Thlog week5

It just feels like in a twinkling that we are already in week 5 now. We are stepping into a new year—according to the Chinese lunar calendar, year 2016 knocks the door at midnight on 2/7—and standing right in the middle of the winter quarter. Maybe it is because we are working so hard that even forget our time is passing J. Anyway, at least it is comforting to find we learn things just as fast as time lapses. Immediately after we turned in our WP1, we jump into the next topic—moves—and WP2 this week.

Moves has many different interpretations in different context. But in writing, I have an inclination to interpret it as decisions. Deciding which word to use, deciding which people to quote, and deciding how to organize the entire article all moves authors can make. I really like the activity that everyone was asked to describe the Rock’s ultimate signature moves, the people’s elbow. By this activity, I realized that the process of recognizing a genre is very similar as describing wrestler’s moves. There is no single movement or gesture making the people’s elbow what it is. Similarly, there is no single convention forming an individual genre. The kicking of right leg, the roars to the crowds, the iron elbow crushing down on opponent’s jugular and etc., they make people recognize the people’s elbow. Likewise, it is a combination of different conventions that contributes to the formation of a certain genre.  In another word, in a certain genre, authors are more likely to make some certain moves. And it links to another topic we went over this week, reading like a writer.

To read like a write is a very efficient way to learn writing and also a very interesting concept. From my perspectives, it is just same as what we have done before, analyzing conventions of a genre, but from a personal view and on a more frequent basis. By thinking of the reason behind each move the author make, we start to question ourselves what rhetorical effect it will achieve and if we will use the same trick or strategy in our own writing. PB2B will address this topic more deeply, and I hope I could pick up some new knowledge about writing while writing PB2B.