Banks 1 Gina Banks Megan Keaton English 111-09 8 July 2013 Discourse Communities

A discourse community is a group of people who speak and share the same interests in certain topics, knowledge, and vocabulary; they also use similar jargons specific to that community. Another important factor is that a discourse community must have a threshold level of membership. This is a means of recognizing who belongs or does not belong to the community. "Post the reflections onto Blogger. Check Moodle for assignments." Many people may not have a clue as to what these statements mean, but anyone in CPCC's summer semester English 111-09 class has to. The English class has used all kinds of terminology over the past few weeks to describe work, assignments and tools used in the class. Classmates and the professor are sure to use these unique ways of speaking to ensure that everything is done in an efficient manner. They need to do things this way for three basic reasons: everything must get done an exact way, things must be done very quickly, and anyone writing or trying to make the grade need to know specific and distinctive terms to ensure the job gets done correctly. A discourse community is a group of people who speak and share the same interests in certain topics, knowledge, and vocabulary; they also use similar jargons specific to that community. Another important factor is that a discourse community must have a threshold level of membership. This is a means of recognizing who belongs or does not belong to the community. There are various school and social setting which could be considered discourse communities.

Banks 2 There are several discourse communities ranging from family, friends, and work to ethnic groups, and classmates one could be involved in. One of the two discourse communities that will be discussed in this paper is the one that takes place Monday through Thursday at the CPCC Central Campus; it is Megan Keaton's English 111-09 class. There are about twenty students and one instructor in the class. They are all different races, ages, and genders. From recently out of high-school to older students, natural born to naturalized citizens. They wear casual clothing. Jeans, t-shirts, button ups, flip-flops, hoodies to sneakers. There are no constraints or uniforms for dress attire. When they are all in discussion together they tend to talk about specific aspects of Expository writing. They use terms like 'Moodle' and 'Blogger' and 'In a circle', which are important terminology which refer to vital tools or instructions given to complete daily assignments and tasks. Megan Keaton is the instructor, along with a class of around twenty students. Megan obtained her position as an instructor by completing her Masters degree in college and getting hired by CPCC. As a student in her class, you decided to enroll in college with CPCC, and then register for an English 111 course. The college will then place you with an instructor and room number at one of their buildings on campus (i.e. Central Campus, Overcash Building, Room 213).The goal as a student in this class is to gain a proper understand of expository writing and to prepare us for any other academic writing we will need in our college and everyday lives. Also, to gain 3 credit hours for future use in a chosen major/minor in college. The class is run and shaped by a course syllabus and a daily syllabus which consists of applications from Powerpoint, Moodle, Blogger, and student e-mails. Blogger is organized as a web site that is linked with Gmail that allows free blogging accounts. Megan makes it a requirement that you set up a Blogger account for future assignments upon starting her class. They can use Blogger to post all kinds of work. From

Banks 3 creative writing, or personal blogs, to assignments that need to be posted for her class. Examples of some of the posts her students have to put are weekly 'Writing into the Day' reflections, drafts of essays, and other various homework assignments. It is a great site in the way that the whole class is connected by this single web site, so it makes things convenient and easy for Megan to be able to read and grade assignments through. Although Megan as a rhetor instructs us on what the topic of our assignments should be about, we as the audience, actually become the rhetor when we are given enough creative space to personalize our assignments that she reads. Many of the students in this English class or even the instructors could be members of another discourse community called Facebook. Facebook is a social-networking site that connects people from all over the world, using the Internet. The people involved with Facebook span many countries and continents, and it is an online community where people can stay in touch with one another instantly over any distance, as long as you have an account. Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook in 2004 as a college experiment that went viral. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". As of September 2012, Facebook has over one billion active users. Users can choose to 'Add friend' once they have found someone they know on the network. Then, based on one's friends list, it begins suggesting 'People you may know'. They also have the option to 'Write something...' on someone's wall. It is like an open ended letter that allows you to post messages on each other's pages. People write on each other's walls for all sorts of reasons, to keep in touch, reminders, just to say hello.

Banks 4 Sometimes specialized jargon can be used in online contexts. LOL meaning 'laugh out loud', WYD meaning 'What are you doing?' as well as use of emoticons are widely used to portray feeling and mood. Regardless of what discourse community people are involved in, they consist of the same fundamentals. They are a group of people who speak and share the same interests in certain topics, knowledge, and vocabulary; they also use similar jargons specific to that community. Most people are involved in more than one discourse community in their lives, since it encompasses so many different aspects in one's life.