Discourse Community Unit:
Objective: Writing to explore and describe a discourse community. See Writing about Writing, pages 574-575. Choose a discourse community that has made an impact on you or one that interests you and find a preliminary answer to the research question: “What are the goals and characteristics of this discourse community?” Write a 4-5 page mini-ethnography that tries to answer your research question based on a careful observation of the community. Writing to Explore: These writing assignments are intended to be like field notes for your investigation. You will use them as data on your ethnography, so take careful, detailed notes. WTE 3: Explore My Community Observe members of the discourse community while they are engaged in a shared activity. Describe very specifically what you see happening in the environment and with the other members. Your description may address some of these questions: 1. What are they doing and how are they doing it? 2. What kinds of things do they say? 3. What do they write? 4. How do you know who is “in” and who is “out”? WTE 4: Interview an Expert Set up an interview with an “expert” or experienced member of your discourse community. Formulate 20 interview questions using the Data Collection and Data Analysis section to help you (on pages 574-575). Make an audio recording of the interview. You should also take notes. I will check in class for (at least) 20 interview questions and at least one page of notes. The notes can be hand written. Writing a Mini-Ethnography Getting started with the writing: Consult 2-3 sources to learn about your community. These sources may be of any relevant genre; for example: a menu, a receipt, a website, a business proposal, a news report, etc. Review your field notes from the Writing to Explore assignments. Review Swales’ six characteristics of a discourse community and choose three to focus on in your report. Write as objectively as possible. Use third person, not ‘I’, ‘we,’ or ‘you,’ unless it is a direct quotation from your interview. Your Mini-ethnography Report 1. Introduction: ½ - 1 page Include background research and give an overview of the community. 2. Methodology: ½ page -Describe what you did to conduct research and gather data. You may use first person only in this section. 3. Results: 2-3 pages -Chose three characteristics of Swales’ list (pages 471-473). -Use them to explain why your community is a discourse community, giving evidence from the data you have collected. (See Branick on pages 563-565 for an example). 4. Conclusion: ½ - 1 page Answer some of these questions in your conclusion. -What did you learn about the conventions of this discourse community? -How does one become a member of this community? -What does this community value or believe in? -What is its purpose? 5. Works Cited and Appendix: Include a bibliography of all of the texts you consulted to do your report. An interview is a text, so include that too. Include your interview questions and copies of any sample texts that you may have collected and analyzed from your community.
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