city suburb local shopping centre Smith Street intersection with Jones Road

Transcription

1 Being a Lyricist of Place: Getting into PR Genres Lyric poem Tourist publicity pamphlet Relevant strands Processing Information (STEPS 1 7) Writing (STEPS 3, 6, 7) Exploring Language (STEPS 3, 7) Close Reading (STEP 4) Exploring Language (STEPS 4, 7) Critical Thinking (STEPS 4, 7) Viewing (STEP 4) Presenting (STEPS 6 7) STEP 1: Getting started 1. Look at the following list of landscape features: City Wilderness Farming country Town Crop or fruit-growing country Choose the landscape feature on the list you most identify with. Then imagine you are a movie camera slowly moving in from a wide view to a close-up. Aim to arrive at a close-up of a place that you really like. (For example, a city-dweller might close in on a suburb, then a shopping centre, then a particular street, then an intersection, then a corner grocery store, then the inside of the grocery store.) Represent your closing-in process as a series of places linked by arrows. The example just mentioned would be represented thus: city suburb local shopping centre Smith Street intersection with Jones Road

2 Wilson s IGA store the interior of Wilson s IGA store 2. Think about the place you ended up at. First list the things you like about this place. Then list the things you don t like about this place. 3. Now list all the text-types you can think of that tell people things about places. You might categorize your answer under the following headings. Oral texts, for example, travel documentaries on radio; Written texts, for example, travel stories in magazines; Visual texts, for example, travel brochures. 4. Which of these text-types are you familiar with? What sorts of attitudes do they express towards the places they re written about? STEP 2: Finding a focus In Chapter 4 of Book 1 of this series, we broke the definition of argument up into a number of parts. We said that: argument is a process; an argument contains a number of connected statements; these statements need to be reasoned and supported with evidence; when we argue we are establishing a position on some issue; when we establish our position, we also acknowledge that other people may have different positions on this issue; argument can take a variety of forms. In this chapter, we are going to look rather more closely at the language we can use to establish a position. Our focus is going to be on diction, but we will also be recognizing that good writing is also about the way we shape sentences (syntax) and about the way we structure or organize the texts we produce. Putting this in terms of a problem, we will be asking the question: What are some effective language options for establishing our position in an argument? This question, we would suggest, generates a number of research tasks. Task 1: In what ways do the diction and syntax of a text change when the audience changes? Task 2: In what ways do the diction and syntax of a text change when the purpose and function change? Task 3: How does our command of language options affect our ability to communicate our position on something? This chapter will use a number of different genres to explore these questions.

3 STEP 3: An experiment For the purpose of this experiment, you are going to have to complete three pieces of writing in three different genres. They don t have to be long pieces, but you will need to think carefully about the instructions you are given below. The topic for each piece of writing is the special place you arrived at when you did STEP 1. Writing instructions: Magazine article extract: Imagine you are a scientist who is writing an article for a popular scientific monthly magazine that is mostly read by adults. Write a description of your chosen place. Personal letter: Be yourself. Imagine you are writing to a good friend convincing them about what a great time you d have doing things in your special place. Ad: Imagine you are a developer or real estate agent. Write the sort of description of your place that might be included in an advertisement which is selling your place or the location where your place is to be found. (RESOURCE A might help you with this.) RESOURCE A: The diction of real estate classifieds The following noun phrases we taken rather randomly from a classified ad section of a daily newspaper: redecorated, rose filled garden great outdoor living newly renovated 3-bedroom bungalow attractive home with good floor flow large wrap around decks captivating gulf and Rangitoto views Questions for reflection You might find the tasks below easier if you can find a way of putting your pieces of writing side by side. 1. At the top of each piece, describe briefly: the intended audience; the purpose; the language function(s). [NB: As we pointed out in Book 1, when we talk about the function of language, we are referring to the work (or job) we are asking the language to do. For example, the main function of a radio news bulletin is to inform. But you will realize that some radio stations like their news bulletins also to entertain. In a situation like this, we would say that the news bulletin is serving two functions: to inform and to entertain.] 2. For each piece, circle the words which you consider to be typical of the genre. 3. Look at the circled words. What do they have in common? For example, are they from similar word classes (parts of speech)? 4. For each piece, underline syntactical constructions (groups of words that are connected in some way) which you consider to be typical of the genre. 5. Look at your underlined constructions. Are there features that occur a number of times? What are they?

4 6. Put a tick above the words or constructions that you think work well, given the nature of your audience, purpose and function. (You don t have to be modest.) 7. Put a cross above the words or constructions that you think could be improved on. STEP 4: Working with text In this section, we will be looking closely at examples of two genres, the lyric poem and the publicity pamphlet. Each of these examples are about a place. Both clearly adopt a position with respect to that place. Both examples have as their topic cities in the lower half of the North Island of New Zealand, Wellington and Porirua. TEXT 1: The lyric poem People write poems for all sorts of purposes: to explore and express feelings, to propose marriage, to tell stories, to teach a lesson and to argue for something. A lyric poem is a text written in poetic form which expresses the writer s feelings about something. RESOURCE B is a poem written by a Wellington secondary school student about their city. Looking back on the poem five years after it was written, Grayson Cooke wrote: I think it was one of those wonderful flat grey days where the harbor is still and glassy and the same colour as the sky. Wellington does them so well. I was probably on the train, heading back to the Wairarapa and I imagine I was looking out the window. The poem is called Wellington in a Teacup/(not a nutshell). RESOURCE B Wellington in a Teacup (not a nutshell) white bone china teacup city you paint me in many colors rainbows of grey. I walk think and get pregnant with your child windspun free. I will sit and think it over waves crash over I think. low clouds send a movie screen shimmer to shiver across the roofs. I see this happen; eternity in a teacup futures stirred and tipped up out to Moa Point. gulls cry and split the grey with piercing wheeling white. clouds lift and the green is revealed. Grayson Cooke, Hutt Valley High School

5 How can lyric poems be arguments? Because poems use language densely, we will approach this poem slowly. As we go, you will be asked to do a number of activities which will take you into the process of claiming your own meaning from this poem. Activity One: Feeling your way into argument Think about the place you arrived at through doing STEP 1. Imagine for a moment that there is a person out there who really doesn t think much of your place. In fact, they re downright rude about it. Do a piece of writing about your place in which each line follows the formula: You say but I know. As I invite you to do this task, I am thinking of the corner grocery store that was near my home when I was growing up. It was a place that I really liked to be in. My piece of writing would begin: You say that the inside of the store is dank and smelly, but I know that my nose twitches from the fresh bread smells as I enter. When you have finished your writing, ask youself the question, Does this piece of writing fit the definition of argument put forward at the beginning of STEP 2 of this chapter? Write down some reasons for your answer. Activity Two: The poet s audience Poets often address someone directly (sometimes the reader, sometimes another person). Who is the writer of this poem addressing? Can you find any second person pronouns in this poem? What effect does this have? Why might the writer address Wellington? What details in the poem might prove difficult for a person who had never seen Wellington? A person who has seen Wellington will know that it is a very green city, that it is often windy and that much of the city is built on rather steep hillsides surrounding a round harbor. How are these details built into the poem? Would you say, then, that a reader who has been to Wellington has an advantage over one who has never been there? Give reasons. Activity Three: Language, purpose and function The table below contains three columns, Language Feature, Purpose and Function. Match each Language Feature with at least one item from the Purpose and Function columns. (It s OK to use items from the Purpose and Function columns more than once when you are deciding on each of the language features.) You might want to refer to the glossary, if you are unsure of the meanings of some of these language features. As an example, you may decide to link the language feature, A number of very short lines with the purpose, To ensure that certain words become emphasized because of their placement in lines, and the function, To describe or evoke. Language Feature Purpose Function First person pronouns, e.g. I, me. A series of verbs in the present tense, e.g. walk, To give the reader a sense of actually experiencing a place through their senses of sight and sound. To organize To describe or evoke To challenge To personalize

6 think, get pregnant, see. Carefully chosen adjectives, e.g. white, bone, china, teacup, piercing, wheeling. Visual images, e.g. white bone china teacup city, movie screen shimmer. Aural images, e.g. crash, cry piercing. A number of very short lines. Repetition of the word think. References to cliches: e.g. storm in a teacup, that it in a nutshell. A three-part structure where an initial three-line section is balanced by a final three-line section. To ensure that certain words become emphasized because of their placement in lines. To draw attention to what the writer is feeling and thinking. To draw attention to the fact that if we are responsive to our environment, our thoughts about it are always changing. To draw attention in a playful way to the fact that we often get trapped into thinking in fixed ways. To draw attention to the fact that a process is occurring. To suggest that it s not all that easy to pin down or describe the experience of a particular place. To amuse To emphasize Activity Four: Metaphor and Argument The following activities look more closely at that category of diction we call imagery. Images can be either literal or figurative. Literal images refer to objects that are actually present in the situation being written about (the literal situation). The words gulls cry in the poem are literal because they refer to objects actually present in the scene the writer is responding to. Find other literal images from the poem. On the other hand, figurative images are references to objects that are not present in the literal situation but which the writer connects to an object that is present. Metaphor is the general term we use for such images. The word teacup is figurative because there are no teacups literally present in the situation being described. Teacup is a metaphor. Why do you think the poet chose it? Can you find other metaphors in the poem? A simile is a special kind of metaphor where the literal object is linked to the figurative object by like or as. There are no similes in this poem. A personification is another kind of metaphor, where the literal object is a nonhuman thing but is given human qualities. In this poem, Wellington is addressed as you and is described as paint[ing] me in many colors. Wellington is not literally a painter. In this expression, we say that the city is being personified. Can you find other examples of personification? When you apply a figurative image (metaphor, simile or personification) to an object, you are saying something about your attitude towards it. Let s imagine a classroom and a teacher. (It could be your classroom, if you like, but please don t be too unkind.) It so happens that this teacher has animals on their brain. He or

7 she is always using animal metaphors when he or she is addressing the students. For each of the following exclamations, write down what the teacher s attitude to the student is. John, you re working at a snail s pace! Mary, you re nothing but a bird-brain! Angela, don t just parrot me! Russell, don t wolf your food! There s Jane. What a peacock! You perhaps wouldn t enjoy being taught by this teacher, but you would soon know what metaphor is. If we take the first of the above exclamations, John, you re working at a snail s pace, we can see that it contains a mini-argument. We might write the argument like this: Statement: John is an extremely slow worker. Evidence: The speed of his actions reminds me of the slowness with which snails move. Convert the other four exclamations into mini-arguments. When you re reading a poem, the meaning you make out of it often depends on what the metaphors remind you of or suggest to you. Let s take the line of the poem, white bone china teacup city. I m going to treat the words white bone china teacup as figurative though you might argue that the city is literally white. As I respond to that description I might write: Statement: The writer is presenting Wellington as a city of pale colors built around the steep sides of a round harbor. Evidence: The metaphor of a white bone china cup suggests a steep circle of illustrations surrounding a round circle of liquid. I have read the metaphor that way because of the way I have responded to it, or what it has reminded me of. Putting it bluntly, that is my reading of the metaphor. Yours might be different. Especially if you focus more on the word china. Is your reading different? How do you respond to the words white bone china teacup? What view of the city does this suggest to you? Come up with readings for the following metaphors: movie screen shimmer, eternity in a teacup, futures stirred and tipped up, split the grey. Put your readings in the Statement/Evidence form of the above box. Activity Five: Good poems are not easily exhausted By now you will be beginning to realize something about poetic language. Firstly, poetic language is very rich in the way it lends itself to all kinds of readings. Secondly, poetic language is often dense and complex. Lots of things are going on in the language.

8 To prove a point, here are a few more questions you might like to ponder over: Why does the poet appear to make the point that Wellington might be contained in a teacup but not a nutshell? Does the writer literally get pregnant? Do the waves crash over then I think, or do the waves crash over the writer s act of thinking ( I think )? Is the grey that the gulls split in the last three lines of the poem the same grey that appears in the first three lines? Why might the teacup disappear or be broken at the end of the poem? What s a question you might come up with about this poem? TEXT 2: The tourist publicity pamphlet Walk into any travel agent and tourist bureau and you ll find a large range of pamphlets which will tell you about places to visit. You ll find lots of information in these pamphlets, but you ll also find lots of reasons being put forward in an attempt to persuade you that a particular place is really worth a visit. In this section we will be looking at a pamphlet produced by the Porirua City Council. Activity 1: Thinking through audience and purpose Who is the intended readership for a tourist publicity pamphlet? What is the purpose of a tourist publicity pamphlet? What does a tourist publicity pamphlet need to do to be successful? (Try to make a list in response to this question. Some of your answers will touch on the question of language function.) Activity 2: The shape of a pamphlet One of the features of a pamphlet is that it is folded. The pamphlet, Porirua, City of Opportunity is the size of two A4 sheets of paper joined lengthways. It has five vertical folds. Take a sheet of A4 paper. How many ways can you fold it to form a pamphlet? Which of your options is the most interesting? Which is the most common? Which is the most practical? Why? Activity 3: The organization of a pamphlet. The Porirua pamphlet folds into twelve sections. We will be referring to a section as a rectangular part of a pamphlet that is bounded by either a fold or an edge of paper. One section becomes the front of the pamphlet when it is folded. Another section, containing maps and the council s address, becomes the back of the pamphlet. The other sections are combinations of slogans, pictorial graphics and text blocks. Some graphic and text items extend across more than one section of the pamphlet. RESOURCE C is the front section of the Porirua pamphlet. This section has three items: a headline, a cluster of pictorial graphics and a logo. What is the purpose of the headline? The headline is also a slogan? Come up with a slogan for your own city or town.

9 What is your opinion of the overall composition of this section? Why do you think the items have been organized in this way? Why do you think the producers of this pamphlet chose the three pictures that they did? Comment on the design of the logo. What idea of Porirua does the logo design communicate? Activity 4: The language of a text-block RESOURCE D and E are two inner sections of the Porirua pamphlet. Each of these sections contains a headline/slogan, a text block and two pictorial graphics. RESOURCE D also has a caption. Each text-block begins with a general statement. We value education highly. is one. What is the general statement in RESOURCE E? The language of general statements is often abstract. Words like value and education are abstract because they refer to ideas or concepts. You can t see, hear, touch, smell or feel ideas and concepts. Find other abstract words. What follow each general statement are the reasons and examples which are offered as proof that the general statement is in fact true. What evidence is provided that Porirua does in fact value education highly. When examples are provided, the language often becomes concrete. Concrete language appeals to our senses because it brings to mind things we can see, hear, smell, touch and feel. The words waterfowl, dabble and reeds are all examples of concrete language. Find examples of your own. STEP 5: Reflection Individually, or in groups, consider the following questions. 1. Why was Grayson Cooke s poem more difficult to read than the pamphlet? 2. Grayson Cook s poem might be called ambiguous. ( Ambiguous means capable of a number of different readings.) Is this a strength or a weakness? Give reasons. 3. In both poem and pamphlet, concrete language has an important function? What is the function? Why is concrete language important in these genres? 4. The poem has the writer s name at the bottom of it but the pamphlet doesn t tell us who wrote the text for it. Come up with an explanation for this? STEP 6: Application A. Producing a lyric poem The following steps should not be seen as a formula for writing a poem. They are a list of suggestions and you are invited to ignore all of them. Concentrate: Find a way of putting your mind in touch with the place you arrived at in STEP 1. If you concentrate best when you re eating, eat. If you need music, put some on.

10 Listen to yourself. What sorts of feelings and thoughts come to you as you think about this place? Allow yourself to have mixed feelings. (Make some jottings if you like.) Concretize: Identify the particular sensations that you experience in this place the individual sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations. (List these if you like.) Start: Start with a vivid impression, an image that you somehow associate with your main feeling. Flow: Keep writing. Let your instincts tell you where to end a line. If you stay in touch with your feelings, you may find a little hesitation is enough to tell you that it is time to put a line break. Trust the process: Don t expect to know the meaning of what you re writing as you write. Just do it. Revise: Don t overdo the revision process. But if you find sloppy, abstract words like nice and pleasant, see if you can replace them with sharp, interesting, zappy words like palpitating and rustle. B. Producing a tourist publicity pamphlet. Publicity pamphlets are usually the product of a team effort. The suggested production steps set out below would be more fun done as a group or pair. Your brief is to produce a pamphlet publicizing your own town or city. Decide on your target readership and where your pamphlet will be displayed. Identify the selling points of your town or city. List these as general statements and examples. Structure: Decide on the size of the sheet of paper you will be folding and how you are going to fold it. How many sections do you want to end up with? Make a mock-up. Do this by obtaining a sheet of paper the same size as the pamphlet you are producing, fold it and block out on each section the items you want to see there (e.g. headings, pictorial graphics, text-blocks, captions, etc). If you are working as a group, allocate responsibilities. Who s going to do what? Produce your required copy. This means writing your text-blocks and obtaining graphic items (such as photographs and a logo). Edit. Finish your copy after deciding on such things as typeface, style and bordering. Do your paste-up on a correctly sized and finished sheet of paper. (Or import your text and graphic items on to a prepared file, if you are using a desk-top publishing program.) Publish. STEP 7: Exploring further Complete as many activities as you like the matrix below: Chart Mobile Statements & Examples Concretization Collage Waxing Lyrical Report Investigation

11 Chart Construct a chart using a flow diagram to show the steps to be followed in producing a tourist publicity pamphlet. Mobile Collect a number of tourist publicity pamphlets. Make a mobile composed of a number of hanging pieces. On one side of each piece paste a graphic item from one of your pamphlets. On the opposite side of each piece, paste a print-text item which in some way relates to the picture. Collage Create a collage which communicates a number of positive aspects of your town or city. Waxing lyrical Review the tourist publicity pamphlet you created in STEP 5: B. Write down a list of the concrete expressions you use. Now create a lyric poem celebrating your town and city which uses as many of these concrete expressions as you can. Statements and examples Collect a number of tourist publicity pamphlets. On a sheet of paper, make two columns. One column should be headed General Statements, the other Reasons and Examples. Find general statements and reasons and examples from the pamphlets you collected and place them opposite one another in the appropriate columns. Concretization On a sheet of paper, make two columns. See RESOURCE F. One column should be headed Abstractions, the other Concrete Expressions. Find ways of transforming the abstract words in the left column into concrete expressions on the right column. The first one has been done for you. RESOURCE F Abstractions love jealousy ambition snobbery pride anger beauty Concrete Expressions she smiled warmly

12 Report Collect a number of tourist publicity pamphlets. Write a report which details: The different sorts of ways they were folded. The different sorts of appeals that were used. The sorts of graphic features that were commonly found. Examples of approbatory diction from the range of pamphlets. Examples of attention-getting devices. Check your glossary for the meaning of appeal and approbatory diction. Investigation Use your local library as a starting point to find out the names of poets who have lived and/or published in your town and city. Find and skim through the tables of contents of books they have published. Have they written poems describing your town or city? What attitude do these poems reveal? References: Grayson Cooke, Wellington in a Teacup, from With Love, Tira: A Journal of Secondary Students Writing: 1992, Welllington (Learning Media), 1992 [Grayson Cooke,#206, 80 Pine West, Montreal, Quebec H2W 1R1, Canada] Porirua: City of Opportunity, published by the Porirua City Council, PO Box , Porirua City.