Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice

In Ann M. Johns' article, "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice", she discusses the difference between John Swales article and James Gee's articles' opinions of discourse communities.  Swales main argument is that being involved in a discourse community doesn't necessarily mean that you belong.  Gee's main argument is that the home is a dominant discourse to everyone unless people don't have a home.  If they don't have a home they make a dominant discourse community through "mushfake". While keeping these all in mind, Johns goes into detail about four main concepts these writers forget to mention.  Cost of affiliation, issues of authority, conventions/anti-conventionalism and dialogue and critique.  Cost of affiliation mainly discusses the concept of how everyone grows up and goes to school.  When they attend school, they find new discourse communities but never have to truly leave their dominant one of their family. Issues authority is the idea that each group has rules and guidelines.  For each group there will always be "authoritive utterances that set the tone" of how it's supposed to operate.  Whether it just be within the family household or a government agency.  There are natural born leaders everywhere.  Without a dominant force a group cannot flourish.  The third thing Johns talks about is conventions and anti-conventionalism.  While this was a hard concept for me to truly understand, what I believe she means is each group has different roles and they are constantly changing as time moves on.  The titles may slightly change, but group members cannot be forever.  However, the concrete rules are usually laid and are often followed.  But there will always be people with anti-conventionalistic ideas.  Willing to break those common conventions set by a discourse community.  The last thing she talks about is dialogue & critique.  A commonality amongst Swales, Gee and Johns.

Malcom X & Sherman Alexie

In Malcom X's article, "Learning to Read" and Sherman Alexie's article, "Superman Me", they discuss how race, class and status affected the opportunities they were given to learn to read and write.  Each is similar in their own way, but very different.  The biggest difference is that they learned to read and write at different points in their life.  Both being minorities, but Malcolm X taught himself how to read while he was in jail.  He was also much older than when you think of a typical age of a child today learning to read and write.  He was an adult.  It's hard enough being an adult and having all the tools necessary to achieve becoming literate today, so being an adult minority in prison, must have been overwhelmingly complicated.  Sherman Alexie on the other hand, taught himself how to read by picking up anything he could get his hands on by the time he was three.  He did not have the privledge of public schooling since he was Latin American and growing up in a time where this generally was not accepted.  As a result he taught himself to read by picking up comic books, automobile manuals and even newspapers.  Both men did not have the ends to make means meet as far as becoming literate goes, but with perserverence and steady dedication these men helped themselves do something incredible.  Something we take advantage of day in and day out.

Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics

James Paul Gee's article, "Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics" talks about the tests and gates primary discourse communities have towards secondary discourse communities.  These tests often see if a person is native or non-native to their community.  This can be tested by showing that you are in the know about what's going on.  If you're not a part of the primary discourse community, and you fail to pass the test then that community keeps it's gates up and does not have to share anything with you.  But, primary discourse communities are often affected by secondary ones.   An example I can think of easily is my sorority house being the primary source and Facebook being the secondary.  We choose what we put on there, but the linguistics in which the way people communicate on Facebook, rubs off on us.  However, we have the power to not have to have a Facebook, or post on peoples' walls or even look at their pictures.  But since Facebook is such a popular secondary discourse community, we all feel the need to participate and it changes the way we talk to each other, and also what we talk about.

The Concept of the Discourse Community

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals
The common public goals are known intentions amongst a community, whether it be said/written or just automatically known.  It's what the discourse community plans to do and strive for.  It's almost like their own known agenda amongst themselves where other communities do not know about.  An example of this for me would be, being apart of my sorority's executive council.  Each position has an electronic handbook online describing all the measures each position should take regarding what they are in charge of.  It also comes with a set of policies and rules that must be heavily followed for the safety of the chapter.


2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members
Swales describes a language known to just a discourse community and its specific members.  It's a way they communicate with one another, that outside sources may not understand.  The best example of this for me is definitely ballet.  I wrote about this a lot in my literacy narrative.  We have a lot of slang and formal terms that others don't understand.


3.  A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback
To me, Swales is expressing that the way to receive feedback about ones' discourse community has to come from outside sources or members within itself.  Outside sources I think point out bring a sense of reality to a group and being a member of a community helps you strive to better yourselves or maybe even other people you're intending to help.  Working at Victoria's Secret is a very challenging social environment, where sales goals are pushed and each customer is required to have the best customer service they've ever had and to expect it each time they enter the store.  As employees we are trained all the time on tactics and made aware of our sales data monthly and how we can change some things about it.


4.  A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims
Swales is trying to communicate that within every discourse community there are roles and functions that must be worked out.  These roles are constantly changing to keep the community progressing.  I think the best example for this is family.  Everyone has one, and roles constantly begin to change.  When I was younger it was me and my four boy older cousins.  Now the youngest are my cousins kids and everyone is waiting on me to get married.  It's a scary thought, but exciting also.


5.  In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis
This is a little more challenging to understand, but what I think Swales tries to convery is the specific terms and way of talking to one another in a discourse community can vary from group to group.  At work at VS, we use terms to communicate to each other that customers usually don't understand.  Limited Brands in general is a very term specific business, so knowing the terms is key to success.  It sort of allows us to be like a secret society and create our own unique success apart from other companies.  Words and phrases such as BWC, CSL, excellent customer service, brand ambassador...all may leave some confused.


6.  A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise
Lastly, Swales touches base on the natural hierarchy that takes place in a discourse community.  People sit on different levels of importance and leadership, whether they be elected or it's a natural sense of entitlement, we always have leaders.  At school here, students are overseen by professors who are overseen by their boss, who are overseen by a more specific boss and then overseen by the dean or president.  Yet it's interesting because within smaller discourse communities such as sororities, fraternities, groups on campus, we hold each other accountable and form our own leadership positions amongst each other.

From Pencils to Pixels

"From Pencils to Pixels" by Dennis Baron, was an irritating read to say the least.  I thought he was pompous and ignorant for criticizing something so influential in this society today.  The computer has been the most influential piece of technology that has been created in the 21st century and I feel like Baron takes such a negative stand point on it affecting the way he writes. While I can't be certain that pencil and paper forms of writing will never go away as we push towards a more technological future, I can assure you that any route taken is for the good of being able to keep up with where the future is headed.  I could definitely see handwriting fizzling out in the upcoming hundreds of years just due to the ease and integration of smaller more handy devices such as the iPad.  I think handwriting is extremely necessary and useful however, but it's definitely outdated in even this day and time if you really think about it.  The only time I ever write anymore on paper is if I am making a to-do list or jotting down notes from class.  All my drafts and ideas start usually in a Word document.  "...the writing practices I had been engaged in regularly since the age of four, now seemed to overwhelm and constrict me, and I longed for the flexibility of digitized text" Baron quotes.  It is sad to think that that did happen to him, but I don't think if I sat down to write on paper I would be that held back from my thinking processes and I know a lot of others who would feel the same.  The computer didn't just invent itself, humans did, and since it is so mainstream today, I don't see all the harm in it being more convenient.  That's the purpose of life, is always expanding and stretching the horizons of what we already know to better the generations of tomorrow.  Not to be nostalgic about the past.  The past should be honored, but we naturally move forward.

The Future of Literacy

The case study I felt like I connected with the most in The Future of Literacy was Brittney Moraski.  The other stories talked a lot about their parents being restrictive with their inquisitiveness about other lieracies, while this one showed her parents ability to support her in her endeavor to excel on the computer.  From a young age, I can't say I was very fond of reading like Moraski, but I was good at it.  I could read quickly and comprehend everything as well.  When the computer first came out, I was super intrigued by everything you could do on it and we had a desktop at home ever since I could remember.  I taught myself skills really, really young around age 11 such as HTML and CSS because I was super interested in creating a website.  I got a lot of praise from my parents but mostly from my cousin who was in college at the time at Iowa State studying to be a computer engineer.  His opinion mattered way more to me and to see him truly impressed was such a good feeling.  I think I felt connected to Moraski the most due to family support she seemed to receive.  Danielle DeVoss seemed as if her parents weren't all for her leaning towards a more computer driven lifestyle but more, "conventional academic pursuits".  And  with the study of Joseph Johansen, I felt like he was raised much more strictly with his religion and beliefs than me.  I went to church every sunday and even sang in the choir, but his religion seemed to hold his parents back from allowing him to pursue truly what he wanted.  I'm glad that I had so much family support to be able to explore the computer and how it operated.  It may not be the most important interest in my life, but it was so helpful. I am on my computer a lot during the day so if my parents had been a little more skeptical about allowing me to explore, I wouldn't feel such an ease navigating the internet and a computer today.

Sponsors of Literacy

I attended 3 different types of schools for elementary, middle and high school.  In each, I learned a lot, but each sponsor looking back put their stress on different parts of literacy.  I attended a public school for k-5 where I learned all my basics.  Each year I felt was so different from the next, but when I reached 4th and 5th grade, I had the option to be in the "gifted and talented" program.  A class taught by the same teacher, in the same room, with 4th and 5th graders for two years.  I was pushed to excel and I did.  At this point however, other classrooms disliked ours and I was constantly treated rudely by others.  Being in that class though had such a huge impact and I left being able to read and write and actually analyze things so much better than if I had stayed in the normal classes.  Middle school, I attended a private school.  It was small, with just 18 kids in my class. It was a different type of sponsor as well.  It was even more personal therefore I felt like I took a lot out of my learning experiences in middle school.  It was probably my most influential sponsor I had.  In high school, moved suburbs and attended a public high school which had 400 kids in my class and 1600 in the school.  My personal sponsors had left, and I had to open myself up to the high pace of all different types of people.  Everyone was on completely different literacy levels in the school it felt like, but Worthington was one of Ohio's best school systems.  We weren't allowed to do class rank because the average GPA was so high, and we also had no class valedictorians.  Living in the fast paced, competitive time, it really allowed me to use my literacy techniques from past years to develop the new.

I not only attended school and consider that apart of what I am literate with, I also feel like my parents, grandparents, friends, social media and ballet effected me to be able to adapt and understand when to use certain type of literacies.  My grandma especially taught me a lot of manners and I utilize those when I am in certain situations.  I'd say I am literate with understanding when to be proper/polite and when I can relax.  And also the most interesting sponsor would be ballet.  It has it's own everything, language, expectations, slang, technologies.  It's learning to speak and understand things that outside people looking in have no idea about.  Being literate in something not everyone understands is was makes us unique.  But education through school is the most important sponsor, because without that, I wouldn't even be able to understand my ballet sponsor or any other secondary place.

Project 2: The Wikipedia Reflection Essay

Creating, or in my case, editing a Wikipedia article, has changed the way I look at Wikipedia’s credibility.  There are so many functions set up on that website that others often overlook.  Contrary to what people think, it’s nearly impossible to make anything up, or put anything on a page that isn’t backed up by a very reputable source.  Teachers and professors often tell students to not utilize Wikipedia as a reference, but truth is, if you want to get the gist of a topic, it would be my first stop on the internet. Noah Cohem writes in his New York Times article , “once routinely questioned about its reliability — what do you mean, anyone can edit it? — the site is now used every month by upwards of 400 million people worldwide.” I never would have agreed with this four weeks ago, but seeing how Wikipedia operates has definitely caused the site to gain my respect and intrigue.

When we were told we would be creating our own Wikipedia article, I thought it sounded very interesting because I would be making something that could possibly stick on the internet forever.  Sure, we’ve all made blogs and websites now and again, but do those ever come up first thing in a good search? The answer to that would be no.  I felt pretty empowered about this whole project so I knew I wanted to do a topic that interested me.  I’d always been fascinated by paranormal stories and old abandoned buildings.  They just hold so much more of a story than anyone could ever see, so a recent trip to The Ridges, brought me upon my first proposed topic of the Tuberculosis Ward.  Driving up the hill in the back of The Ridges gave me chills as I looked at what was in front of me.  I was unsuspecting that, that was where the TB Ward stood so I drove up closer and walked around with my friend for awhile.  When we left, we went home and tried to look up information on tours or any information at all regarding history or factual stories about the facility.  All that was written on the internet were fan blogs of people who visited old “haunted” buildings as a hobby and told stories about them with their own opinions and photos.  I decided to visit the archives at the local library to really be able to find useful information and “dig up” as much of the history as I could.

The man working in the archives happened to work for the Mahn Center for archives for a very long time and he was heavily involved with research regarding the old state hospital.  I told him that I specifically wanted to know history about the Tubercular Ward, and he said that they really only had a page or two and it wouldn’t be anything useful.  When he showed me the rest of the archives with photocopies and pictures regarding the facility as a whole, I knew I had to know more.

Getting permission to revise an already existing article was really interesting and laid the pressure on a lot more.  The original article was created years ago and had been edited over a hundred times already.  I felt as if an audience was watching me as I wrote down the facts  that I pulled out of the archives.  I looked over the edits made in past revisions and that helped me decide on whether or not certain edits that I wrote would fall under the cause for deletion .  Facts that could not be proven true were taken down such as “deleted statement that Haerlin was a student of Olmsted. No evidence he was.” And “The Kennedy Museum is a different building that was restored that used to be part of the hospital. The Athens Asylum is a different building, in disrepair. Please find a new pic of the actual building.” I made sure to try and cite my sources correctly even though it was difficult with the files I was working with.

The Discussion Board also helped me decide what was acceptable to write on my page as far as keeping a neutral tone.  Someone had previously written, “The old trees surrounding the original structures are majestic in their timeless beauty.”  While that statement sounds really nice and would fit well in a book maybe, it didn’t fit with Wikipedia’s neutral point of view, or “npov”.  So, I made sure to leave out too many descriptive unnecessary adjectives.  Another way I used the Discussion Board was to help answer people’s questions.  I felt I had a huge advantage with contributing to that page because the State Hospital was located right down the road, and I had primary sources within the library.  Someone had previously asked how many square feet the facility took up, so I dug through the entire plot plans and there were records circa 1960, stating how much square footage the hospital truly took up.

Writing a Wikipedia article was unlike anything I have ever written before. I knew I would “address the essential characteristsics of effective composing: planning, drafting, aligning, revising and monitoring” as Tierney and Pearson described in their article,  “Toward a Composing Article of Reading” (176).  I planned out how I wanted the page to look by looking at what was already on there, and deciding if I needed to take anything down.  Then I posed questions for myself on a sheet of paper, that I wanted to be answered on the Wikipedia article when it was done.  I also knew I wanted to have credible sources for the article so I went to the archives to pull records and photocopies of plot plans. I drafted out my first submission, then saved and looked at my page to make corrections to the alignment.  While revising the article, I found myself going over it with a fine tooth comb.  The pressure I had previously talked about felt so real saving something that was live on the internet.  I now still check back on my article to monitor and see if anyone has stopped by to edit anything or discredit my hard work.

What made Wikipedia seem so different from anything I had written before is that fact that Wikipedia brings researched information and formality, to a heightened sense of excitement, due to the fact that it makes writing social.  We don’t all have access to the best resources or references, so when things are published to the internet, you’re seeing one person’s point of view, of what makes something notable, interesting and what should be shared with the world.  On Wikipedia, you get a collaboration of works, other’s stories and writing styles.  You can see where everyone is coming from and use the edit and discussion board topics to communicate with one another on how to better the article.  This sort of makes Wikipedia like a live revision that never stops.  Wikipedia doesn’t ask for a final draft.  It allows through history and time, for each article to keep expanding to it’s fullest.  Sure, some articles take longer than others to get the so-called “facelifts” they deserve, but nevertheless, an article submitted on Wikipedia is always open to more facts and references provided for the subjects.

Through all this, I’ve realized Wikipedia is changing the way people can understand information about a multtitude topics.  I still don’t think teachers and professors want to see Wikipedia as a cited source in an essay, however, I would give Wikipedia much more credit than it receives.  I don’t think sites like Wikipedia will totally abandon the constructs of traditional writing, because in writing in a neutral point of view is a task that proves to be quite challenging to some, and if you have no background or baseboard to start from, they how can you expect to create an article on a social encyclopedia, where other authors and readers can take you seriously?  I don’t think Wikipedia completely alters established methods of writing, it just tweaks it and makes it something exciting for this generation to explore and play with.  It should be interesting to see if Wikipedia can shy away from having such a bad reputation.

Tierney, Robert J. Pearson, David P.  “ Toward a Composing Model of Reading” Writing About Writing. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs.  Boston, MA.  Bedford/St.Martins,  2011.  174-190.

Shitty First Drafts

Anne Lamont uses saracasm and humor in her article, "Shitty First Drafts" to get the point across that first drafts don't always have to make that much sense.  She insists they should be jumbled full of whatever we want and whatever comes out in the thought process.  I understand where she's coming from with this and I'd say I agree with her about 25%.

While I agree first drafts should never be perfect, they should be to the point where you as the writer think you've done a great job conveying the message.  Often times, if a first draft is asked for, then that must mean someone will be looking over what you've written and if they don't understand hardly anything you wrote, then how can they help you better your paper?  There at least has to be that effort put into a first draft where you as the author feels happy with it, and can reach out to others to make sure they agree with what you wrote.  I know for example there are always times I get stuck on word choice, where the word I want to use is on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't figure it out, and someone who peer reviews my paper helps me how and suggests a different word to use.

I usually put the most effort into my first draft because it's the entirety of my paper, and I'm not going to waste someone's time reading something that's hard for them to understand in the first place.

Tuning, Trying and Training Texts

Barbara Tomlinson, writer of, "Tuning, Trying and Training Texts", describes eight different metaphors authors use to revise their works.  If I had to pick some that best described how I revise a paper, I would choose sewing and tailoring and fixing things.  Revising is the second most important part to writing anything, next to actually writing something.  It allows you to go back through and really allow the paper's fluidity to flow.  When I edit a paper, I don't usually sit down and take things out, I rework sentences or even rearrange paragraphs so that the message isn't only conveyed to me as the author, but to the audience I am trying to reach.

With Wikipedia revising, I think it is so important to be able to look at the "View History" and see what didn't work in the past.  For example, since I was editing a previously created page, the first thing I did was look at the history of edits.  I made sure I took mental notes not to use fluffy words to draw out descriptions of the buildings and to also be able to back my facts up.  A lot of sentences had to be taken down because there was no proof of it.  So if you can look at the "View History" before editing a page, you can save yourself the time and effort of writing something they will just end up taking down.

As far as the discussion tabs go, I used the discussion tab on my page to answer some questions people would like to know as far as the total square feet of the facility.  I went through the records and pulled a photocopied annual report stating the total square footage circa the 1960's.  I felt like I had accomplished something, and hopefully whoever was wondering will notice that there is factual evidence for the total square feet.