Cassy's Blog: 2016

Casandra Phillips

Writing 2 WP3

03/04/2016

Description/ Summary

I decided to focus my project on “Textual Silences Large and Small” by Thomas Huckin. This article focus on how the missing pieces of writings and texts actually have a meaning behind it and they serve a purpose. Thomas Huckin categorizes these textual silence moves into 6 types from least to most transparent type of silence to show the importance in each and how they are presented.

Like previously mentioned, there are 6 different silences that are presented in this article by Thomas Huckin. Most of these can go with each other but they all kind of serve a different purpose individually. The first one mentioned was “topical silence” which occurs when, “where some topic relevant to a larger issue is omitted from discussion” (421). This silence focuses on not giving too many details out to expose certain things about real issues that might trouble some people. The next silence is “conventional silence” which is stated to be “cases where the genre (or the parent discipline; see Dressen, 2002) dictates that certain types of information be left unsaid” (422). An example given was a eulogy and how certain things should not be said during this time, for example, if the person deceased was a serial killer or criminal, no one should ever mention that on a eulogy. The next silence is called “discreet silence” which is when, “where the writer refrains from mentioning sensitive information either to avoid offending the reader, avoid revealing organizational secrets to rival forces, or avoid infringing on another person’s privacy”(423). Pretty self-explanatory, just do not mention sensitive topics. The fourth silence we have is called “lexical silence” which is, “where two words are similar in meaning but one is more general than the other (424). I thought about it as sugar-coating, kind of going around the term, because it is basically just diction. The fifth silence is “implicational silence”, this one is considered to be an, “implication, defined as “the suggestion of a thought or idea by letting it be inferred from something else, such as a statement” (425). I absolutely love this one because I use it all the time. Instead of saying things straight up you try to just go around it and hope people get what you are saying. The last but not least silence is called, “presuppositional silence” and it is, “these are cases where the writer omits relevant information on the assumption that it is already known to the reader” (428). This is when information is not mentioned because the author assumes that the reader must know all ready.

Mrs. Irene Phillips

AP Literature & Writing

Classroom: 24C

Lesson Plan:

Teacher: Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen, how are you today? I know that everyone is really tired, and hot from lunch but we will be taking a pop quiz today! Yay!! I know you all must not be excited, but I am because this is one of my favorite lesson. I think you all will enjoy this lesson because it is going to very much help you with your college applications in regards to your personal statement and what you should put in or take out of it. This lesson is a part of being a high school senior applying for college so please look excited to learn! I am going to quickly go through textual silences and what they are and then we will take a quick 5 question quiz to make sure all you lovelies got it. With that being said, does anyone have any idea of what textual silences are?

*STUDENTS RAISE THEIR HAND AND ANSWER*

Teacher: Great! Let’s go with Gus, then Ryan, then Junior and we will dive right into the lesson.

Gus: Text that are silent which mean they have no meaning to them?

Teacher: Hmm, okay that is an interesting way to put it, thanks for participating, next.

Ryan: Yee never mind, I was going to say what Gus said, it is just thing that we read or whatever and they are just there but say nothing or prove nothing to us.

Teacher: Ok cool, thanks for elaborating a bit more. Next

Junior: I honestly do not know but I am going to guess and say it has something about how we read certain text.

Teacher: Alright awesome, thank you all for participating and they were all great answers. I feel like you guys were roaming around the waters with the answer but were not quite there yet. So basically in a few words, textual silence is what exactly a text is lacking compared to other text similar to it. We will go ahead and look into 4 types of ways to spot these missing moves and go on from there. We will then go over the 6 types of texts that can be missing and why exactly they can be missing. So let’s get started!

e) 3 b) 2 c) 1 4) a 5) f 6) d

A) 4 types to identify the textual silence:

1. The first step on identifying a textual silence is comparing it to a different/ familiar genre and seeing what ties in and what does not tie in

2. The second rule on identifying a textual silence is to kind of have an idea of what you need and are looking for in this piece and see if that is present or not. You can do this by looking at familiar texts throughout a period of time and becoming familiar to what information this certain topic revolves around.

3. The third, factor to follow this procedure would be to go back over the text and make a point out of those missing subtopics, and genre features that you have noticed elsewhere but are missing here.

4. The fourth rule is to go back to this text and critically think on why certain information is missing. You are forced to think about what influence they had on you during the reading, and after it too. It is to see how these missing pieces influence the reader on the project, and how we as readers analysis it.

B) 6 types of Textual Silence & Their Conventions:

1. Topical Silence: The first type of textual silence is topical silence. Topical silence is when the text does not share too many details. The author avoids speaking about topics that would raise suspicion or awareness like; genocide in Congo, global warming, human rights, etc. There is basically no text on real world matters because certain countries, people, places want to avoid speaking about it on their behalf.

2. Conventional Silence: The next silence is called conventional silence. This silence revolves around certain genres that you use in certain situations. An example would be that in eulogies at a person’s funeral you will not speak upon how the person killed someone or cheated on their spouse, you will simply try to glorify the person. So in a more college experience for your applications, in your personal statement you would not write about all your failures or what you have done wrong.

3. Discreet Silence: The following silence is called discreet silence, and with this silence it is best understood as not mentioning sensitive topics for the discretion of others. A great example for this is not mentioning or showing people who many soldiers we actually lose every day in war. We try to prohibit that from being shown for the discretion of the families.

This silence can be in both a negative and positive matter because it just needs the right balance. For your personal statement for your college applications you should definitely speak on personal matters that you have experienced, BUT you cannot speak upon subjects that you think might make other people uncomfortable so you must be careful what you mention.

4. Lexical Silence: The next silence is called lexical silence and it revolves very much around diction. You are simply using words that might not give the full background or meaning to the text, you are “sugarcoating” to say it in simpler terms. Instead of saying that person is black, you would say, that person of color, instead of saying I am broke, you would say, I come from a low income background. During your personal statement difficult times should be spoken upon, so instead of saying, I went through a hard time, say, I experience a challenging moment, or I have over cake many obstacles.

5. Implicational Silence: Our next silence is implicational silence and it revolves around giving vivid statements. Make sure you can deny, deny, deny. So for your personal statement, you can imply that you have struggles and are not the best student but do not say I am the “worst student ever”, so key to this silence is; BE ABLE TO DENY YOU EVER SAID ANYTHING, be as vague and broad as possible

6. Presuppositional Silence: Our final but definitely not least silence is presuppositional silence. For this silence you kind of go around what you are saying, being indirect instead of repeating what the reader already knows. So again, an example for something that might come up in your personal statement is how, “other students near me are doing similar papers so….” but this can basically mean “students in my classes or other schools close to me are also applying to the same school as me so…”. So implying things by saying it differently, do not repeat yourself, they know what you are trying to say. This silence in particular revolves around cultural norms and who exactly are audience is that we are addressing.

Conclusion:

So this is a simple, less condense meaning of what each silence means and how to present it or not present it. I gave a few examples and tried to bring back around to your personal statements to be able to remind you ladies and gentlemen that there are certain writing moves we should pay more attention to on how we present. Do we really want to take up so much space in a text? Or be silent in our text. Think about it ladies & gentlemen! Any questions? If not, let’s continue to our short 5 minute quiz and let’s see where everyone is on this.

Name:

Date:

QUIZ TIME!!!!

EXAMPLES OF SILENCE:

A. You should not call a person ugly, but you can say that person looks different

B. A rubber’s lawyer not bringing up that his client has a criminal record and might be a murder

C. Not writing about Donald Trump’s racist remarks on the Daily Newspaper

D. “I was here before you” cultural norm that implies that you must go first

E. Not knowing anyone’s true intentions, being moderate about what you disclose

F. Hmmm, I prefer pasta over seafood but it is up to you. (So you do not like seafood?) I never said that.

6 SILENCES

Here are the following types of silences listed below. Please make sure that you write down the letter you feel that best corresponds with the type of silence and the above examples given.

1) Topical Silence: ___

2) Conventional Silence: ___

3) Discreet Silence: ___

4) Lexical Silence: ___

5) Implicational Silence: ___

6) Presuppositional Silence: ___

People need to like me chart:

Ok so as a model agent working here in the model industry I notice a lot going on every day, a lot of people handling, and I do not just mean people handling business. As an older agent I notice these little things and it is about time I help you all out, ladies in particular! So I am making this chart to help you all out and make your life easier ladies. Let me tell you what you are doing wrong and why you cannot pick any of these guys up! So I am making a chart of every mistake I have seen you ladies make and what to do to fix them! It will be up in my office, please do not hesitate to go in there and check it out for yourselves because you ladies are embarrassing me a little.

6 Silences	Meanings	Examples of failures!	Examples of success!
Topical Silence	NOT too many details on your life!!!	Ladies, why are you telling this poor man all about your past. He does not need to know who in the office you’ve been with, when was the last time you had any intercourse, who was the last one you kissed. Shush it up! Have a little privacy	Start of by speaking about the job. Speak about yourself as an individual, not about things that would raise some suspicion. Keep your past relationship and sex life AWAY. Let’s mention nothing and no one but each other.
Conventional Silence	Omit information based on the genre, they do not need to know that in this conversation.	If you are in the lunch room together, and he is talking to you about lunch tomorrow, why are you bringing up your entire family and how he will love them because they make great food? Girl please, you need to hold those horses of yours because this little horse is out the door by the time you start talking about your daddy.	Keep to the subject! If you are speaking about something already stick to it. Let’s say you are talking about food and he says “yee I love my mom’s cooking”. That is NOT an okay for you to start talking about your entire family and how your sister cheated on your brother-n-law and your aunty cut her boo thang, NOOOOOO, NOOOO, NO! You must say, “oh how nice, I love my mom’s cooking too, maybe one day you can try it” and smile END of family conversation!
Discreet Silence	Do not mention sensitive topics!	OMG you have no idea how often I have seen this occur. You ladies actually start getting somewhere with this little thing you have going on, you making those slick moves and them BOOM! You drop the boom and those tears are just flowing like a giant scene from Alice In Wonderland. Good gracious in what right mind is it okay to start talking about anyone’s divorce and start crying? Girl get a grip, you just screwed those chances up.	AVOID sensitive topics. If you are not ready to talk about how you just divorced the lobby checker guy AVOID it. Mr. Model guy does not want to see you cry, that is awkward. What is he supposed to do? Hug you? Pat your back? Tell you it’ll be okay? Oh hunny please do not make him go through that.
Lexical Silence	Diction, watch the words you use girl!	I like when people are up front but do not be so out about stuff, or at least watch how you say things. Keep it classy, never trashy.	I like black men VS I like men of color SEE THE DIFFERENCE? This is another one that I particularly hate but it is more for men. You are so sexy VS You are so beautiful/ handsome. SEE THE DIFFERENCE? Sexy makes it sound like you just want to hit it and quit it, no one wants that.
Implicational Silence	Vivid Statements, DENY, DENY, DENY	Please ladies, stop setting yourself up for failure. You can’t just tell the dude, “you are hot, I want to take you home, and undress you” whoa whoa whoa, nope, can’t do. Ease that on to him.	DENY, DENY, DENY. You never said ANYTHING. “oh yee I used to have a couple of good friends in the office” So when word gets back he can’t say you told him you didn’t say anything girlllll, Never kiss and tell (; Let’s go Netflix & Chill don’t mean a thing if you don’t say a thing (;
Presuppositional Silence	Information is not mentioned because you think the person already knows	If you are being super vague and are not straight up about what you want, nothing is going to happen. Some people do not know what flirting means, they just think you are being friendly so make those moves of yours girl. You got this.	Tell him, don’t assume he knows you are on to him, have a voice and say, “you and I, movies tonight, what do you say?” And let it be what it is

Analysis

Part of understanding a text is being able to identify what is missing and what is present throughout it. In the article “On Textual Silences, Large and Small” by Thomas Huckin, the author presents these six terms to us that describe how certain features cannot be present in an article and how that switches the dynamics completely. Thomas Huckin’s presents; topical silence, conventional silence, discreet silence, lexical silence, implicational silence, and presuppositional silence. All these silences revolve around missing information, changing genres within a text, sensitive topics, diction, and statements made or not made. With that being said, choosing two different genres for the younger audience and older audience was a bit difficult because I just did not understand why people younger than me would have to even worry about these types of moves or where exactly would people older than me imply these moves. After some very long thought and going through a few trial and error ideas, I finally decided on doing an AP lesson plan for seniors in high school for my younger audience and a “how to get people to like you at work” chart for my older audience.

After some long thought I came to the conclusion of doing a lesson plan for an AP Writing & Literature class in high school. This class would be particularly for seniors in high school taking this advanced course preparing for college. This lecture is particularly important because it can help these students with applying to college which they are currently doing and bettering their personal statement. I teach this class what should and what should not be said in their personal statements through these textual silences that Huckin presents. It is important for me to teach them these silent texts because they will be learning it in college anyways and this is a college course in high school so they must know it. They get credit for Writing 1 so it might be a little advanced but it will set them in the right track.

Regarding the way I actually wrote it and simplified the lesson plan and quiz, was due to the time this course is taught. This course is taught in the afternoon right after lunch so I know these kids are already tired from lunch and anxious to go home, so everything must get simplified and eased into their education. I think this particular lesson is extremely important and very detail orientated, but it is also very easy to do once you understand the overall concept of it.

Older Chart:

For my older audience, I decided to focus on people older than twenty-two years old in a model industry office, especially women. I have watched many shows about modeling office and that drama that goes down so I just thought it would be perfect. I focused on the modeling industry because (although I do not want to point it out) I am going to point out the stereotype that most, if not all people who get hired there are attractive people. You have both attractive men and women working in this office and there is no way that relationships both committed, and sexual, will not occur. With this genre I point out the flaws that I have noticed when women try communicating with these men by using the six textual silence and what these ladies should, or should not say. I then point out how they can make relationships work by again saying, and not saying certain things to these men.

I decided to do this genre because I wanted to have a bit more fun with my adult project and I felt like drama was perfect for it, especially work drama!!! Looking into this kind of industry where everyone is so uptight and boogie, I wanted to make sure I presented that tone in my chart and made it known that I knew everything about what went down in the office. It is like a preparation chart for women to study before they even try to talk to anyone and fail. I just really tried to be spontaneous and have fun with this genre so I hope people enjoy it and see where I was going with this message and how I turned something so academic into something so dramatic and fun.

While doing this project I actually really looked into these 6 textual silences and notice I do one very often. I seem to always use implicational silence when I am talking to people and trying to ask for something. I usually question something instead of asking for it. For example this is a conversation I had with one of my sisters;

Me: hey is that your chocolate?

Her: Yes

Me: oh cool, I like those

Her: ummm do you want some?

Me: Yes

I just always figure people know what I want so I am never straight forward about anything, it is just awkward for me.

My goals for each piece were to present the information in various ways. I used moves like tone, structure, and diction to elaborate what age I was focusing on and why I was doing what I was doing. As the authors Losh and Alexander mention, “rhetoric is also about saying the right thing at the right time”(143). This ties into many of these texts silences because for a few of them it is just what you say and when you say it, or what you do not say at certain moments or in certain texts. Again, when looking into “discreet silence” I immediately thought of when Losh and Alexander said, “inspiring passionate emotions and structuring rational arguments” (143). This is exactly what discreet silence is, it is knowing what to avoid so you do not receive an emotional reaction. These are just a few details used commonly throughout the textual silences that I noticed. Another example used in the “Writing with Pictures” article that came up in the silence texts was, “for example, that you wanted to show a man walking”, yes, instead of pacing, she is walking, diction!!!! Lexical silence for ya’ll!

Works Cited

Alexander, Jonathan, and Elizabeth Losh. "Writing Identities." Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing 3 (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 29 Feb. 2016

Hacking, Thomas. On Textual Silences, Large and Small. Publication. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

Writing 2 – WP3 Feedback Matrix

Writer: _Casandra Phillips________
	Did Not Meet Expectations	Met Expectations	Exceeded Expectations
Transformed Genres (Overall)
Younger Genre’s Conventions and Rhetorical Factors
Older Genre’s Conventions and Rhetorical Factors
Consideration of “Big Ideas” in the Scholarly Article
Perceived Effort

Self-Analysis Reflection (Overall)
Description of “Moves”
Attention to Genre/Conventions and Rhetorical Factors
Use of Translated Genres as Evidence of “Moves”
Use of Course Readings (McCloud, Losh/Alexander, Etc.)
Sentence-level Clarity, Mechanics, Flow

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