Building Blocks: Process Makes Perfect

​

For as long as there have been writers, there have been those who feel they cannot write. Kartcheske takes a close look at writer’s block to determine how much writing is done when we think we’re not writing.

Creating Familiar: The Document That Outlines Your Entire Hometown

 

Comprehensive plans are responsible for everything that goes into the planning and development of spaces within cities and villages. Zimmerman investigates the process of creating these plans and how they are distributed and enacted in the real world.

Not Just Skills: Writing, Research, and Character

​

Rients narrates his attempt to find out about the connection (if any) between success as a writer/researcher and Character Strengths. He describes his survey tool and results, discovering that many different Character Strengths can play into successful writing and research, but some strengths are valued more than others.

Coming Soon to Theaters: The Evolution of Horror Movie Posters

​

Verma uses the techniques of genre analysis to explore the evolution of horror movie posters. By looking into the history and examples of horror movie posters across time, she suggests that this seemingly simple genre actually involves more complexity than we think. From her findings, Verma reflects on how the choices that go into creating a horror movie poster can impact a viewer’s perception of the movie.

The Global Positioning System: Or, In Other Words, the ‘Getting People Somewhere’ Device

 

Horras discusses cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) by picking apart the foundation of mobile GPS apps while sharing one of her own relatively comical personal experiences.

Tumbling Part 2: Archives Edition, or, Tracking Tumblr’s Genre Evolution Over the Years

 

Stinnett delves into the depths of her Tumblr archives to analyze the ways in which Tumblr’s activity system and communication among users have evolved since Shelby Ragan’s 2015 analysis.

What’s the Buzz about BuzzFeed Quizzes?

 

With our current obsession with the internet and social media, BuzzFeed seems to be the perfect platform to spread information. Fairchild uses trajectory and CHAT analysis (specifically representation, distribution, and reception) to look into the depths of BuzzFeed, how it travels, and how people perceive it. 

“Balderdash!” Or, Learning Perception from Deception: Challenging Antecedent Knowledge with Uptake Writing

 

Through his research on the genre of “deception,” Hansen learned to examine his antecedent knowledge and how it was liable to give him a false sense of things. Hansen details the research methods and tools he adopted to chart his learning and uptake in order to better prepare himself to spot moonwalking bears.

Let the Round Begin

 

Hassels explores golf scorecards through CHAT. She relies on both her antecedent knowledge (of golf) and her antecedent genre knowledge (of scorecards) to help her explain the features of these cards and discusses potential problems that can arise when failures occur in the production and representation of them. 

Spreading Roots Presents: Writing a Minigrant Proposal: The Story of How Not Wanting to Do Work Actually Made Me Do More Work

​

Brown discusses her minigrant proposal writing process. Her process includes forgetting to do her work, frustration, and sarcastic comments. Brown offers a look into her eighth-grade classroom in her article, and explains how she wrote a “successful” minigrant proposal.

Through the Grapevine: Writing as a Tool for Non-Profit Musicians

 

In an interview conducted in collaboration with the Illinois State University Writing Program’s Outreach Initiative, Kartcheske talks to Seth Bernard, a Michigan-based musician, about the writing that he uses on a daily basis. Through the course of their conversation, they discuss the writing he uses in nonprofit organizations, music education, and as a public figure on social media.

CHATting about Design

 

Lewis finds the connection between the development and delivery of a project created with graphic design and CHAT, something she learned in an English class. She explains how each of the different factors that make up CHAT are easily relatable to her process when it comes to design.