We’ll focus on two goals today: understanding Ann M. Johns’ text “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice” and assigning Project 1, the Discourse Community Analysis.

Take a look at Johns (52-53) for some examples of recreational and professional communities she gives. Take a minute or two to list some of your recreational and professional communities.

Discourse Communities & Their Genres

In class, we defined genre as ways to classify or categorize written or graphic communication. Johns indicates that “communities use written discourses that enable members to keep in touch with each other, carry on discussions, explore controversies, and advance their aims; these genres are their vehicles for communication” (56).

Johns claims that students learn about academic genres through developing metadiscourse (59). Let’s take a couple minutes to analyse the genre of Johns’ text here.

Now let’s develop metadiscourse about another kind of text: an Instagram post.

Go back to your list of professional and recreational discourse communities to which you belong. Pick one community and create a list of the genres that circulate in that community.

Incidentally, what Johns refers to as metadiscourse Gee would call metaknowledge (Gee 13).

Project 1

All reading and writing assignments will continue to build towards your Discourse Community Analysis project. I can answer questions about that today.

HOMEWORK

Complete Blog Post 1 by developing your in-class writing. Here’s that prompt from last class:

Gee describes Discourse as “a sort of ‘identity kit’ which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize” (1989, p. 7). Write about a discourse community to which you belong and try to use Gee’s words to explain that community to me. What are some examples of “how to act, talk, [or] write” in your community? Where does your discourse community convene or gather? Is there a physical space or a virtual one or both? Who are the members of this community and what brings them together? Try to explain your discourse community to me in detail, and keep in mind that I’m probably an outsider to the community.

Your final post should be about 300 words and should engage Gee’s or Johns’ text in some way. Include a citation in your post (you can use the MLA citation I’ve included below!). This is due before class on Tuesday, Sept. 17.

Read Vershawn Ashanti Young’s “Should Writers Use They Own English.”

Works Cited

Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, Linguistics: Introduction.” The Journal of Education, vol. 171, no. 1, pp. 5-13.

Johns, Ann M. Text, Role, & Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge, 1997.