Discourse Community Draft 1

8/10/2019 Discourse Community Draft 1

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Alexina Laliberte

Mrs. Thomas

UWRT 1101-103

11/15/14draft 1

At first, this paper was very difficult for me to write. I had a different topic to begin with,

so having to change it stressed me out. But once I began my research and interviews, it became

really fun to do. I enjoyed figuring out how people truly felt about living in a high rise and

whether or not they would move to the suites if given the opportunity. I also enjoyed being able

to put my own opinions into this paper as well as the opinions of others who live with me.

Sanford Hall- The High-rise Life

When I first found out that my roommate and I were living in a place that we never

applied for, I was angry. My roommate and I applied to Hunt Hall, a suite-style living situation

that was built within the past year or so. Hunt Hall allows 4 students to live in two different

formations. One style is the double rooms. Like in a high-rise, two students are put in a room

together and two of these rooms are placed in a bigger room with a common area and a

bathroom. Only students who live in these rooms have access to what is inside. The other option,

is single rooms. In this style, each student gets their own bedroom. Like the other style, they all

share a common room and bathroom, and the students who live in the room only have access to

what is inside. Each floor has their own study room, media room, and laundry room. The

students living in Hunt can range from freshman to seniors. Hunt Hall is much nicer than all of

the high rises combined.


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All of the high rises are set up in the same fashion. There are 11 floors with girls on the

even floors and boys on the odd floors. Two people live in each room, there are 5-6 rooms on

each hall, and one bathroom to each hall. I share a bathroom with 9 other girls; a bathroom with

two toilets, two showers, and three sinks. This is not ideal as it gets really gross, really fast. The

cleaning staff isn't that efficient in cleaning so most of the time the bathroom is still pretty grimy.

Shower shoes are a must. There is a common area on the girlsfloors and there is a study room,

and some auxiliary rooms on both the boysand girlsfloors. The floors are grouped in such a

fashion that the girlsfloor has an opening in the ceiling that looks up into the boysfloor. This

allows for more interaction between the floors. One elevator runs to the even floors and the other

runs to all floors. The elevators stop at the 10th floor, so the boys who live on the 11th have to

walk up another set of stairs to get to their rooms. A lot of the time the elevators break, so most

of the time only one elevator works. This usually requires me to run down the stairs on the

mornings I am late, which is really rough since I live on the 10th floor. Sanford Hall, like the

other high-rises, is a strictly freshman building.

I only observed and used information on the 10th and 11th floors of Sanford. In order to

acquire information about these floors, based on Swales Six Characteristics of a Discourse

Community, I had to conduct interviews, do some research, and do many self-reflections. My

first observation is more of a reflection on how I felt the first day I walked into my room in

Sanford Hall. I hate it, mom. Take me home. Let me commute. This looks like a prison.I

made these comments while crying. Its embarrassing, but its true. I really did not want to be

there. I was the first one into the building that morning, so all of the rooms and halls were bare

and it closely resembled a cell block in a low-security prison. I only knew this because I watch

way too many prison shows. My next observations came within hours. My room was dusty, it


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smelled really bad, and there were bees in my windowsill. These bees caused me issues until

about a month ago. I was the girl who called maintenance every day for a week because of it. I

looked at the bathroom and examined the showers, sinks, and toilets. The showers were small,

the sinks were stained, and the toilets weren't brand new. It was not like home. I wanted to go

home. What made it even worse was the fact that I was on a corner room. A smaller, colder room

with one window.

Using SwalesDC, I found the following information. Sanford Hall is a Residence Hall

that is designed for freshman students and UNC Charlotte. It serves the purpose of housing in-

state and out-of-state first year students for the academic year. The freshman high-rises are set up

in such a way that promotes communication and interaction within the individual hallways and

corresponding floors. It is freshman only to give us an initial thing in common and allow us to

feel more comfortable. The members of the 10th and 11th floor use physical communication and

electronic communication. Most of the time, we all sit out in our common area and hang out or

we will keep our bedroom doors open so people can come in and out. We will sometimes do

homework and sometimes we will just hang out and talk in the common areas. We also text each

other, call each other, use snapchat, and use GroupMe. GroupMe is an app that allows you to

form giant group messages through the app with users of all different types of Smartphones. Our

GroupMe is titled Penthouse Squadand there are 40 members in it. We titled it the Penthouse

Squadbecause we are the top two floors of the building and generally, the top of a housing

building is called the penthouse.The 40 members that are currently in it, weren't always

members. This brings me to the old-timer, newbie aspect of Swales. The old-timers, myself

included, started out with 15 people. These people were all sitting out in the common area the

first night of living here. We started the GroupMe that night and decided that it would be a good


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way to talk to each other and have something that brought us together as a floor. Eventually,

more people became social and we added them to the GroupMe. But sometimes, some people get

added by mutual friends and the original members have no idea who they are. Some people

remove themselves or get removed by others. As of now we all know, or know of, all 40 of the

members in the GroupMe. Its an easy way to get ahold of each other and its a fun way to share

goofy pictures.

Some terms that we use and things that we do could be understood by some and

misunderstood by others. If you follow Vine posts and use Vine, you would understand a lot of

the things we say, but other than that an outsider could see the way we talk to each other as odd

or offensive. We use a lot of sayings from Vines. Vines are 6 second videos and a lot of them are

funny to the point where we use some of the things that are said in them to talk to each other. A

few examples include, Bye Felicia, Or Nah?, Can I get a hunya?, and many more. Some of

the other things that are said, are completely made up. Someone used the word soupas a name

for a puppy, then more people used it to thank people, and then it escalated to random uses of it

by everyone in the GroupMe. In relation to the offensive things, a lot of us are really close so we

use insults as a joke. We call each other ugly, or annoying, or names as a joke because we know

at the end of the day we are all a Sanford Hall family.

In examining my data further, and being a part of the community, I do see that there are

conflicts. Not a lot of drama ensues unless people bring the drama or drag it on. These conflicts

are rare but when they happen, they're huge. Most of the issues are stupid and occur because of

the fact that we are living just a few feet apart from each other. Some of the people here,

including myself, had issues adjusting to the college life. A lot of the issues people were

experiencing were control issues. Most people had trouble adjusting to not having an


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authoritative figure to tell them to study, so their grades and study habits essentially went down

the drain. There are 12 people who have authority over the residents in Sanford Hall. The RC

(Residence Coordinator) and the RAs (Resident Advisor). The RC is the building coordinator.

He is the boss to the RAs and is in charge of housing changes and new transfers who will be

living in the building. The RAs are in charge of their assigned floor. They are a mentor to the

residents and help solve problems before they escalate. No one in this community is stereotyped

in anyway based on their literacy knowledge. Yes, there are better writers and smarter people,

but no one is judged based on those things. People are more-so based on character rather than

their brains.

Through interviews with Rosi, Amber, and Caitlyn, I had similar results. They all said

that the feeling they had entering Sanford Hall was the same. They didn't like it at first and still

don't like the way the building looks and feels. They are all in mutual agreement that the

bathrooms aren't cleaned enough, the cleaning staff isn't efficient, the building itself is old and

gross, and the rooms aren't nice. They are all excited to leave the high-rise life next year and live

in Greek Village or live in a house off-campus. The general consensus with all of the interviews

was that they loved the people, but hated the living conditions. After interviewing them, I spent

some time thinking about their responses and reflecting on my experiences. I remember feeling

the same way they did and still do. I dont like living at Sanford Hall. It gets pretty ratchet here,

the condition of the building is far from acceptable to live in, and the cleaning staff isn't too good

at their job. I cant wait to get out of here because living like this isn't ideal, but the people here

make it worth it. After all of this, I made the realization that I wouldn't want to be anywhere else

for my freshman year of college.


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WORKS CITED

Fuqua, Amber. Personal Interview. 24 November, 2014.

Goldstein, Caitlyn. Personal Interview. 24 November, 2014.

Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community.Barnes & Noble Course Pack. 21

November, 2014.

Walsh, Rosi. Personal Interview. 26 November, 2014.

Documents

Discourse Community Draft 1