Arizona State University Discourse Community Writers Journal BACKGROUND You’ve now done some thinking about audience, discourse communities, and thinking/

Arizona State University Discourse Community Writers Journal BACKGROUND

You’ve now done some thinking about audience, discourse communities, and thinking/writing as engaging in conversations. As you pursue your larger research project, you’ll be entering into the conversations of one or more discourse communities (depending on what your topic is). Thinking about your relationship to these communities is critical if you are going to effectively communicate with them.

PURPOSE

In this Writer’s Journal, you will have the chance to reflect on discourse communities you already belong to and how you have learned the rules or norms of those communities.

SKILLS AND OUTCOMES
Explain a discourse community to which you belong and provide some examples of types of language use or texts that are specific to that discourse community (Rhetorical Knowledge; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing)
Recall how you entered into that discourse community and learned the discursive norms of the community (Rhetorical Knowledge; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing; Processes)
HABITS OF MIND PRACTICED
Flexibility
Metacognition
TASKS
In your journal entry, you should describe a discourse community to which you belong. This could be an occupational community, a community of hobbyists, or any other group that you belong to that shares particular linguistic and/or textual behaviors.
Next, provide some examples of your discourse community’s language use (words, phrases, kinds of communicating through language) or texts. How are they unique or particular to your discourse community?
Finally, try to remember and explain how you entered into that discourse community. How did you learn the rules or norms governing the examples you describe above?

*NOTE: There are many different ways to approach these tasks, but you should aim to be as thorough as possible in your response (approximately 500 words is a good target length).

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS

In each Writer’s Journal, you should:

clearly address each question or task;
employ many details, examples, and explanations in answering each question or task; and,
create an internally organized text, employing sentences (or notes where applicable) that clearly relate to one another.