Category: ENG110 (Page 3 of 3)

Write Blog #3 (200-400 words) comparing your second reading experience with your first. Did you notice something new? Did you react differently to one of the author’s claims? Did you read something critically when, at first, you read it as a believer or vice versa? Continue to “clear the fog.” Look up at least two more terms or references that you don’t know. Please elaborate on one moment that “clearing the fog” helped you better understand the author’s argument. Finally, please include a hyperlink to at least one resource you used to “clear the fog.” Remember: when seeking quick definitions or glossary terms, you don’t need to be too particular about your source. Feel free to use Wikipedia or the Dictionary.com. Remember, you aren’t conducting research, just trying to clarify a reference or term that you can’t initially place.

The second reading left me much less confused than the first reading. I felt like I was on the same page as Erard and really understood his use of metaphors, as well as his explanation of metaphors, much more clearly. At first, his metaphor about a room needing furniture, and how people will interpret a new room, was a little hard to understand. I didn’t comprehend how important Erard’s point that “it’s the cognitive (responses) you’re after” (6) rather than the emotional responses was. Coming back to it after reading the entirety of his essay over again, it encompasses his explanation about the designing and use of metaphors.

I had to look up a few terms in order to clear the fog. Erard says that when designing metaphors it is inevitable that you will “leav(ing) material on the cutting room floor” (2). I had a basic understanding that he meant that you’d scrap certain components and throw them away. After looking it up, it actually is a film industry term for unused film not being included in the final product. The film may have been developed and edited, but it is not included in the final product. Knowing this more detailed meaning behind the metaphor enhances my understanding of the metaphor editing process.

Another term that I had to look up was the exact meaning of bottleneck. Erard uses this term when explaining the importance of emphasizing a new metaphor. I knew that I had heard this term before but didn’t know its exact meaning. To be honest, this metaphor still doesn’t make sense to me even after looking it up. I looked at all the definitions of a bottleneck and none of them really stuck out as relating to English. Regardless, looking up the definition of the word allowed me to better understand Erard and what he was trying to convey.

After you have read and marked Erard’s text, please choose two places that sparked your interest and engage those moments in conversation. In other words: choose two to three marginal comments that you make and “Follow The Thread.” Please incorporate an image of your annotated text into your blog (3-5 pages). You may choose to hand write or type your exploratory writing. The important thing is that your brainstorming session is legible as it appears on your blog. 

One of the first things that caught my attention in Erard’s essay was how he explained his job as a metaphor designer. He explains it as a way of making someone think and realize, and to explain the unfamiliar (2). When I first read that designing metaphors was a full time job, the first word I thought was manipulation. If you design metaphors your goal is to control how someone understands and how someone relates. I think of advertisements using metaphors to sell their products, or articles using metaphors to imply some sort of bias. However, Erard doesn’t admit at all to using his job to control people’s emotions or way of thinking. He seems like a pretty honest guy, so maybe my first assumptions are wrong.

I really enjoy it when Erard uses metaphors to explain metaphors. I feel like he is trying to slip them in, wondering whether or not his reader will catch on. His explanation of how metaphors are interpreted better when the two elements are connected makes total sense. “(A) child is a machine” (4), while maybe partially true, will not be interpreted well by most people. Metaphors take on the entire sense of the comparison word, and a machine’s connotations are not as joyful and innocent as that of a child.

Erard connects back to his job title at the end of his essay. He poses the question of how much power a metaphor designer has. Again, he explains it as “being able to assist understanding” (8) instead of him being able to control understanding. I respect his view on his job and believe that this may really be his intentions. Perhaps I would personally take the opportunity to try to control how people think. I enjoyed his concrete examples of how metaphors can assist, or control, understanding. It is crazy how much language influences human nature and comprehension.

Annotate Geary’s transcript and upload an image of your annotations. Compare your first experience with Geary with your second experience. Did you notice something new while reading? Did you build new text-to-self or text-to-world connections? Highlight a moment in your “conversation” with Geary that stands out to you. Please explain why. 

One of the most surprising things about annotating Geary’s transcript after watching the video was how easy it was to remember how Geary delivered his message in the TED talk. It was as if I was listening to Geary talk as I read over the text. However, I also found it much easier to dissect exactly what Geary was saying about metaphors. He is tricky with his language, and often used metaphors in his descriptions. Picking up on the small details was much easier while looking at the text and reading at my own pace. For example, Geary closes his talk using a snow globe metaphor. I missed this detail my first time hearing the TED talk, proof that what Geary says about metaphors being hidden is true.

I definitely was able to connect more easily to the text when I had it in front of me. It allowed me to read over sentences and find the hidden meaning. Geary purposefully confuses the listener by using metaphors to explain metaphors. As a reader rather than a listener, identifying these instances is much easier to do. The connection I had most strongly with Geary’s explanation of metaphors was his explanation of how we use metaphors to explain abstract things. Instead of using detailed language, we rely on the connotations associated with other words through the use of metaphors. This fact is so true, but I wouldn’t have been able to identify it myself.