Shekhar Desphande in his article “The Confident Gaze” describes how the National Geographic magazine throughout the years has used mostly images to obtain the attention of the people who buy the magazines or the people in the western culture. The pictures on the covers of the National Geographic magazines are what get the attention of the buyers, even if they don’t always represent accurately what is really happening when the picture is taken. The article starts out by describing the issue “Little India” that was released in July 1997 because India had turned 50 years old as an independent country. The cover image of that issue is of a boy with red paint all over his face which would mean that he was celebrating something at a festival and probably having a good time. In reality the picture represents something else. What is seen on the picture is a very thin tired looking boy. He also looks sad and has wrinkles on his face. If this picture was of a normal looking boy in a normal place then the image would have nothing special about it. Like Deshpande describes that “Human suffering is worth a good image”. Deshpande is saying that once people in the western culture see something unusual or someone who going through pain on an image; then it is worth checking it out because it is not something we see every day.
Deshpande goes on describing how the National Geographic magazine mostly gets its information across through pictures. Deshpande says that “National Geographic is known as a photographic magazine”. So in other words Deshpande is saying that to the people who make the National Geographic magazines really care about what images are included in their magazines and what they represent. If the images aren’t good, then no one will be interested in buying the magazine. In order to sell more magazines the photographers stretch the truth on what the images really represent.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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