Thursday, March 5: Discourse Communities

All of us are members of many discourse communities, whether or not we realize it. This activity requires you to think about those discourse communities you are a part of, and what their conventions are.

Part 1: At the top of your blog post, write out as many discourse communities that you can think of that you are a member of. For example, I'm a member of the following DCs: American, academic community, white, male, graduate student, first-year composition instructor, computer programming, video gamer, and so on.

Part 2: Pick three of these discourse communities to talk about in depth. For each of these, answer the following questions:

• What are the conventions of this discourse community? i.e. What are the purposes and goals of the community and norms for "good writing"?
• Texts: what are the typical genres used by members of this discourse community?
• Topics: what subjects are written on in this discourse community?
• Terminology/lingo: what specialized language is used and why is it used? Provide examples.
• Joining the discourse community - how does one become an insider? What are the writing activities and roles of discourse community members?

Example - the family discourse community of a Hispanic student. Texts include: letters to family, cards, to-do lists. Topics: everyday life, food, holidays. Conventions: Language should be in Spanish for most communication, especially with the older generations. Informal language; greetings the obligatory "how are you" in letters and all communication. Joining the DC: you can only be in this discourse community if you are born or are married into it.

This will be due by midnight tonight.