Running Head: REFLECTION TRANSLATION

Reflection Translation

Sergio Siria

Writing 2

11/21/2019
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For this essay, I decided to select a reading that was very flexible and had a great

message that could be translated into a new genre. I selected “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk

for this essay. I feel that this essay has strong ideas that could easily become a new genre.

“Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk will be translated into a script. The process that I will be

reflecting on is the targeted audience, genre, translation process, challenges, and the learning

outcome.

“Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk is addressed to college students. It is meant to give

them an understanding of how genres could be understood and how they could write better

within a genre (Dirk, et al., 2011​)​. When I was thinking about how I was going to translate this

into a new genre, I thought about who I wanted my audience to be. I knew that by selecting my

audience first, I would be able to base everything else around it. I decided that my audience

would be teens to young adults. I feel that a script would relate better to that age group since

scripts are usually used for creating shows and movies. This audience is very different from the

original audience. This is because mine is opened to more people and is not limited to a certain

group of people. In the original genre, only college students are able to find any use in it. If the

person did not go to college, then the whole essay would be pointless and a huge waste of time.

The original genre of “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk is an informative essay. The

purpose of the essay is to inform an audience about something (Dirk, et al., 2011​)​. These usually

include many sources that backup the ideas that are made. The genre that I decided to create was

an entertaining script. I wanted my genre to be able to give some type of enjoyment. I feel that

teens and young adults want something that will be easy to understand yet will be entertaining.

Teens and young adults have a lot of things that affect their lives, like school and work. My
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genre is able to effectively communicate to my intended audience because my audience wants to

be able to find something that they will enjoy. My audience wants to be able to escape the stress

of their lives and enter into a world where they no longer need to think about what is going on in

their lives and instead focus on what they are watching.

When it came to creating the translation, I had to think about what I would keep and what

I would leave out. I wanted to keep the main idea of the original essay, especially any examples

that were used. The main idea that I felt the original essay talked about was understanding the

use of genre and its relationship with the audience (Dirk, et al., 2011​)​. I wanted that idea to be

something that would be seen in the translation. Most of the essay was not able to be translated

into the script because it was not very entertaining. I decided to keep only the examples that were

given. There were two examples that I felt truly captured what the main idea was. One of the

examples was about how a country music joke could only be understood if the person listened to

country music. The second example that I thought connected with the main idea was the example

with the ransom letter. The ransom letter example compared a nice letter and a threatening letter.

The nice letter clearly stood out while the threatening letter worked very well with the situation. I

had to add story and characters to the script so that the script made sense. Without characters, a

script would just become a regular essay.

There were a few challenges that occurred during the translation process. First challenge

was creating the narrative for each example. I knew that I needed to keep the context of the

example for the main idea to be kept. I overcame this challenge by thinking about how it would

occur in real life. For example, when it came to the country music joke, I knew that jokes would

usually be told to another person so it made sense that I would create a narrative that had two
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people talking to each other (Dirk, et al., 2011​)​. For the ransom letter, I thought about how a bad

ransom letter could be written. That is when I thought about a character that was very nice but

somehow is working for evil forces. The next challenge was fitting it all into the three page limit.

I was at four pages. I overcame this by shortening the stories and formatting the text. The last

challenge was revising everything. In the reading “Shitty First Drafts” by ​Lamott​ (1997), they

talked about how everything should be thrown into the first draft. This is because the first draft is

the draft that only the writer would see. The writer does not have to worry about others seeing

what they have done. This in turn takes the pressure of having it write perfectly right from the

start. I wrote my script by throwing what I thought at first. I did not care for what it would look

like in the end since I knew I would revise it. When it came to the revision, I realized that I had a

lot of ideas that were all over the place. There wasn’t a concrete idea that related to the main idea

of the original text. That is why I decided to limit my examples to two, and focus on making

those two examples very good. That in turn helped my second draft be good to turn in.

I learned a lot from this project. I learned about what the main idea was for the original

text, which was how understanding what is expected of the genre will help the writing be more

relatable to the audience (Dirk, et al., 2011​)​. It was because of this project that I learned so much

from the original text. Besides the main idea, I learned about each of the examples that the

original test stated. I learned about how jokes can only be understood if the person hearing the

joke understands the context behind the joke. For example, the original text had a joke about

country music; the joke could only be found funny if the listener has knowledge about country

music. I also learned a lot through the translation of the script. I learned how genres can be

applied to the real world and have a great effect on how a person would react to different things.
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Although I have written scripts in the past, I find that there is always something new that I learn

whenever I write a new script. For this script, I learned about how a script could contain two

separate skits and be considered connected.

My goal for this for my script was to maintain the main idea from the original text and

make something that would be entertaining. The main idea of the original text was how

understanding what is expected of the genre will help the writing be more relatable to the

audience. I kept that idea in mind when I was creating the script. I thought about what the

audience and genre I wanted my script to address. The original text’s audience and genre was

college students and an informative essay. Challenges that came up during the translation were

found and resolved. For example, when the first draft was finished, there were a bunch of ideas

and topics in the first draft but none of them were fully thought out. That challenge was

overcome when I decided that it would be best to focus on the best two examples in the original

text and create two very well developed skits. Through this process, I learned so much about the

original text and the new text. I learned about the examples that were used in the original text. I

learned how two separate ideas could coexist in one script.

Work Cited

Dirk, K., Lowe, C., & Zemliansky, P. (2011). ​Writing spaces: readings on writing​. West

Lafayette, Ind: Parlor Press.

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Lamott, A. (1997). ​Bird by Bird​. New York: Anchor Books.