Everything is a Remix + Readings

In my opinion, there are some very obvious parallels between the video “Everything is a Remix” and “All Writing is Autobiography.” As I mentioned in class, I disagree with the main takeaway from “All Writing is Autobiography.” I certainly agree that each piece of writing that is produced has a personalized touch. If that weren’t the case, all writing would be the same across all subjects and disciplines. An important distinction between the takeaway from the journal entry and my perception of individualized writing is the term used to describe the writing.

I truly do not believe that “autobiography” is the appropriate term, because a lot of writing is not about oneself at all, and the only root to the writer is in the details of the writing like punctuation, diction, syntax, etc. While this is a large part of writing, it is not about the writer -- it’s just a differentiating characteristic. The relatively blatant connection between the video and journal entry is the idea that all writing is autobiography because of the things that make up our environment, how we think, genetics, etc. But, in my opinion, all of these things could be considered “remixed,” and all these inputs put together would make it so that all writing could be “remixed.” Had the journal entry been named “All Writing is Remixed,” maybe I would’ve bought it, but I probably also would have thought that this class was a little too planned out… you know… Nevertheless, I agree with aspects of the journal entry, but not all of it.

In other news, I’m actually pretty excited to start the service learning portion of this class. If I’m being completely honest, when I enrolled in this class, I wasn’t actually aware that there was a service component. For some reason, I was under the impression that the First-Year Writing classes that had a service component had a different class code (not ENGW1111). While I’m not upset at the realization, I am a little concerned about how I’m going to fit it into my schedule. I have a pretty significant amount of free time scattered throughout the week, but as I was filling out the survey for Dante, the available slots for tutoring just totally did not match up with my schedule. In fact, of all the time slots available, only one worked for me. So, I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to volunteer Tuesday mornings from 8:15 to 10:45am, because otherwise, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to make it work.

Before this class began, I was actually seeking some kind of a club or something that would allow me to work with younger kids and younger students. I was a little nervous about going about this, though, because I thought that constantly being around younger kids would remind me of being home and therefore make me homesick. My friend Cameron told me that he was involved in a student organization that quasi-employs students to work with younger kids and I really wanted to get involved but kind of dropped the ball with that. As long as this still works around my work schedule, I’m excited that I’ll get to work with younger kids and actually get credit for it!