Things Fall Apart, Part II

I have to admit, it surprises me that Okonkwo committed suicide. He strived to be an honorable and respectable man and considering "it is an abomination for a man to take his own life," it almost seems unfitting that the book, and his life, should end this way. Nevertheless I enjoyed this novel and noticed a couple key points in the second half concerning the differences, and even disadvantages, between oral and literate cultures.


Firstly, the act  and ease of trusting another fluctuates based on individual experiences. Since the book makes no mention of trust issues within a tribe because everyone speaks honestly, I had not even considered a potential need for contracts or proof when a deal, proposition or trade takes place. Yet this idea was sparked toward the end of the book when there was a price of two hundred cowries for the release of the six men in captivity. "On the morning after the village crier's appeal the men of Umuofia met in the marketplace and decided to collect without delay two hundred and fifty bags of cowries to appease the white man. They did not know that fifty bags would go to the court messengers, who had increased the fine for that purpose." After reading this segment, I immediately refer to the trust I have among my neighbors. I have known them for a long time, we have many similar values and we maintain this trust in order to preserve a healthy relationship. However, when I go to the store and interact with the cashier, I would trust a price tag more than his or her word. Perhaps that is why we must have everything labeled or use some kind of a contract for an agreement. We have printed text to prove a fair price for everyone and contracts to ensure guidelines and rules. As a secluded, oral village, Umuofia has likely never encountered distrust and therefore has no need for this prior to the white settlers. It makes me wonder if an oral society could use currency to do business without trust. 


Another observation was the frequent use of stories to teach children morals and values. It seems every teaching came from a story in order to prove a point. While I personally love stories, I doubt I could spontaneously create one and have it convey a deeper meaning. I would imagine this is due to my lack of creativity as a college student. Classes require the evaluation of stories rather than telling them and straight forward rules are provided in a document at the beginning of each semester. Since the fictional stories told in Umuofia have been replaced in our society by clear rules, it makes sense why these types of stories seldom impact our daily lives and we refer to relevant books instead.


"The Commissioner did not understand what Obierika meant when he said, 'Perhaps your men will help us.' One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words, he thought." Overall, the cultural differences are vast but I believe both literate and oral societies can live collectively by implementing respect and keeping an open mind. Obviously Okonkwo's stubborn attitude led to his death and the white settlers' unwavering beliefs caused constant conflict, but had everyone considered themselves equal, peace and appreciation may have occurred. Personally, although I am literate I do not consider myself more knowledgeable than someone who cannot read. We both would have a lot to learn from one another and I appreciate that this book gave me a deeper understanding of life in a primarily oral society.

Things Fall Apart, Part I

Before reading this book I felt nervous it would be similar to the last. Don't get me wrong, the last book was interesting and forced me to consider new perspectives, but I really wasn't in the mood for concepts quite as challenging or difficult to grasp. Luckily, I learned it was the story of a man in a village and found myself whipping through pages in no time. Although I found myself intrigued with the plot, I noticed fairly often how it tied to Orality and Literacy, the very concepts I initially wanted to avoid. Yet this book clicked with everything I learned last week about oral societies and it was nice to tie that newly acquired knowledge to a realistic story. 


For me, the first indicator that his village was an oral society was due to the daily ceremonies and traditions. "As he broke the kola, Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and health, and for protection against their enemies." This instance frequently repeats throughout the book, along with many other formal customs and religious rituals. Additionally, the process of asking for a woman's hand in marriage tends to follow the same pattern as asking for a favor or making a request. When there is a particular topic one intends to discuss, he waits until drinking and casual conversation have occurred. Clearly, this is a huge difference between oral and literate societies considering we value immediacy more than tedious formality.

Also, I observed that how one speaks demonstrates his or her role in the village, which then reflects what that society values. In particular, supplying for your family, which primarily consists of hard labor, shows that strength is worthy of respect. "Whenever the thought of his father's weakness and failure troubled him he expelled it by thinking about his own strength and success. And so he did now. His mind went to his latest show of manliness." Additionally, considering this is a society of tradition, respect is also given to the wise, such as the Oracle or the elderly. Yet, of course, this makes women and children insignificant and weak. 

While I have no disagreement that in Okonkwo's society, judging a man by the work of his hands is credible, I can't say it surprises me that the result of this ideology leads to a masculine culture. It makes me wonder if all oral societies are primarily masculine since strength and survival tends to be valued most. Regardless, I feel fortunate to live in a society where we can afford to appreciate thought more than physical strength.

Orality and Literacy, Part II

After reading Orality and Literacy, I must admit to experiencing an overwhelming number of thoughts running through my head. In very few pages, Ong covers a vast number of topics and explanations that I may never have come to realize or consider had I not read this novel. But perhaps the most intriguing idea brought up for me is how we express our written thoughts in a form that attempts to represent the emotion and gestures that naturally come with oral conversation.

This concept portrays a glaring disadvantage of writing. As Ong shares, "To make yourself clear without gesture, without facial expression, without intonation, without a real hearer, you have to foresee circumspectly all possible situation, and you have to make your language work so as to come clear all by itself, with no existential context. The need for this exquisite circumspection makes writing the agonizing work it commonly is." Obviously our attempts to achieve clarity consist of effective punctuation, placing content in an orderly format and matching our writing style to the character of our intended audience. Yet I have found that a conversation through text is far less effective than speaking regardless. Usually I become frustrated and resort to a phone call, or better yet, schedule a time to meet  in person.

There is a reason why we use all of our senses in oral conversation and why words in a space will never meet that standard. Most of communication comes from subconscious bodily gestures and while writing tends to be a pain more often than not, thanks to work related or school assignments, I find it to be remarkably helpful when I am in the process of organizing my thoughts and usually prefer it to giving speeches.

"With writing, words once "uttered", outered, put down on the surface, can be eliminated, erased, changed. There is no equivalent for this in an oral performance. Corrections in oral performance tend to be counterproductive, to render the speaker unconvincing." Through writing, I find further confidence in my opinion due to the structure text brings and my ability to constantly move information in order to strengthen an argument. Although the full potential of personal meaning is only met in oral conversation, I believe this opportunity cost is low enough to remain fully appreciative of writing and the benefits it brings.

If I learned anything from Ong, it would be encapsulated in this quote, "What functionally literate human beings really are: beings whose thought processes do not grow out of simply natural powers but out of these powers as structured, directly or indirectly, by the technology of writing. Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness." Without writing, we would never reach the full potential of language and overall, I believe writing is a key reason for our remarkable progression in society today.

Orality and Literacy, Pt. I

The first half of Orality and Literacy, while daunting, provided me with a plethora of new insight. Although it's a bit slow for my taste, I was extremely impressed with how Ong managed to successfully integrate an immense amount of complex information into the first three chapters. While I frequently struggled to grasp concepts Ong mentioned, I found immediate interest with a few points.

The idea that because we are not part of a primary oral society, we can never fully understand or would never be able to live life without literacy is a concept that makes perfect sense but is an idea I've never even considered. While I believe I hold a partial mindset of primary orality, particularly due to the sounds in my head spilling out as I type this, my daily habits and actions constantly intertwine with literature. And as a student, this literary dependance impacts how I learn, interact with others and overall, my progression through life.

I also found it interesting that there is an overwhelming amount of languages spoken but only a small handful that have literature. Luckily Ong covered characteristics of orally based thought and expression and my understanding significantly increased. This portion of the book is where I learned that aural language in itself is a phenomenon we must naturally pick up through experience. Once we have accumulated enough knowledge of this basic form of language, we are then are we able to "study" literature.

Although I believe that writing has enhanced orality in many ways, like by giving it structure and freedom from a constant dependance on patterns, my original ignorance of primary oral cultures will no longer go unnoticed. As a result, I look forward to increasing my knowledge and awareness of this topic as I continue to venture into the second half of this book.

Blog Post VII

Do you intend to follow all 10 tips that Smashing Magazine suggests? Why or why not?

I intend to follow 9 of the 10 tips that Smashing Magazine suggests. The only tip I probably won’t incorporate into my website is the blogging tip because I feel that showing my recent work in my online portfolio rather than blogging about it would be more beneficial to viewers and myself. It would save me time and sharing my work in a more visual format would help potential clients to actually view my work as well. Besides, I’m not big into blogging… unless it’s for my DTC 355 class of course 

Also, make sure to explore the “40+ beautiful personal portfolio websites. Which sites are your favorite and why? What would you need to learn/know in order to make this type of portfolio?

I personally enjoyed viewing Alexandru Cohaniuc portfolio because I felt his website interface was creative, visual and still easy to maneuver around. I felt the colors were bright but not overwhelming and I like the contrast of the white on the black background. In addition to this site, I also liked website that had a visual element in the middle, with navigation at the top but also incorporated picture links at the bottom. I think Digital Mash (Rob Morris) does a great job of adding personal graphics that promote his skill and creativity. Although the color scheme of the website apart from this main graphic is rather plain, the simplicity keeps it professional. Lastly, I like Cartonblanc because the site is out of the box and imaginative. The graphics are fun and inspiring and the few words used support the visual images rather than take away from them. 

Unfortunately, I chose sites that seem the most complicated to me in terms of design templates. Considering my weakest point is CSS, envisioning these sites, adding my personal twist and implementing this into my portfolio seems rather discouraging. But considering 6 months ago I didn’t even know how to use photoshop, I think I can pull something like this off. Especially with Alexandru Cohaniuc, I would need to learn how to incorporate more advanced placement since this site includes work, contact info and an about section all on one page. Plus, I would need to make a lot of customized graphics for backgrounds and learn how to add the tab effects on the portfolio side. 

Blog Post VI

View the literacy narratives listed above and evaluate them (what do you like about them? what don’t you like? why?). 

1. Scannell: I like that this literacy narrative involved her parents reflecting on her childhood while also showing past work and experiences by flashing examples and additional videos. However, it was way too long. While six minutes can be a length that doesn’t bore an audience, nothing new was being said beside her accomplishments. It was the same speakers talking about the same topic that simply became repetitive and uninteresting.

2. Andfull: I like that she introduces herself and her voice follows the timing of the video perfectly. However, I found her comments to be tedious. The length was okay and while the effects were unrelated to the actual topic, it gave the audience some interest at the beginning. Unfortunately, the book covers had awful resolution so the titles and pictures were unreadable, and paired with her uninteresting voice feedback, it left me feeling bored and slightly annoyed.

3. Truaman: Out of all the videos, I enjoyed this video the most merely because his words were interesting and the video is simple. It was him, a blank canvas and slight background noise that wasn’t distracting. While occasional examples of work he refers to through pictures would have been helpful, I found this video to keep me interested throughout its entirety.

4. Peyton: My first thought when watching this was that the film strip action seems to be a popular choice for amateur videos. My next thought was how I didn’t appreciate squinting at a blurry phone screen in a failed attempt to read what he was texting. I also did not like the loud music that was making my current headache worse. The only things I liked were that it tried having some direction and that the length wasn’t unbearable.

5. Wooten: While the music seemed out of place, it almost helped add to the humor of the video. It was a lame story to say the least and he only had the same effects of screen shots and captions, but after seeing other videos, I appreciate the simplicity and clarity of the video. It led to a conclusion and was easy to understand.

What criteria do you think we should use for evaluating these types of texts?

I think the criteria we should use for evaluating these types of texts is keeping audience interest in terms of length of the video and how well viewers are able to follow along with the narration. Also, how well the special effects, like pictures and words work together, and how well these effects aid to the topic, is another criteria we should incorporate.

Blog Post V

Part 1: Summarize what you learned about what makes an effective text in what situations and why. Refer specifically to the projects you looked at.

Courteney Dowd: This analysis explains that an effective text needs to be eye catching in order to perform the uniform purpose of any movie poster, which is to sell tickets and accumulate avid fans. Once the author has caught the attention of an audience, incorporated modes hint at the characters, the movie content and simply encourage seeing the movie once it’s been released. Overall though, each purpose may be the same, but the strategies authors use are based on the film content in order to hint at the story and inspire the audience to see it.

Haley Elder: Depending on the chosen medium, an effective text depends on the organization and modes used within it. While an older book may focus more on linguistic modes and a lengthy sequence of wording, a website may emphasize calming colors and the organization of links in order to surround and compliment the main content. Both are potentially effective in a chosen situation because the incorporated features may uphold audience expectations due to past experiences with that particular medium.

Nick Gourlie: An effective text requires strong linguistic use for any kind of media, but especially within books and websites. As long as it is clear and easy to understand, an audience will not leave the site due to lack of clarity. If videos are used, these are more effective depending on both the amount of modes incorporated and how well these modes interact. But overall, combining linguistic text and visual features through the use of alignment and organization, will ultimately allow a text to be extremely effect in any situation.

Brief overview: Overall, a text can be effective when all modes and formating compliment each other. The content must be easy to understand and the visual elements need to strengthen that text. Any text within a chosen medium, online or in hard text, can be effective, it just needs to organize information well enough to meet audience expectations. Most likely, this will then spark further interest in pursuing the purpose of that topic.

Part 2: Now, quickly explore every student’s Project 2 (no need to read in depth, just poke around). Describe which web text is your favorite and why.

Personally, I enjoyed viewing Megan Hitchen’s analysis. It was different from any other student’s regarding design and was extremely easy to move around. Ultimately, I like the creativity and personalization she incorporated into the site so it represents her while also meeting the requirements of project 2.