Blog Post #4 - Victoria Nemeth

“Intertextuality in the Discourse Community” is a mouthful.  Before last class if you asked me to even begin to describe what that means, I would probably have no clue what you were talking about.  When we started to discuss this reading during our last class, I began to realize how connected it was to everything we had been talking about prior.  In many of our classes an underlying theme has been remixes, and using past experiences to help in your current situation of writing. In this case the underlying theme is still remixes, but with a spin.  I think when we are in classes we don’t always realize how applicable the class material is to our everyday lives. The topic of presupposition was presented through memes, which are definitely present in our lives outside of school.   I think using memes really helped me to understand the idea of presupposition and how prior knowledge is necessary sometimes for understanding something. I think using memes was a simple, but perfect example of how that idea works. I think one of the examples that stuck out to me was the Roses are Red poem example.  In this example the creator of the meme was making the assumption that the audience knew the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, the character Groot, and his saying, “I am Groot.” In addition to this assumption, the creator also assumed that the audience knew the movie, The Incredibles, and Frozone’s line, “Honey, where’s my supersuit?”  I thought it was very interesting to see this because I didn’t realize how much prior knowledge went into understanding memes.  

The other readings about first drafts were very interesting to me.  I find it very difficult to look at a blank page and write a paper from scratch.  In these readings I saw myself writing my first drafts, and the author naming my habits.  I personally write one first draft that is the foundation, and gets at least something on to the page.  I know while I’m writing that it is definitely going to need revision in the future. I really enjoyed Lamott’s essay, “Shitty First Drafts” because it really resonated with me.  I definitely cannot write a paper on the first try, and sometimes I need to completely start over. I think that this paper was really helpful because it made me feel more comfortable in my writing process.  It was reassuring to read that many good writers start out with shitty first drafts, but that’s alright because they go on to “end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” (Lamott) I think I always make the assumption that good writers just have words magically fly from their brain to the page in one try.  After reading Lamott’s essay it helped me to understand that good writing is a long and painful process, and that the end result isn’t a product of the first draft. As we begin to write our first drafts in this class, it was helpful to read this right before because it makes me more comfortable in the fact that my first draft doesn’t necessarily have to be pretty.  The revisions and the reworkings of the paper will help with that.