The World is a Text reading assignment.

Introduction to "The World Is A Text"; pages 1-21

Our assignment was to read the introduction to the text book and blog our thoughts and feelings about the reading. From a reader's standpoint, I found it very difficult to physically read the textbook. Maybe it's my eyeglass prescription, but gee, I just was at the eye doctor and got new glasses last month. It must be then, in my opinion, that the text was way too small to comfortably read. I have already jotted a note to myself to purchase reading magnifying glass on next trip to the pharmacy. Already I'm off on a bad foot, or eyes, so to speak with the authors and/or publishers of the text.

As to the content of the reading, I found the authors have indeed broached on thought provoking insight, controversial thinking and pushing the reader's boundaries on what they perceived to be both the definition and scope of involvement in "rhetoric". That they would have the reader believe that rhetoric is the art of speaking was not new to me. That they would have the reader believe that rhetoric also includes the art of writing effectively, with emphasis and persuasion were new to me. When they noted the idea that rhetoric also included advertising and all forms of media made me stop and think. I understood that I could, in the writing process improve my ability to write by understanding the rules of writing, use of proper grammar and ensuring that I utilized my spell checker. What I didn't think about was how I could improve my writing by just reading or paying attention to other forms of media that bombard us daily.

The case studies were interesting. I never thought about the process of observation jotted down in such a fashion could lead one to the conclusions about what the business, Starbucks in this case, was trying to interject upon their customers with almost blatant subtleties. The case study on Fonts and the advertisements that are tossed at us constantly. I understood and agreed with the authors on. What I really found interesting, and had to agree with, is that you become more thoughtful and insightful when writing about what you read or thoughts you may have. I just never really thought about in that way.

For instance, normally after reading an article or other assignments, I put the book or text down and don't think about it much again until class time. Tonight, after reading the text I found myself sitting at the computer drafting this writing re-reading various sections of the text and in the process having to re-write or rephrase this writing. It also made me think harder about the material I read in order to make sense of the subject enough to formulate the writing. In essence, that's what the text is telling us. That by reading any form of media, or in fact all the elements that make up our world as we know it, and then writing about it makes us think about those "signs" we are given to read on a daily basis.

The introduction to the text also put forth to the reader how to utilize the text book and gave us an overview of the text book's content. The authors have challenged us to use the essay "suites" or groupings of essays about a topic that are meant to provoke us into thinking about different ways to approach or view a topic. By doing this the authors hope to inspire us to develop our own interpretations on specific sources of media input. The other goal of having us read these suites of essays was to help the reader develop a better idea of how writers write.