Dirk Vs. Elbow

            Moves are pretty awesome. Until the concept was presented to me, I never really knew what to call all of the things writers do to get to their goals. Now I know to call these actions, moves. There are millions of moves that writers can execute in their writings. Two of the articles that we read at the beginning of this quarter both struck me as very unique and full of moves, and being that we had to read them both together, I really got to see the similarities and differences between the works. The first article is “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk, and the second is “Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing” by Peter Elbow. Both of these works really caught my attention, but in very different ways.

            Both Dirk and Elbow have very particular moves that they use to reach their goals in their articles. Dirk is aiming to teach about differences in genres and what different genres look like, while Elbow is targeting in on his concept about two different kinds of thinking. Both writers start out their articles in pretty similar and fun ways. Dirk starts her paper off with a fun joke to get the ball rolling. This is a great move to get the reader involved and ready to continue reading. Most college kids don’t want to read, but when they sit down and read the goofy joke, they may read a little more. Elbow has a similar intention and uses a similar move. He uses some quotes to start the article off about certain people’s opinions on thinking. This connects to the reader just like Dirk’s joke. Both the quotes and the jokes are moves aimed at connecting and engaging the reader to the article. No matter how boring an article is, if it has a good introduction that makes you laugh, ponder, or maybe even cry, chances are you will read through most of that article.

            Neither of the articles are completely academic in the sense that they are aimed at pompous scholarly nuts who only enjoy words like “platitudinous” in their daily vocabulary. Elbow’s article is a bit more formal and he draws less anecdotes than Dirk does, but I would not consider his article that of a text book. This lack of formality is a strong move on both of the writer’s parts. Instead of being pompous writers, which I am sure both could easily accomplish, they chose to take a simpler, more casual approach. This move acts in a similar fashion as the introductions do. It connects easily with the reader, especially a younger audience. Most college students don’t enjoy reading, but when they come across articles like these, it is hard to resist. They are not completely boring, and the casual move makes it fun to read both Dirk and Elbow’s articles.

            Some moves the writers chose were very different. Although both writers did not usually extremely academic writing styles, Elbow’s article was still more formal. In my opinion, this was not a very strong move. I enjoyed how relatable Dirk’s article was. She drew from pop culture with references to The Onion and its wacky article titles. A lot of the writing in Dirk’s article was funny too and had a conversational tone. This move was extremely effective on her part. I did not enjoy Elbow’s somewhat casual yet didactic tone. The only way I could really describe it compared to Dirk’s move of super casual, flip flops and tank top style, would be a semi-formal, awkward button-up style. Reading Dirk’s article was a lot more fun. Elbow’s move may work better with an older reader, but I dig the super casual Dirk move.

            Dirk also made a nice move with the set-up of her article. It had nice quotes and bullet points, an occasional heading. The overall appearance was great. I felt more engaged and ready to read the paper. It didn’t look like a bunch of blocky words or page long paragraphs. Elbow chose a different move. He went for the simple plain old text style. This can definitely work, and is probably the oldest move in the book, but compared to Dirk, it was boring. I really enjoyed Dirk’s article layout. When I saw a different heading or a quote coming up, I had something to look forward to. With Elbow’s paper, the layout got boring and repetitive towards the end. Dirk’s unique layout was a very effective move, while Elbow’s layout can be effective, but in retrospect to Dirk’s it was cake with no icing (Sure, I’ll eat it, but where is the fun icing?).

            Overall, these articles has some similar moves, yet other big different moves which really shaped the articles. Kerry Dirk’s “Navigating Genres” gave a fun insight to the world of genres, while Peter Elbow taught us about different types thinking in “Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing”. Both of these articles, although very different experiences, were both good reads.