Queer Texts, Queer Contexts

Summary: In his article "Queer Texts, Queer Contexts", Harriet Malinowitz talks about the discourse community of the gay and lesbian population and their community. He goes into the specifics of the communities by talking about their identity and composition and classification and definition. There are also two ways of viewing identity and it can be seen as a basis for social change and community formation. Group Identity has become to a diminished level of fiction
Conversation: This article is like that of Elizabeth Wardle's article "Identity, Authroity, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces" because both texts talk about identity and how you can pinpoint them. Each gives their personal opinion to the specific details in the discourse communities they are talking about.
Opinion: I enjoyed the reading because I didn't think that scholars would be putting something about the gay community in any of the books. I have a personal connection to the people that are in gay community and this just shows how everything is changing as we progress through the years.

Project #3

For Project #3 I plan to write about Film Productions. The reason I chose this discourse community because I plan on being into this kind of career. I plan on becoming a member of the AVW Productions to get a better look into what the future could hold for me. My plan is to interview the students that have currently been in this program before and freshman that have just entered this. I would also like to interview the director as well because he would have a better description of what the purpose of this group is.

Devitt, Bawarshi, & Reiff

Summary: In the article "Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities", Amy J. Devitt, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff have individual articles placed in one. Devitt's "Where Communities Collide: Exploring A Legal Genre" talks about how ballot questions, jury instructions, and tax forms  are all designed to bring specialist and non-specialist communities together and how they function. They function in complex linguistic, informational, and rhetorical situations. Bawarshi's "Using Genre to Access Community: The Personal Medical History Genre as "Form of Life", talks mainly about the members of the medical community and the languages they use. She focuses on specific textual and how it helps to identify the discourse community by relating it to something we have all experienced in our lives.  Finally, in Reiff's " Accessing Communities Through The Genre of Ethnography: Exploring A Pedagogical Genre", she talks about how students gain experience with genre analysis because of ethnography. She also says that students that research are more likely to become more active social figures that recognize how people merge their language genres.

Conversation: This article is like that of Swales' for the mere fact that he talks a lot about how you can identify what makes a discourse community and how it is. Each the readings contain specific information about how you can determine what makes these communities how they are.

Opinion: I really liked reading these articles because it takes different particular discourse communities and then talks more about them to the point I could relate to them. Plus, they show how each of the communities can be identified quickly as well.

Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Worplaces

Before You Read: My identity has changed only very slightly. I'm more of a reserved individual now and I keep many things to myself. I observe more people than usual and see if how they are as a person is worthy enough to talk to or if they're not the same type of person I would like to associate myself with. I've been getting deeper into thoughts on some strong subjects like meanings behind dreams, the existence of humans and the fearful 'end' they come to, isolation and how sad it is to see how on your own you are as well as the beauties of science and what our world will come to . The spare time that I have gained here has given my tons of space to learn about myself and see how I am able to handle being on my own and seeing just how grown up I have become.
 
Summary: In her article "Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces", Elizabeth Wardle discusses the progression the person go through as they move from multiple discourse communities. Wardle goes on to talk about a persons identity and their authority and how it affects their writing in their jobs. She researches a man named Alan and how he had to adapt to the new job. In the article, she explains three different modes of belonging which are engagement, the common ground workers share in their relationships, imagination, which can either be negative or positive in how one sees themselves in the social efficacy, and alignment, where an extreme depth of each engagement and imagination is involved, but with other communities as well.
 
Synthesis: Wardles article is like Gee and Swales' articles. All three of them contain discourse communities and the different qualities that make them up. Each go into deal about how they are created and what it is you should take value from to be apart of these discourse communities.
 
QD:
3. Alan didn't want to change who he was to get the desired results. The members of that already existing community also were stubborn and weren't willing to change as well. Because both parties weren't willing to change, neither of them were able to come to an agreement or a medium for them to deal with.
5. Gee's argument seems to be more understanding because Alan had already made up his mind as to how he wanted to be. Forcing himself in on that community wasn't going to help him and because he wasn't going to change, he couldn't really be an engaging member in that community.

MM: In anything you are apart of, there will always be someone who has authority over you unless you are the main boss of that organization or job. Having people who are above you school, jobs, or personal writing can help you because those are the people you are trying to please and by listening to them, you will be able to do just that. Going against something that they want will make your identity in that particular community unwelcome.

Opinion: Putting "Alan's" personal story in the article helped me get a better understanding of how workplaces deal with members and how they would associate themselves with others. I've known that by pleasing the authoritative figures in any area I'm in will help my reputation as an individual and as an employee because it seems that in life, it's all about who you are and how well you're liked by the people you will be surrounding yourself with in the future.

Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction

Before You Read: The definition that comes up for "mushfake" is  a prison slang for items owned by an inmate that may be legal to buy, but were constructed or obtained through illegal means, hence they are contraband.
Summary: In his article "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction" by James Paul Gee, he talks about his view on Discourses. Gee describes Discourses by the term of "identity kits" and he goes on to explain that this is an instruction on how to act, talk, and write so that others may recognize what's going on.  He then goes on to explain that they have labels and that those Discourses go by the names of dominant, non-dominant, primary, and secondary Discourses. 
Synthesis: This article is like that of John Swales; "The Concept of Discourse Community" because both of them contain discussion over discourse communities. The only difference is that Swales breaks down the characteristics of a discourse community whereas Gee talks about the different names and titles he gives to the discourse communities.
QD:
3. Gee says that discourse with a lower case 'd' means connected stretches of language that make sense, so "discourse" is part of "Discourse". This somewhat makes sense to me because he goes to explain what discourses are and so he changes the lower case 'd' to a capital to show that they are one in the same.
13. A discourse I think I would like to belong with would be those who are into psychology. The hardest part about being in this discourse is to have the open mind like they do and how they are able to see things from an outside perspective.My yearning for understanding of everything and how things work is what really aids my coming to part of this community. I don't so much as see myself as a "pretender", but I do try and come off as someone who has a pretty decent view on the things that those people see.
Opinion: The more I start to read and analyze these articles, the more I notice how understanding what my discourse community is will help benefit me in the future. To comprehend the future is something that will help out with my job so I have a better understanding about how to connect with the other individuals that are in my group.

Swales & Glenn

Swales: In his article "The Concept of Discourse Community', John Swales attempts to tell the reader what he thinks a discourse community really is. He argues that a discourse community is different than a speech community and he defines six characteristics of discourse communities for us to recognize.

Glenn: In her article "Constructing and Consent: A Critical Analysis of Factory Farm and Industry Discourse" Cathy B. Glenn discusses the discourse community that is specifically designed to be directed to factory farms. She argues that that the factory farms are using "double speak" to mislead readers. She also looks at the ways the discourse used to portray these methods of misuse.

QD:  A discourse community that I was in would be my basketball teams. We had to recognize the names of plays, how to run it, and understand the people that have been in the big leagues and know the statistics to comprehend where we can better ourselves as a whole. Our Lexis was that we understood the plays we were taught by our coach and were able to use it to gain offensive points. The genre we had was repetitive drills we had and the names we use.

1: Companies that use double speak are the ones that would deal with make up companies. Women who take the make up are believed to become more beautiful and seem more appealing to males and help improve your face, but they don't tell you about the side effects that can occur with the certain types of make up.

Opinion: I didn't really care for the articles, but the Glenn article was much more entertaining. I liked how she was talking about a specific discourse community. She showed a more understanding towards people and animals and I liked how she discussed the problem within her article.

From Pencils to Pixels: The Stage of Literacy Technologies

Before the Read: To me, there is absolutely no comparison into the technologies that are today compared to back then. Yes, the basics started when my mom and grandparents were younger, but so much has increased over time. Cell phones are much smaller and can even browse the internet. The internet has significantly become a value in today's time. Using laptops and science as well with medicine and space technologies. Everything we use in today's time plays such a major role and effects us significantly.

Summary: In his article "From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies", Dennis Baron attempts to explain writing technologies. He argues that writing technology is the start of all technological advances in our time. We must learn what they are so that we can better understand it and develop stronger versions of technology.

Synthesis:  Deborah Brandt's article and Baron's article are very similar in the way we look at the past and the histories of what they were writing. Brandt's article talks about the past in one's literary sponsors were as Baron talks about the history in our writing and the technology behind it.

Q&D 5: Authenticity plays an important part when it comes to technologies so they must be able to be used thoroughly and mostly without problems. Fraud comes in with technologies, because now it is much easier to change the way original prints and texts are with mere erasing and rearranging and it is without question.

MM: Writing is not technology in my opinion. Technology is more of an electrical outlook in my opinion.  I feel that we should learn the basis of writing and that this will help us further develop skills in our minds for elaborate problem solving and communications, but I still feel it in the aspect of just writing utensils compared to a technological aspect.

Opinion: The evolution of our world is amazing to look at and to think about as I was reading through this. Honestly, I was impressed with how everything worked out. We are increasing our knowledge on things that are helpful for us every day and this will continue throughout the centuries.

Malcolm X, Alexie, & Hooks

Summaries

Malcolm X: In Malcolm X's "Learning to Read", he attempts to tell the reader that learning to read helps you accomplish many things that you can do in your life time. He argues that bettering yourself by reading helps you gain knowledge in different things and helps educate yourself with the world and helps you understand others as well.
Sherman Alexie: In Sherman Alexie's article "The Joy of Reading and Writing", he attempts to explain to the readers that by picking up a book and reading, he had learned to stand out from the normal life style people perceived him to be because he was an Indian boy. He argued that by reading, it had saved his life and he now carries on to schools to bring children into the world of reading and help them do the same thing and further educate their knowledge as well.
Hooks: In Bell Hooks' article "Writing Biography", she attempts to explain to the reader that writing an autobiography is helpful for reflection of your past. She argues that by writing about the past, you are able to understand what happened and to easily let it go because now you know what you've done and now you realize that you can move from it.

Synthesis: Each of these articles all correspond with each other in the sense that they are not only autobiographies, but they are also about the coming forth of the way they've been educated and how they did it. The articles each go in description of their lives and how each of them learned to develop their readings and writings.

Opinion: I enjoyed all three of the writings. Auto biographies are usually more interesting to me because of the fact that I enjoy learning about people's lives and the obstacles they've overcome. Malcolm X is a significantly important man in the black community and I've always enjoyed hearing about what people like him have done to get their start. Sherman Alexie's article interested me in the fact that he didn't follow the typical lifestyle he was somewhat being pushed to do, but instead he broke out of that and bettered his life. I especially enjoyed reading Bell Hooks' because hers was more on her life and how she reflected from it and build her character because of the past.