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This presentation reviewed conversations and results from a curriculum-revision task force charged with re-imagining how discourse communities can feature in our first-year writing courses. The task force positioned discourse communities as the centerpiece of the class, but with multiple small assignments, rather than a single high-stakes writing task. I show how discourse communities can be presented in manageable segments to help students acquire a social view of writing. Presented material includes sample assignment sheets, an explanation of our assessment strategy, and critical reflection from a teacher who piloted this approach. I presented this talk at the Classroom Matters: Pedagogy in Practice and Philosophy conference at the University of Florida, February 2013. Text similar to the content presented with these slides can be found at this blog post: http://bit.ly/VDR3dY
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Umbrellaor
BridgeDiscourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC
Chris Friend / @chris_friend / University of Central Florida
Umbrellaor
BridgeDiscourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC
Chris Friend / @chris_friend / University of Central Florida
The Scenario
✤Flexibility of writing process
✤Strategies for responding to rhetorical situations
✤Skills for reading complex texts
✤Understanding how conventions, lexia, & genres are situated w/in discourse communities
The Curriculum
High-School Precedent
✤ Transactional✤ Unknown audience✤ Goal: Test-passing✤ Artificial & high-stakes
The Assignments
✤ Process Analysis✤ Rhetorical Analysis✤ Discourse Community
Ethnography
The Problem
Duplication
“The staff at the restaurant where I work is a discourse community.”
×25 per class. Every semester.
Missing Expectations
Students identified a discourse community but did nothing with that info.
We wanted analysis/extension/conclusions.
The Task Force
Our Mission
We were tasked with finding a new approach to DCs that could help
students apply, not just state, their knowledge.
The Dirty Work
We decided to create a sequence of assignments and evaluation rubrics—
helpful, but overkill. And hard.
The Solution
Course Sequence
Major Units
Rhetorical Analysis
Discourse Community Ethnography
Writing Process
Major UnitsMajor Units
Writing ProcessWriting Process
DC
Definitions
DCCharacteristics
DCAuthority
DC
Genres
Rhetorical AnalysisRhetorical Analysis
Course TimingMajor UnitsMajor Units
Writing ProcessWriting Process
DC
Definitions
DCCharacteristics
DCAuthority
DC
Genres
Rhetorical AnalysisRhetorical Analysis
weeks 1–4weeks 5–6
week 7weeks 8–9
weeks 10–11weeks 12–15
7 weeks? Are you
nuts?
The PhilosophiesUmbrella and Bridge
We see DCs as bridging other units together and
as umbrellas, containing several concepts within.
Assessment
Definitions
✤ Purpose: Understand specialized language & its use in academic conversations
✤ Supporting text: None from book; students look up specialized definitions
A Evaluates term’s function to show knowledge construction
B Illustrates how specialized definition enhances meaning
C Explains differences in definitions
D States that definitions differ
Characteristics
✤ Purpose: Understand what a DC is & how it functions
✤ Supporting text: “The Concept of Discourse Community” by Swales
A Evaluates how characteristics form group identity
B Illustrates hierarchy of characteristics w/in the group
C Explains (w/ examples) how group meets characteristics
D States that group is a DC
Authority✤ Purpose: Understand how &
why authors adjust writing for different audiences
✤ Supporting texts:✤ “Learning to Serve” by
Mirabelli✤ “Reading & Writing Without
Authority” by Penrose & Geisler
✤ “Identity, Authority, & Learning to Write in New Workplaces” by Wardle
AEvaluates how authors’ use of
authority is appropriate for each audience
B Illustrates how citation & authority work as negotiation
CExplains (w/ examples) styles of
citation, quoting, and establishing authority
D States difference in authority between articles
Genre✤ Purpose: Identify the
origins, use, affordances, & constraints
✤ Supporting texts:✤ “Generalizing about
Genre” by Devitt✤ “Intertextuality & the
DC” by Porter
A Evaluates how DC uses genre in “furtherance of its aims”
B Illustrates intertextuality w/in genre samples
C Explains scene of genre’s use
D States genre is used in specific scenario
Assessment Goals
✤Clarity✤Flexibility✤Simplicity✤Focus
The Application
Confidence
Students comfortably and competently used the vocabulary of DCs.
Repetition/Redundancy
Major UnitsMajor Units
Writing ProcessWriting Process
DC
Definitions
DCCharacteristics
DCAuthority
DC
Genres
Rhetorical AnalysisRhetorical Analysis
Repetition/Redundancy
✤ Repetition: Characteristics include lexis and genre
✤ Redundancy: Authority requires rhetorical analysis
Audience
Students wrote to an artificial audience—me.
Still needs to be fixed.
Gratitude: Visual Credits✤ Color scheme (You are beautiful)
by Sanguine on colourlovers✤ Umbrella and bridge title images
courtesy Microsoft✤ Old schoolhouse by
WarzauWynn on Flickr✤ Bullseye from Rob Ellis' on Flickr✤ Rocket failure by jurvetson on
Flickr✤ Thumbs-up by wynner3 on Flickr
✤ Stormtroopers by JD Hancock on Flickr✤ Luke Alike✤ Maybe He Won’t Notice✤ Stupid Garbage Compactor…
✤ Guard inspection by Defence Images (UK Ministry of Defence) on Flickr
✤ Teacher’s apple by Forty Two on Flickr
