Week 3: Writing about Discourse Communities

Class Info

  • Dates: Wednesday, 2/14, Wednesday, 2/21
  • Meeting Info: 11:30am-12:45pm in room N602A

Objectives

  • To develop our thinking and writing about discourse communities based on a deeper examination of our experiences and further examination of our course texts; to apply what we understand about discourse communities to the course readings and to write our own narratives that identify and consider discourse communities and some related concepts in our experiences.

Actions

For Wednesdsay, 2/14

Reading

Writing

In Class, Wednesday, 2/14

  • Passing by Nella Larsen
  • Reading Chapter 1: what do we notice? what do we notice about discourse communities? what do we notice about ourselves as readers?
    • Irene Redfield, Clare Kendry (father: Bob), a letter from Clare to Irene, they’re very close in age
    • Irene seems to have negative feelings about Clare, Clare has more positive feelings to Irene, though the letter is a little ambiguous. The letter is intense, obsessive, maybe off-putting. Letter makes Irene heated, red in the face, feel humiliation resentment rage.
    • Irene describes Clare as a cat, extended metaphor
    • Confession of love, unresolved feelings of love,
  • Group work: Read the following excerpts. What DCs do we recognize in this text, in our assigned passages? What else stands out as we read these passages? Do we feel included or excluded as we read?
    • p18, “Again she looked up…” to 20 “She couldn’t prove it.”
    • p20, “Suddenly her small fright increased” to bottom of 22
    • p36 “The truth was” to bottom of 38
    • p 43 “But you’ve never answered my question” to 44 “fascination, strange and compelling”
    • p44 “Clare Kendry was still leaning back” to 46 “there was about them something exotic.
  • What is code-switching? passing? imposter syndrome? intersectionality?
  • Video: Lisa Beasley, “What is Code Switching?” and others
  • Drafting Project 1

For Wednesday, 2/21

Reading

Writing

In Class, Wednesday, 2/21

  • What discourse communities do you find in the texts for today?
  • Drafting and revising Project 1
    • put the assignment in your own words so you know what you have to do
    • DC you are a member of; DC you are maybe a member of or maybe feel excluded from here at City Tech, in your major, at work.
    • do you need to write the whole thing all at once? do that now! and then revise.
    • do you need to work in chunks or segments? pick the one you want to start with and get going.
    • gather good thoughts, ask for someone to listen and give feedback; verbal drafting with note-taking, if you can’t think with a blank screen/page then start writing anything!
  • Identify a discourse community you are part of.
    • What are the goals of the discourse community?
    • What do members communicate with each other? And, how (by text? in person? Email? etc.)?
    • Are there special words, language, abbreviations, or slang that associated the group? If so, what are they? What do they mean (define the terms)?
    • What are some rituals or habits that the group might have?
    • What is unique about the way members behave, dress, believe, value, etc?
    • How do you meet each other?
  • What discourse community you would like to be part of here at City Tech or professionally?
    • Why do you wish to be part of this discourse community?
    • What are some signs/examples that show that you are or are not yet part of the discourse community?
    • What is unique about the way members behave, speak, dress, believe, value, etc?
  • What is a passage from a text we encountered this semester that you want to include in your project?

Photo Credit:

“Write of Passage” by hettie via Flickr under the license CC BY-ND 2.0 Deed