Blog #5 - Discourse Community

It took me a while to start writing this blog. Besides having my laptop fall off my bed and almost breaking. I had to reread a couple paragraphs on Swales lecture and look over the professors' power points to get a clear understanding before starting it.

Anyway back on topic. A discourse community from my understanding is a selective group of people who have adopted their own language which they use to communicate with other members and to better achieve their common goals. The matter in which language is used is dependent on the culture that adopts it. 

John Swales, in his article "The Concept of Discourse Community", characterizes a discourse community as having six unique traits:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. 

Knowing this, a group that could qualify as a discourse community would be the YMCA which I work for. First, in the case of common goals,  behind every staff members name badge in San Diego the following is written "The YMCA of San Diego County is dedicated to improving the quality of human life and to helping all people realize their fullest potential as children of God through development of the spirit, mind and body". Even though not everyone knows this by heart, we still however, fulfill this goal each and every day. Second, using mechanisms of intercommunication among our members would be staff meetings which we have regularly and the manual. Third, using the internet is one way we provide information  and in terms of feedback having a child leave with them saying that they had a great day at the Y is the best feedback we can get knowing that we did a good job. Forth, in terms of genres, the YMCA uses many from signing songs in order to crave grabbing kids attention to the tone of your voice when speaking to a certain type of member. Fifth, can referred to names of processes we use to manage certain types of people. For example, if we're meeting someone new we use the following process that's called W.E.S.T.I. ; warm smile, eye contact, shake their hand, tell them how you feel, and introduce them to someone else. And finally for the people that fall within the this discourse communities. Our threshold of member is without end from the staff members, to people have memberships, and to kids that visited once but still remember being at the Y. The YMCA was founded more than a hundred years ago and its still moving strong because there is always a Y in every family. 

The YMCA, in general, qualifies as a discourse community from what Swales defines one as. 

Okay then I'm done. Hope I did good job on this. All in all, see you all in class.     

  

Welcome to another exciting blog post. This was essentially me the past few hours reading articles and thinking what to write about them.

 

But enough about myself lets move on to the differences I found between a op-eds and a JSTOR Daily article. First off they are a lot shorter than that of an JSTOR Daily. An op-eds is primarily opinionated from the authors' point of view containing very little use of outside logic and focusing more on getting the readers attention by stating values or concerns that the readers share in common which reinforces those values/norms but minimize actually supported evidence. 

Where as a JSTOR articles are long well developed pieces filled with not only the authors' opinion but also well supported evidence, scholarly research, and having an interesting topic. Such articles can minimize any doubt a reader may have on the authors credibility and insight of the topic they describe. 

The first of these articles that got my eye blog on about was about JSTOR "Stranger Things and the psychic nosebleed". At first I was like what nosebleeds? Psychic powers maybe? But anyways the article first describes on how films where having or using psychic powers can cause the user to have a nosebleed but as the author describes blood shed from a psychic women is considered taboo and a sign of women oppression in society. Author Liz Tracey, mentions Strange Things Eleven and Firestarters Charlie McGee as girls running away from the men who wish to use their powers to take over the world emphasizing that women are still oppress by men of power in our culture. Another example of this would be from the X-Men trilogy where faithful student Jean Grey is psychic who eventually loses control of her powers and turns evil. Just a fun note to add.

For the second JSTOR I read was on "How Does the Language of Headlines Work?". The Title of anything is what most audiences look before even viewing  the article. As the authors states that reading a title can be both easy or confusing to read but always with the prime objective of getting the readers attention and curiosity to find out the article is all about. Clickbait, which the author uses as an example, is something in the modern age of social media find quite often in our day to day web browsing. Whether said Clickbait articles speak the truth or not is not point but the fact that one would read it and click on it is the goal of the title giving. 

Third JSTOR article I read was that of the "Viral Black Death". When I first read this article I read it with an unbiased mentality because it talks about a serious subject that I'm were all familiar about. Racism in our society is still prevalent and having people videotaping and being shown on the media just proves it further. In this case it is about white officers against black communities. First off people primarily don't like cops. When your on the freeway and you see cop behind your first reaction may be that of anxiety not of joy or happiness. Is it because their after us as society, no but it is true that their are corrupt officers in America which only reinforces that opinion that people don't like cops. The author emphasizes all this hate is from previous mentalities that we as a nation must overcome and correct for a better future. 

Okay moving on to the op-eds  I started "Liberals are the sort of people who ...". I read this article I got to say that the author really doesn't like liberals.  Hawkins, the author, describes liberals as hypocrites from calling people racist but still black Americans stupid to calling guns bad but still believe officers can carrier them. I don't know if what he said is true or not but it's still interesting to read even though it didn't having anything to support it.

Next will be about "Donald Trumps Bet: We are all chumps". I'm amazed at how long these two candidates have been able to make it this far in the race but that is no surprise it only takes about a million dollars to run a campaign and it trumps case that was a given. Everything else such as tax, medical or emails records are up the candidates to decide whether they want to publicize or not. Is not that were "chumps" as the article states but Trump hasn't provided anything to contradict such opinion.   

 And now last one was about the LA Times "Criminal rape cases should not be on a ticking clock". Using the case Bill Cosby against more than 50 women who accused him of sexual assault as an example author, Gloria Allred, argues that need to eliminate the statute of limitations from being just 10 years. While ten years may a lot after said time has and someone wants to accused another of rape it is just to late. That's is what this article argues to remove such deadline from all states to prevent future sexual assault cases to be forgotten or ignored.

Well that's all from me see you guys later. Bye!  

The article "Teaching Critical Genres Awareness" by Amy Devitt is not your everyday choice of reading. At first glance it seemed like nothing more than your average scholarly article, however, upon reading it the level of reading and use of description were almost incomprehensible for newly transfer student like myself. The thought of what is genre never fully encapsulated my mind as it did before I read this article. Just the other day a child at my work asked me what type of genre was her book. The option were as followed fiction, non-fiction, poetry or biography. This was my definition of genre for the most part before reading this article. But that is of no surprise as the article mentions not everyone can learn how to master a genre in a single moment in time.

Apparently, as the article would suggest, we've been exposed to different types of genres besides those I have learned from school and other educational agendas. Such assignments like biographies, narratives and persuasive essays school assigned me were the majority of my knowledge on genres.

Although I find these types of genres quite familiar and well known straying away from it and writing my own way has become almost foreign to me. As Devitt mentions that genres taught in schools "seem too embedded in the aims of the ruling power for teacher comfort" which to my understanding means writing it this way and you pass or else it means possible failure of the class (340). Such example would be the WPA that I'm sure everyone at San Diego State is familiar with. The WPA requires the writers to follow the prompt given which is the same every time and create an essay answering the following prompt and no more. To some this seems pretty straight forward but to others knowing what is required is milestone for those who have lived their lives writing with simple high school genres. From community college to WPA writings and finally to this writing course this will be an interesting first semester for me.

Moving along to what Devitt describes as "genres" to me seems as a sort of idea or construct that has evolved to be a social norm both in our culture and history. The term genre is very underestimated in its meaning and usage. In this class, for example, the professor uses memes to bring a message across which is a type of genre. And learning about such a broad term within my first week at San Diego State fills me with both anxiety and excitement of the writings I will come across during my stay at SDSU.

Because I work for the YMCA the structure of writing I use is that of a more casual style that one would use when talking to a friend or excited child. The reason being is most of my audience is that of children and scholarly readings would not suffice in such environment. Devitt describes genre awareness and its importance as something essential that provides us with the necessary tools to overcome the different types of genres we may come to face in our life time. Once learned to use a genre to the point it seems natural the easier it is to relate to your general audience of said genre. The better you are at differentiating genres in writings the more adept you are at overcoming everyday writings that would otherwise look difficult to relate to your average reader.

And that is my tale on Devitt article hope I did a good job.

Sincerely,

David G. Bobadilla