As an ambitious Business major student, one of my future business will include a bakery store due to my addiction to sweetness. Here is an outline of my future Bakery & Cafe’s menu and recipe of each dessert. This menu outline serves as a breakdown of my learning and writing process for New Media Writing Class. Since the process for different assignments varies slightly, I categorize them into four desserts. Hope you enjoy ! Bon appétit !
Click to listen to our final episode of Voices Through the Mask: “Voice Through the Mask and Beyond”
The downsides of the COVID-19 pandemic have been discussed and criticized frequently. However, we shouldn’t neglect the positive changes brought by COVID. In this final episode of Voices through the mask, we talked about how communication has improved during the pandemic. During our brainstorming process, we decided that this episode is going to serve as a wrap-up of our previous 13 episodes and go beyond them. We want our audiences to realize that good things from Covid communication should be extracted and turned into long-term systematic changes.
Icy, the main producer of this episode, decided to construct the podcast by discussing communication in three different settings: household, classroom, and workplace.
As the assistant producer, I helped her write the script of communication in the classroom part. Since we decided to use this episode as a final wrap-up, we connected back to the previous episode produced by our peers and quoted their ideas and stories. Specifically, we used quotes from Bowen, Saketh, and Laurie’s podcast episodes. Their ideas helped us to strengthen our arguments. For instance, in the episode “Zooming through Doom” produced by Skateh and his teammates, the advantages of Zoom for educational use are presented in their podcast. They talked about Zoom’s benefits to their learning process, which is strong evidence for our arguments for improvement in classroom communication. Besides quoting from our peers’ work, we also employed scholarly evidence from Icy’s previous socioeconomic research analysis, using a more professional point of view to support our arguments.
However, we don’t want to simply use others’ ideas and stories. As students capable of critical thinking, we synthesize different ideas and extend beyond them. Inspired by others’ ideas, we conclude that Covid facilitates communication in various ways because it puts us into a worst-case situation and triggers our ability to figure out a solution in the most cost-saving way. In this way, the production of this last episode allows me to meet one of the course’s learning outcomes: critical thinking and reading result in writing.
One of the challenges we faced during podcast production was that it was hard to summarize and organize all the valuable information we collected into a more concise version. Since we quoted from different peers’ podcasts and scholars’ research, the information and evidence we have are many. However, I think we did a good job on synthesizing all the evidence and others’ arguments. Doing my individual work, I solved this problem by writing down an outline for what I wanted to write. Then I selected which evidence can better build up our arguments and convey our message. I am proud of the conclusion we reached and the idea that this episode functions to conclude the whole podcast.
Our group’s Twine Game is designed based on our previous podcast: Trust is the Key to Vaccine Hesitancy. Our group divided up our work: cooperating with Icy, I wrote and developed dialogue and script for the game, and Samantha incorporated our work and coded the game. In the beginning, our team planned to create a game that allows the player to understand and experience the obstacles faced by doctors who need to deal with vaccine-hesitant patients. We want the players to play from a doctor’s point of view, choosing the best answer to persuade patients who are suspecting and questioning COVID vaccines. We hope our players of this game can empathize with doctors. Before working as a line producer for Samantha’s podcast, I didn’t know that convincing patients to be vaccinated was also part of the doctor’s job. Most people like me don’t realize how much effort a responsible doctor made to persuade their vaccine-hesitant patients. Patients may hold all kinds of implausible reasons for not taking vaccines, so simply rejecting patients’ beliefs will not convince the patients. Diagnosing and talking to different patients is exhaustive work. Thus, we want our players to understand and appreciate what doctors have done for us during this pandemic. Besides convincing people to take the vaccine, they saved thousands of lives with their medical skills and knowledge.
During our brainstorming process, we realized that using Twine game as the medium to present our message to the audience is different from the making podcast. We need to design a patient with an interesting background story and reason for not taking the vaccine. As Dr. Toochinda pointed out in the interview, she used the strategy of presenting scientific reasonings and other patients’ examples to make persuasive arguments. While working on my individual work of writing the dialogue, I incorporated one of her patients’ stories and scientific facts that I collected from the internet (the links of our sources are in the google doc). Besides using the reasons mentioned in the podcast, I also learned more causes of vaccine hesitancy through my online research. For instance, people may hold conspiracy theories like that vaccines contain a magnetic chip for government to track people. In this way, we designed a patient who is a pregnant young lady who holds her own concern of not taking the vaccine, but her family’s opinions also influence her. This way allows us to integrate multiple beliefs into one patient, and I think we made a smart choice here. Also, unlike the podcast and previous writing assignments, writing a game is nonlinear since we need to branch off different answer choices. After all the script and dialogue were written, we translated the trust of patient into a game variable by assigning scores and weights to certain answer choices.
Due to time and technology constraints, we only have a few answer choices and dialogue. For improvement, we can add more branching dialogues paths. If the player selected a specific answer, a new conversation would begin. This will allow the player to have a better game experience and feel like they engage in a real-life conversation with patients. At first, we wanted to have more than one patient with various beliefs and backgrounds. Because of the time limit, we reduced the number of patients in the game to one. For future upgrades of the game, we can code the game with multiple patients and add more dialogue paths.
Writing dialogues and designing a game is a totally new experience for me as a writer. Before conducting this project, I never realized coding a game could be an effective way of conveying my arguments and can be considered a writing process.
I am trying to recreate one of the scenes from the famous movie Men in Black. In this scene, Agent J, acted by Will Smith, is trying to use the “Neuralyzer” to erase the memory of a person who witnesses alien. Agent J works for MIB, a secret organization which monitors alien activities on earth and makes sure that people don’t know the existence of aliens. I choose this scene because I always wish to have a “Neuralyzer.” When I feel embarrassed by myself, I can use this powerful tool to erase others’ memories. Also, I constantly hope to use “Neuralyzer” to erase my teachers’ and professors’ memories and tell that them the tests and homework are canceled. In order to become a qualified member of MIB and save the earth from aliens, I put on my black coat and sunglasses, and I used a pen to mimic the “Neuralyzer.” To make my image more like the scene from the movie, I asked my roommate to take the picture of me at the Asbury Circle in the evening.
It is the halfway of the school year, and one more month is left for the winter break. College students are dealing with midterm exams, assignments, projects, presentations, and all sorts of intellectually challenging tasks. Several days ago, my friends and I were planning for our winter break. My friend said she is tired and sick of school because of the heavy workload and high academic pressure. The only thing that she wishes to do is laying on the Santa Monica beach and enjoy the nice weather in California. I share the same feeling with her, hoping the winter break to start immediately. Inspiring by our conversation, I created a playlist with lively and joyful songs, reflecting a summer and vacation vibe. Most songs in my playlist are Kpop music, which is my favorite music genre. Also, Kpop music has a catchy beat and rhythm for dancing. If you are struggling and feeling stressed, listen to this playlist and dance together with the rhythm.
As I examined through my blueprint of the Forbidden City, I carefully placed each LEGO brick, trying my best not to fail the task given by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. When my alarm rang, I suddenly woke up and realized that this was a dream. I dreamt that I used the time machine to travel back to the Ming Dynasty, and the Forbidden City was built by me using LEGO. When I was little, I always dreamed of becoming an architect, dreaming of designing my own building. Although now I have decided to pursue a business career, I didn’t give up my interest in architecture. I enjoyed being an “architect” who uses LEGO to build different “buildings.” The survey I created for this assignment is kind of like my fantasy.
Before creating this photo, I experimented with many other pictures. The biggest challenge for me during the process of this assignment is that matching two images together. At first, I came up with an idea to combine the chocolate lava cake with the actual lava. However, I found out that the combo photo does not match in color and other features. Thus, I abandoned this idea. Later, trying to combine different pictures, I found that they neither match color nor are creative enough. I struggled with this assignment due to the time and technology constraints.
At last, I came up with the idea of combining a toy with its original archetype. I found a picture of the Forbidden City LEGO online, and I combined it with the image of the actual historical building, which I took in the summer. The colors of the photos matched this time, and they worked pretty well with each other. However, I thought combining these two pictures could not convey my idea and was not creative enough. Therefore, I took a picture of my friend’s hand holding a piece of LEGO brick and combined it with the other two pictures.
This 700,000-piece model of the Forbidden City was built by a Chinese man using one year, which is impressive. However, it is even more remarkable that the actual Forbidden City was constructed without machines and other mechanical tools. When I matched the two pictures together, it was impressive that the model could match the original architecture, demonstrating this LEGO enthusiast’s skills and talent..
My previous experience with HTML is for my other courses, which asked me to convert my Python and R coding assignments to HTML files. In these courses, coding is used to produce statistical outputs and visualizations. This is my first time using HTML as a tool to compose text and serve for my writing. Also, before this sketch assignment, I didn’t have the experience of utilizing CSS to create an aesthetic appearance for an HTML file. My previous appointments of creating an HTML were filled with numbers and charts, which can be dull for readers.
The designing process for the landing page provides me with an introduction to HTML and CSS language. Although I didn’t know how to create a visually attractive landing page, with Professor Morgen’s template and demonstration in class, I was able to change the color, fonts, and other features by using different codes. In this way, I learned that coding could create more interesting and visually appealing work, assisting me in conveying my ideas and serving as a medium to present my writings to others. However, I believe that I am still equipped with little knowledge of HTML and CSS languages. Through designing this landing page, I encounter some limitations for creating aesthetic features because I am a novice for these two languages. I believe that through this course, I may explore more about these two languages and learn more about using technology as a tool for communication and writing.
In the beginning, my assistant producer Samantha Lin and I worked and discussed the thesis and structure of our podcast. However, we encountered trouble with developing the thesis and filling it in the ABT format. We decided to write the questions and interview one of our interviewees to see if the answer could help us reach a convincing conclusion. After we met and discussed the answers from the first interview with Professor Morgen, we decided that this episode functions to present American audiences with an international perspective on the Covid-19 situation in the US. As the producer of this episode, I interviewed interviewees, wrote the script, and edited the audio. Samantha reviewed my work and provided suggestions for improvements.
Initially, we planned to interview all four interviewees together. However, we cannot schedule the interview with everyone in the same room because of the time conflict. Also, we were unable to include everyone’s answers due to the time constraint for the podcast, so I needed to choose answers and edit them into one track of audio.
This assignment allowed me to compose text in a new and more creative mode, providing an innovative experience of creating a podcast and expressing my opinion through my voice. One strategy I used in this assignment is formatting the thesis into Randy Olson’s ABT, which effectively helps me convey my argument to the audience. At first, I don’t know how to structure this episode. Following the ABT format, the structure and the thesis are conveyed more concisely and engagingly. Thus, this strategy not only shapes my episode but also assists me in achieving one of the learning outcomes of this course, which is rhetorical composing.
The purpose of this episode is to convince our American audiences to be responsible for their health and others’ health by presenting a group of international students’ opinions and feelings on studying abroad life under the pandemic. This podcast highlights how these international perceive that some Americans are behaving irresponsibly, such as refusing to take the vaccine, not wearing a mask or wearing the mask improperly. The reference to vaccine hesitancy in this episode connected back to our previous episode, “Trust is the Key to Vaccine Hesitancy,” where we talked about the method of persuading people in the US to get the vaccine. In this episode, we briefly talked about the vaccine rate in China, which is much higher than in the US, indicating that vaccine hesitancy is not a common phenomenon in China. While listening to the previous episode, “Language Instruction: Abroad vs. In-person Podcast Reflection,” we found that their podcast is well-structured and follows the ABT format, which inspired us to use the ABT format to deliver a more concise and understandable podcast. Although their title is very straightforward and informative, we want to use a more engaging and exciting title for our podcast. We notice that the title created by group 4 and group 3 is engaging for attractive to audiences. Thus, we decided to have a more interesting title to grab the audiences’ attention.
Through the process of creating this assignment, I also met the collaboration learning outcome. At first, as a domestic student, Samantha cannot understand the significance of presenting perspectives from international students to American audiences, and we hold different views on what kinds of questions should be asked in the interview. Later, during our discussion and the process of constructing the thesis, we made the agreement and set the podcast’s thesis. With Samantha’s help and critiques, I made revisions and editions on the podcast in grammar correction, sources, and audio editing. As a learner, I am progressing to adapt to group work and receive critiques from my peers. Accepting the critiques and listening to others’ perspectives, I can improve and revise my work. Besides that, I can also see one thing from another perspective and improve my critical thinking ability.
In the second part of my technology narrative, I talked about technology’s pros and cons and how technology influences my educational journey. Technology provides me with ample information and helps me become a more independent and creative learner. However, it also makes me less productive. For me, it is crucial to create a balance between my real life and the technological world.
After the meeting with Professor Morgen, I decided to use the ABT format to make my technology narrative more interesting to read. My first draft is too bland because it only stresses one idea, the benefits brought by the technology. This caused my conclusion to be weak and the whole essay a little bit bland. For the revision, I add the analysis on technology’s downsides. My second draft of the technology narrative is constructed by a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, leading me to have a stronger conclusion.
Reading through my classmates’ narratives, I learned that I did not put into consideration analyzing a subject from a different perspective. Some of my classmates talked about the benefit brought by technology and the downsides of technology, which I didn’t talk about in my first draft. Their approaches make me reconsider the structure of my narrative and try to fill it into the ABT format. I included quotes from people who hold different ideas in my essay to build up my antithesis. I also included people who share similar ideas with me and used their quotes in the thesis part of my narrative. Many of my classmates share similar thoughts with me. They all talk about the convenience and benefits brought by technology in their daily life. I am surprised by Crystal’s story in which she talks about how technology allows her to read through other athletes’ thoughts and help her get through her mental struggles. I didn’t realize technology is mental supporting for some people.
Through writing and revising these two drafts, I learned a lot about constructing my essay and conveying my idea more concisely and powerfully. The revision helps me to improve my writing. Also, reading through others’ stories with technology, I get the chance to view one thing from different perspectives and connect others’ ideas with mine, utilizing writing as a critical thinking process.
I designed this image using Procreate.
Images used for reference: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/89931323795391769/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/729301733411448794/
Jessica's Website