Discourse Community

Sean Demme
Discourse Community

      For my discourse community I wanted to do my family. We have our own language and everything with each other. I know a lot about my family and could interview people. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that - but another Idea I had would be doing "Families" in general.

Scary Story

Sean Demme

10.31.12

English 1510

Scary Story Wednesday

                It was late and he was on his way back from the library. The whole way home he felt something was following him – he was skeptical like that. He checked his watch; it was 10:20pm. Out of nowhere he started to hear grumbling; not like a bear or any mammal. It was a grumble he had not recognized – so loud he could feel it in his gut. He turned around; a quick sharp pain struck him.

                He let out a sigh of relief to find that it was just his stomach, he was starving. Now sweating, and a little shaken from what had just happened, he picked up the pace just in time to notice that his shoe was untied. With no desire to slow down and let whatever was following catch him, he continued to speed up. At Morton hill he knew he would be able to escape – running downhill he could surely get away. Fast and faster he ran until he realized that his thick, non-athletic legs couldn’t keep up. Like a classic cartoon he tripped over his laces and ate it. Hard! He was embarrassed, but excited that nobody had seen him fall, he hoped.

                At this point he had realized how skeptical he was being.” Nobody is there!” he continued to tell himself and reassured himself by looking. He was right nobody was there. He heard the grumbling again – knowing that the dining halls were closed he headed towards the Grab n’ Go. He’d get a sub and head home to bandage up his injuries. After rounding the corner at Shivley he reached the Grab n’ Go doors.  As he reached for the doors and he noticed he had cracked his watch, underneath the cracks was the real horror though. His cracked watch read 10:31pm. THE GRAB N’ GO CLOSED AT 10:30! It was Top Ramen and leftover Taco Bell Verde sauce for him. “Happy Halloween…” he though – this was the real horror story.

Response #11

Sean Demme

10.22.12

English 1510

“We need then to clarify, for procedural purposes, what is to be understood by discourse community.”

This shows the way that swales is trying to categorize the different communities to understand what they do for us and what they do tour writing – also to eliminate communities that don’t necessarily count as a community.

“I would now like to propose six defining characteristics that will be necessary and sufficient for identifying a group or individuals as a discourse community.”

He cares about what makes a discourse community what it is. He has developed four steps in order to make sure which communities fit into what categories and which don’t.   

“A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals”

This confuses me because he goes on to say that students aren’t a discourse community. We have a common goal and seem because of technicality we aren’t a discourse community – I think he makes it a little too “technical”.

C.R.A.P. response

            This is a WWF ad about climate change dramatically showing how if we don't destructive habits that out race could evolve to fit our new habitat. Williams C.R.A.P. method: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and    Proximity has a lot t do with this ad.
            First, the contrast is displayed in the way that the lighting is on the "fish-man(-thing)" and the background is gray and dull - putting emphasis on the fore figure. Next, is the Repetition, the way that the ad repeats "change" helps to point out that if we don't change something - its consequences will affect us. Alignment helps to show that the fish-man-thing is ugly and that it is surely something you don't want to be - it's dead center and huge. Lastly, the proximity holds a rushed tone, eluding to the fact that we have to do something, and pretty soon.

             We read this article to help us to bring something into light, to put emphasis on something. Not in pictures but in our writing too. Williams has a great understanding how to do so with his C.R.A.P. method - he is a good writer to read from on this subject.

...and we had to.

Dialectical journal #2

Sean Demme

10.5.2012

English 1510

Dialectical journal

“The computer, the latest development in writing technology, promises, or threatens, to change literacy practices for better or worse, depending on your point of view.’

 -This statement shows how Dennis Baron has a very strong interest in what technology has done to our writing since it’s creation. He uses very dramatic language; he brings up a lot of questions in this piece.

“I will be the first to praise computer to acknowledge the importance of the computer over the last 15 years.”

               -Baron has a very positive reaction to the computer – it has helped him much during his writing career. The way the computer put communication together like never before.

“As the old technologies become automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new.”

               -I really like this. I like the way that he brings up this point because there are skeptics about our upcoming technologies. Some people don’t look at how technology has bettered us, but fail to think it will continue to happen. 

Shitty First Draft: Literacy

Sean Demme

10.2.2012

English 1510

               My older sister is such a nerd. “Let me teach you to read.” she’d say and I wouldn’t ever let her. It started with the two solid lines and the dotted one down the middle on grayish white paper. I thought I could read and write like Shakespeare among toddlers. I came home from school and wrote a note to my dad about my new shirt and how I was excited about it. It wasn’t until he read the note that I found was no Shakespeare at all. I figured out why my teacher snickered when I wrote the same story in class. As it turns out, the word shirt is a very different word without the “R”.  

               I then took my sister’s offering of teaching me to read and write. I got better, slowly, and eventually I got to where I was proficient at reading only to find that I was now in elementary school and reading was sooooo boring. I stopped reading for a little, I hated it. This is what gave me my hunger to be a writer now. I stopped reading for pleasure until high school, I was a terrible reader. I read a couple of books on my own. Now I like reading – I’ve told myself that. I say that because I only “tell” myself that I like to read, I don’t read for pleasure still to this day. One thing I’d like to do is change that – actually get myself to read for pleasure, not just convince myself I do.

response #10

Sean Demme

10.3.2012

English 1510

QDJ:

1.      When Hooks said ‘kill the self’ meant she wasn’t writing about herself. When she wrote her fiction writings she often didn’t write about anything about herself. Through ignoring writing about herself, she ultimately killed her sense of self.

2.      No, I don’t believe this writing is bio-myth. She isn’t really writing about being feminine centered but more about the memories that she is regaining. I don’t believe that this has to do much with bio-myth

3.      She writes about a crazy little girl who will grow up only to be crazy – that’s all she can be. I think my own maybe similar except about a kid who will never be anything but childish, I won’t ever be anything other than a child

AEI

1.      Yes! We can totally change our identity thorough texts. A prime example: my speech class. I cannot talk in front of a group of people to save my life, when I write my speech I write it as if I am funny and not scared to death to give a speech. I convince myself that I am funny and that people love my speech by writing it confidently.