Thlog Week8

This week is a busy week, and so will be next week and next-next week because the winter quarter is about to end but we still have a lot of stuff not done yet, such as WP3 and portfolio. Despite these upcoming tasks make me feel overwhelming, I still feel obligated to quickly review what I have learnt this week.

One key concept of our WP3, from my perspective, is transformation. To transform one genre, in WP3 scholarly paper, to some genres else is not as easy as I thought, especially when you are also required to change it for two different populations of audience. After I finished my PB3A, I realized that transformation does not simply mean reformation; it also means re-creation and invention. When I started to plan my WP3, I found that I cannot just rearrange some sentences or only replace the objective tone with an emotional one to make the original piece a new thing. To transform it is far more complicated than that. I have to create something new to meet the convention of the intended genre the article will be altered to. I have to make certain “moves” that appeal to the audience of the new genre instead of the old one. This is why I think such work is more like invention. You take materials all from the academic article you choose but you also add something new, change something inside, and reform its physical appearance. When I attempted to transform one genre to another, I just felt as if I was writing a new one.

In addition, the process of transforming, I think, is related to the cartoon we were assigned to read this week, “writing identity”. When you transform a genre, oftentimes, you, as a writer, take a new identity because your intended audience is changed as well. Putting on someone’s costume and thinking in the same way as he does, I guess, will cause us to make same “moves” a real writer will do. Therefore, thinking about “writing identity” may help us make a better transformation.