Blog » Chris's Midterm Proposal
Posted on 22 Mar 2013 00:39
Introduction
A discourse community can be defined as a group of people that communicates in order to achieve a common goal. John Swales defines a discourse community as having six signature characteristics: A discourse community has a common set of public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, feedback mechanisms, specific genres and lexes, and a threshold level of membership with discourse expertise. For my project in particular, I look to analyze our class as a discourse community by seeing how the class fits Swales’s six characteristics.
Current Situation
Studying discourse communities provides a method of looking into the ways groups successfully interact with each other. I noticed in my readings that several authors (such as Swales and Branick) chose to study communities that they were actively involved in. Therefore I feel that it might be beneficial for me to analyze a group that I actively contribute to (the class) and describe the genres and methods that we use to work towards our common goals.
Project Plan
As for the specifics of how I will research my project, I plan to demonstrate how our class fits Swales’s model of a discourse community. I plan to analyze all of the major genres of writing that appear on the wiki and comment on the unique ways in which they contribute to the class discourse. I also intend to attempt to distinguish between what makes one an insider or an outsider in this particular community. I might also conduct interviews with a few members of the class in order to get some external feedback on their opinions of the class as well.
Qualifications
I feel that I am qualified to take on project because I have been a direct participant in this discourse community for almost two full semesters now. I know the ins and outs of what makes this discourse community function and how we all play a part in working toward the common goal of improving in our writing as the semester progresses. I have access to nearly every written resource from this class as well as access to my fellow peers who could offer their opinions to support my research.
Challenges
I feel that one of the most difficult topics I will discuss is the distinction between what distinguishes an insider and an outsider in this particular discourse community. I for one feel like an insider having been a member of this community for some time now and having engaged in multiple forms of discourse within this community, but at the same time I feel that I would not be considered an insider when compared to Andrew and his role in the community. This is why I believe that I might not be able to find a definitive answer to this question, but rather look into varying degrees of expertise in the community.
Conclusion
Hopefully, through this project I will be able to gain some insight into what really makes this class function well, ultimately identifying which methods of discourse prove to be very useful in accomplishing the goals of the class and also identifying which seem less effective.
Leave a comment
Hey Chris! You indeed did take on a very unique standpoint on discourse communities (i.e. with its definition and its key objectives in society)! A classroom may seem to be a very obvious kind of community to other people as being typical. However, your study of it seems very interesting and enthralling as you do point out some some very detailed challenging aspects associated with them such as: a shared common goal (according to Swales viewpoint), the differences between an insider and an outsider (just as you mentioned—especially if there is a newcomer to the class versus a person who has been in the class for more than 1 semester/etc), and others. One good idea that may really strengthen your claims is if you included several interviews accompanying many people's different views on this such as: a teacher (any kind), a quiet person (to see his views of being an outsider or an insider), and any regular classmate! Also, some additional insight about these classrooms based on real English/scientific research can be really beneficial in forming your data! Overall, though, you have indeed a great and unique perspective on discourse communities as a whole especially by your exemplary topic!
Hi Chris!
I feel as if your project is somewhat unique. Even though Swales claims that academic discourses were the most obvious, you are the only one that plans to research a classroom setting. Granted, the English 210.07 class is unique in its own way.
I noticed that you plan to look at the classroom with the question of insider vs outsider in your mind. You also plan to evaluate this group using Swales' model of a discourse community. You also plan to interview students and overcome the challenges involved with distinguishing what makes and outsider and what makes an insider in this particular discourse community.
I remember you mentioning that along with observing the pages of this wiki as the documents you plan to analyze you also wanted to look at the comments that we ourselves write. You can look at the difference between a late procedral comment (this one) and the comments written voluntarily by others (i.e. the comment Sunny posted before me). You can also look at the old wiki pages since the freshman comp. course and the writing for engineers course have similar structures with a few minor differences. I also suggest looking at the feedback that Andrew and our peer review partners give towards improvement. Perhaps interviewing others about the peer review sessions.
I wish you the best of luck with your research project and I hope this comment was useful to you.