In the article, "This Detroit house is being turned into a living model of cost-saving sustainable design", Peters (2016) introduced a project named "Motown Movement", an initiative by three architecture students who bought a house in Detroit and converted it into a sustainable cost-efficient house. According to Peters (2016), the three students aimed to help the residents in Detroit find affordable ways to achieve sustainability. Peters shared that before "Motown Movement" started, the three students visited Detroit to gather information about the city. Through the three students visit to Detroit, the students came up with an idea to help teach residents of Detroit more affordable ways to achieve sustainability. Peters stated that the three students plan to convert the lower level of the house they bought in Detroit into a “training centre” and the upper-level into a house for a family in need. The three students hoped that through collaboration with their university, "Motown Movement" could become universal and reach out to other countries. However, Peters failed to include the emotions behind the project "Motown Movement" in her article, which I felt would have connected to us readers of the article more.
Firstly, Peters failed to allow us, readers, to feel the emotion of the three students and why they decided to embark on the project "Motown Movement". In Peters's article, she was very detailed in sharing the plans of the three students, such as building a “greywater system” and “septic tank” as sources of renewable energy. Although Peters was very detailed in her descriptive writing, the lack of sharing on the emotions of the three students keeps us readers at a distant from the project. Research studies (Hill, 2011) has shown that readers like to feel emotion whenever they are reading. Emotion's in writing has the ability to transfer from the author and come alive in readers (Johansen, 2015). Readers naturally like to be able to relate to the project the article is sharing and immerse themselves within the article so that they can experience the project first-hand. As such, it is important for Peters to include the emotions of the three students so that us, readers, can connect better emotionally with the project "Motown Movement."
Furthermore, Peters should include the feelings and thoughts of the community of Detroit in her article. Peters vaguely mentioned about the feelings of the community in Detriot by stating that "the people were much more positive". Peters should have elaborated further by adding the emotions of the community in Detroit towards the changes that have happened due to "Motown Movement". A fine example was an article by Olin College, where senior citizens shared their feelings and struggles with the college students to help identify solutions to the senior citizen's struggles. "One project resulted in a team building a device to help elderly people get out of a car more easily" (Olin College of Engineering, 2016). We can clearly see that sharing with the readers the thoughts and feelings of the senior citizens who are experiencing the project first-hand, allows us, readers, to feel for the senior citizens and see how much the project meant to them. As such, It is important to note that the thoughts of the community of Detroit are important as they are the people who are experiencing the project first-hand. The thoughts of the community of Detroit towards the project would allow us readers to recreate their experience and draw us readers directly into the experience of the community of Detroit. (Panuccio, 2016)
In conclusion, although Peters was very detailed in sharing the plans of the three students and giving us an idea of what "Motown Movement" is about, the lack of sharing of the emotions behind the project keeps us readers at a distant from the project. By adding the emotions of the three students and community of Detroit in the article, Peters would have influenced the views of us readers greatly and helped the students receive added support for "Motown Movement." The added support from the readers of Peters article would have contributed to the project "Motown Movement" reaching a global scale.
References
Hill, B. (2011, February 8). Creating Emotion in Readers. Retrieved from http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/01/30/creating-emotion-in-the-reader/
Johansen, J. (2015, February 2). How To Create Strong Emotional Response In Your Reader. Retrieved from http://www.livewritethrive.com/2015/02/02/how-to-create-a-strong-emotional-response-in-your-readers/
Olin College of Engineering, Projects That Help Others. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.olin.edu/projects-research/help-others/
Panuccio, N. (2016). Writing For Emotional Impact. Retrieved November 10, 2016, from http://emergingwriters.us/writing-for-emotional-impact/
Peters, A. (2016, 7 July,). This Detroit house is being turned into a living model of cost-saving sustainable design. FastCoexist.com. Retrieved from https://www.fastcoexist.com/3061563/world-changing-ideas/this-detroit-house-is-being-turned-into-a-living-model-of-cost-saving-s
No comments:
Post a Comment