This assignment was to create a podcast with a small group of 2 or 3 people and discuss our personal narrative stories and the messages behind them.
Composing for a new genre/ media as well as a new audience impacted my choices for aspects of the rhetorical situation like message, purpose, tone, design, context, and organization.
Since it was an audio recording instead of writing, we could worry less about our tone because you could hear if something was supposed to be sarcastic or funny for example. We didn't have to think much about how to word something so it didn't sound wrong or out of context.
The design was similar to writing a paper, but we did go off track sometimes and that was okay. Context was slightly different because we did have to explain things a little more. We had to kind of give a background to the situation as well as some details the listener couldn't pick up just from listening.
Organization was similar to design. Occasionally we veered off the intended path of organization but it was okay because sometimes podcasts just go another way and that's interesting to the listeners. We organized it similar to a paper with an intro explaining kind of what we were going to talk about, each of us got our own "paragraph" to talk about our stories and what happened, and in the conclusion we gave our message and purpose as well as something to leave the reader with.
Our composition process differed from previous writing assignments because we had to plan for an audio recording rather than writing a paper. Even though we could go through and edit and delete mistakes later, we wanted to have as little to go back and edit as possible. This was so the recording was more organic for the listeners.
Not only did our composition process differ in the recording process, but there were three people talking ("writing") in one piece. We haven't had a writing assignment where more than one author is present so composing that was different as well. I chose to leave out a lot of the specific details, like my descriptive language, because I only had about 10 min to tell my story and get my message across.
I did summarize a lot of my paper in the podcast. I tried not to bring new elements because I thought they were irrelevant.
The most challenging aspect of this assignment was editing the recording. I personally do not have good technology skills but having someone else in my group who knew what she was doing in that aspect was a life saver. I did learn a lot about editing recordings through this assignment.
The most interesting aspect to me was hearing other people's stories and getting to talk about them.
Podcast Outline
Opening
Names, explain were students and maybe our majors?
How kairos and context can help the reader a lot with synthesized purpose and get the message of the piece without having to be explicitly told it
Outline of Persuasive Dialogue (Elise)
About my first trauma situation in the ER and what happened
Used descriptive language to give important details emphasis and give a better picture of what’s going on. Lots of pathos to make the reader feel the same stuff we were feeling. Logos to show how we handled the situation and why we did what we did. Kairos to give the reader a better understanding of the circumstance and situation.
“The noise and the realization of what is actually going on woke me up faster than any cup of coffee ever could.” “I was prouder to wear that sticker than an elementary school kid who got a sticker from their third grade teacher.” “”Everything in the room tuned out and the only thing I could hear was my brain singing the infamous song “Staying Alive” as I counted to thirty compressions”.
What was everyone else doing? How did that make you feel? Did that impact you later? Is that a major reason why you did ______? How often does that affect you today?
“Let’s keep that in mind as we move onto our next topic” “Because of that, this happened”
Outline of Persuasive Dialogue (Caroline) Narrative: Talking about the day my dad had a cardiac arrest.
Using descriptive language such as sensory statements to create imagery. Using the dialogue of the conversation at the breakfast table and when we were in the emergency room what my sister was saying on the phone. Possible use dialogue from my dad seeing my best friend in the hospital. The language should be using ethos to create emotion
1. All I remember was her screaming on the phone to her boyfriend “He’s going to die! He’s going to die!” while bawling her eyes out.
2. It started as an ordinary Sunday with a family breakfast. The smell of freshly cooked bacon and eggs lingered in the air, like an old-fashioned diner.
3. The sounds of sirens were as if a catastrophic event had taken place.
Elise how long did those 43 minutes feel like?
Elise what was your immediate reaction when the doctor told you to stop doing compressions?
Elise did this happen pretty regularly at the hospital?
Sara how did this event impact your relationships?
…more questions with Sara once I know more about her topic
Transition between mine and Elise’s topics: Coming from Elise’s event I can relate to a traumatic medical emergency. My Dad had a cardiac arrest three years ago but fortunately enough the cpr was successful.
Conclusion: these three significant events all still impact our lives to this day
Message: Even though you may think you know a stranger you may have no idea what they are going through internally.
Sarah’s Examples:
About sexual assault and how you should’nt be emarresed to tell other people when stuff like that happes
Mostly utilizing kairos for my narrative for some background to give it more purpose and ethos to engage the listener
“...Basically a discount Dave and Busters.” “ I felt like a fish in a bowl, a cat pawing tentatively at the water's edge.” “After that I avoided my manager like the plague.”
What were the people their like? Why didn’t you want to tell someone? How did that make you feel? a time one of my partners felt uncomfortable (if thats happened to either of you)? Did he get fired?
I had a similar experience when…
Conclusion
How all three of our stories tie together (purpose, message, writing styles, etc)
How our readers can use our synthesized purposes and use that same skill of assessing pieces of writing’s purposes (descriptive language, ethos, pathos, logos)