.

Journal 7

Print and digital media are unique entities that both have their own advantages and disadvantages. However, they can also be used simultaneously to perform a certain task, like the example of the air traffic controllers provided in Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Social Life of Paper.” Air traffic controllers utilize technology and digital media through the radar, which locates the planes in a specific sector, while also utilizing paper and print media through flight strips, which enable the air traffic controller to jot down incoming information pertaining to the planes he or she is tracking and is responsible for. Paper is advantageous in that it is spatially flexible, meaning that it can be moved around in a workspace, and that it is tailorable, meaning that it can be easily annotated without altering the original text. Paper serves a certain purpose that is commonly overlooked. In a way, paper enables us to visualize our thought process. The example in Gladwell’s article of this idea is simply that the pile of papers on a worker’s desk serves as a reminder to that worker of what they were previously working on and have not yet finished.

                I think that digital media is increasingly being introduced to workers as an alternative means of completing various tasks, but I also think that print media will never fully be replaced by digital media. Expanding on what Claire said about everyday writing being limited to digital media, I think that this would greatly impact the text’s audience and, hence, the audience's reaction to the text.

Print vs. Digital

I'd also like to start out this journal the way that Claire did; by using an example to show why I find print favorable in different cases. Before I came to college my parents thought that buying me a "nook" would be a great way to read and it would help save some money in the long run. I have never actually read a book on the nook, and I think it may still be in my room back at home; to add insult to injury....I've bought a book since I've been up here. The relationship between print and digital media, I believe, is that all digital media was once print. The preferability of each medium is solely dependent on personal preference. For example, you see in classes that students use their computers and iPads to take notes while I take notes with pen/pencil on notebook paper. This may also be true for air pilots, some may prefer to use technology to add their notes while most prefer to use the paper; even though it is more difficult to understand after the fact. 
I believe that digital is already on the war path to replace print, although I do not believe that it will ever fully replace this because their will always be those who cannot and will not only use computers. America is becoming a desensitized nation, those who would previously send holiday cards may now just send an email or post on social media sites and things that would have been personal are now publicly viewed by your 2,379 "friends" on Facebook or Instagram. Some people, like me, want to keep some aspects of life and literature sentimental as opposed to "easy" and "convenient." Everyday writing can very much be digital and print, it is just dependent on the way a person makes a certain text; which is not independent of any medium. If digital mediums replace that of print, than everyday writing will not be effected in general.

Extra Credit

In "Black Vernacular: Architecture as Cultural Practice", I learned that a person's situation greatly affects their perception of space and of control. Hook talks about how her class had been assigned to create their dream homes, and how they should disregard their real-life situations, focusing only on their desires. Hook describes the political undertones of this, and how subconsciously they had an effect on her decisions. I like how she connects the structure of a building or "space" to the socioeconomic context of the situation. Her "Daddy Jerry" had "a small square brick house" that she didn't appreciate until she understood the politics at the time the house had been built. With the white-supremacy of the time, her paternal grandfather had to be careful about what he did with his space.

The thing I found most interesting is what Hook said about the projects. The projects were designed to help those with economic disadvantages, but they took away the freedom of their residents in a way by creating a uniform design for a community of homes. This replaced the ingenuity of these people who had previously made their space their own, and personalized it to their needs and desires. I had never given much thought to the structure of a house and how much it could affect a person, but this text has opened my mind to the idea of space having an impact on a person's life, and that those with less money can still choose to personalize their space. As Hook said, poor people have been thought to have "no meaningful constructive engagement" with their living space, but that's not necessarily true. It is just a result of the media and of "standardized housing". And actively thinking about the personalization of space can help us to understand choice and the importance of class, gender, and race in an everyday setting.

Black Vernacular

There are few things that have an impact on everyday writing like issues concerning race, gender, class, or sexuality. These categories define us in ways that affect our everyday experiences. They can be negative, such as being a minority in a racist community, being gay almost anywhere, or being poor virtually anywhere. These definitions say so much about us, and also give us ammo to translate our experiences into everyday writing. The author uses phrases like 'racial apartheid' and 'po'folk'  to describe the trials of growing up in an area that left little opportunities for its future generations. However, while being raised under less than ideal circumstances creates hardships that can negatively affect someone's future, they often provide relevant and raw fodder for creating texts that carry meaning. I would argue that you write best and most poignantly when you are personally connected to the topic, especially if it is about words that are used by society to describe you.

Being disadvantaged in life can allow you to experience the world in ways that others do not normally see it. As the author describes her grandmother's shack, she pays special attention to the details of the architecture and other aspects of the neighborhood. Where someone who hails from the middle class may be more likely to see all houses less than their's as one, the perspective changes based on what you know. There are many different areas to draw inspiration for writing, but I contend that matters such as race, gender, class, or sexuality, will give the best results.

Journal #7 The Social Life of Paper

The discussion of electronic works vs. paper works is contradicting and interesting. For my 16th birthday my mom gave me a kindle. This is going to sound harsh, but my kindle was possibly one of the most useless gifts I have ever received. Don't get me wrong, I have used it before. However, I feel like it's purpose isn't as intense of that of a book. I think what makes books so great is the fact that they are attainable. You don't need to click a button to go to the next page. They are binded and (possibly) personal to the owner. While a kindle was great for getting access to books quickly I found myself being not as engaged in the text because I wasn't able to hold it the way I wanted too, if that makes any sense. I think the idea of digital vs print with texts such as books and kindles depends on the person. I think in the grand scheme, digital texts will become more and more popular but will never "extinct" print texts.
Gladwell explains in the article "The Social Life of Paper" about print vs digital texts and explains that "paper enables a certain kind of thinking". I think this applies with what I was saying about not feeling truly satisfied when reading on my kindle. He continues to explain that the things that cover your desk, are most likely magazines, and piles of paper. This, relates with how I feel paper, or print text for that matter, can never be truly extinct. I am currently sitting in the lobby area of my dorm writing this, and looking around there is paper covering multiple walls. My desk alone, is buried under the piles of papers. In 4th grade we were taught the Dewy Decimal system in our library period. And I would think, things like this are starting to become less and less used in everyday. I think everyday texts can still be used digitally, they just need to have a personal aspect and a unique purpose.