Blog Post #3

Charles Bazerman’s article, “Writing Expressed and Shares Meaning to Be Reconstructed by the Reader”, dives deep into the idea that it is important for writers to come up with ideas that help the reader be able to understand the idea they are communicating. To better explain this, it is mentioned that the writer must be able to create a relation between the reader and the writer through their work. This can be done through the words, experiences, expressions, and meanings that the writer chooses to use. As a reader, you are only able to read what the author has written and how they have chosen to express their story/work, therefore, the reader is unable to feel the emotions of the reader and is only able to come up with meaning of the story based off what they know and have read. On the other hand, allowing the reader to form meaning through what they know and have read can lead to miscommunication and tension for the writer. Bazerman explains that writers have a hard time sharing their most meaningful pieces due to the risk and anxiety caused by wondering how the reader will react.

A time when something I wrote did not have the intended effect on my reader was through a text message. This tends to happen quite frequently through text messages because you are not always able to tell the tone or emotion of the writer sending the text. A time I can specifically remember was when speaking to my father and sister who I have little interaction/communication with. Both my father and sister have a hard time facing the reality that we are not so close, therefore there is always a push for me to come over and spend time with them. One time in particular they had asked me to come to my dads house to visit. I didn’t want to seem rude and completely blow them off so I told them I would let them know about plans for the weekend. Unfortunately, this message was not understood by either one and they had thought that meant I would be coming over to spend the weekend with them. This lead to frustration on my end and put me in a tough/awkward situation to have to tell them I was in fact not coming over.