Discourse Communities

For this, your first essay in Writing Studies II, you will be investigating a discourse community. A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals, whether pro or con.

I strongly encourage you to look ahead to the Final Project – your Advocacy Project – and select a discourse community for the issue you will advocate for in that project.

Here are some examples of groups where individuals may exchange opinions in their discourse or discussion of the topic:

· Affordable textbooks,

· Universal Healthcare,

· Gun Control/Rights,

· Gay Marriage/Gay Rights (LGBT),

· Euthanasia,

· Child Abuse/Neglect/Foster Care,

· Protection of Voting Rights,

· Free College Tuition, and

· Legalization of Marijuana.

There are many other issues that will work here. Please feel free to run any ideas past me.

I. Prewriting: Analyzing a Discourse Community

A. Observe a Discourse Community:

Your goal is to gather information about the discourse community by observing the communication within that discourse community. You can probably do this on Social Media. I suggest you start with Facebook. Identify a few Facebook Groups for your topic. Read posts and other information on the Group page. There are other Social Media sites that may work for you as well. This will help you to analyze the communication of that discourse community.

Be sure to record the information to cite any pages you use as you will be required to have a Work Cited page for this essay.

B. Discover the assumptions at work in a given discourse community by

Asking yourself questions. This may require some research beyond reading a Facebook Group page or two.

1) Who: Who are the typical participants? What personality and interests seem to make someone more or less successful in the group? What personas are they asked to adopt?

2) What: What do participants need to know to work effectively in this community? What kinds of depth of knowledge are expected? What topics are appropriate for discussion, reading, and communication? What critical assumptions lie behind the actions and communications of participants?

3) When and Where: When and where do people accomplish the work of the group? Are there recognizable rituals and working habits—a “workplace culture”—in this community? Are there rules and regulations that must be followed, for example? Do people work alone or mainly in groups?

4) How: How are questions asked, answers found, and results conveyed within this group? How are problems resolved? What forms of communication are most common? Do writers usually know their readers personally?

5) Why: Why does this group exist or why was it formed? Given your other observations, what beliefs or values seem to guide the people and practices of this community?

III. Drafting:

Once you have gathered your information and discovered the underlying assumptions about your discourse community, you will be ready to begin writing your first draft.

This is both an informative and analytic essay as you will be gathering information and then analyzing that information. Be sure to carefully organize your paper before you begin. A simple outline will be helpful at this point.

For example:

1) Introduction:

· Introduce the topic-what is your purpose in writing this paper?

· Define (in your own words) discourse communities,

· Identify the community you will be analyzing, and

· Give a general statement of the purpose or goals of that community.

2) Body Paragraphs – in an organized fashion, share the information you gathered in your prewriting.

3) Conclusion – What have you learned about this discourse community? How are they similar and different from other discourse communities? How might the information in your paper help you enter the conversation in this specific discourse community?

IV. Review

We will peer review the papers in class.

V. Revision and Self-Review

After the Peer Reviews, you will complete a Revision of your paper based upon the feedback you received from your peer reviewers. Then you will complete a Self-Review before you turn in your Final Draft.

General Information about the Assignment:

· Essays will be typed in 12 point Times New Roman or Cambria font with standard margins.

· First draft – 2-3 pages of text

· Final draft 3-4 pages of text

· MLA format with Work Cited page. (Link to the Writing Center Template is in Resources folder in Blackboard under Course Content.)

· See Syllabus for Due Dates

Submission Information:

For this assignment, papers will be submitted to me in the following order and have the following point values:

· First Draft 10 points

· Peer Review 10 points

· Self-Review 10 points

· Final Draft 45 points

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