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

1. Umbrella
or
Bridge
Discourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC
Chris Friend / @chris_friend / University of Central Florida

2. Umbrella
or
Bridge
Discourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC
Chris Friend / @chris_friend / University of Central Florida

3. The Scenario

4. ✤ Flexibility of writing
process
✤ Strategies for responding
to rhetorical situations
✤ Skills for reading
complex texts
The ✤ Understanding how
conventions, lexia, &
Curriculum genres are situated w/in
discourse communities

5. High-School Precedent
✤ Transactional
✤ Unknown audience
✤ Goal: Test-passing
✤ Artificial & high-stakes

6. The Assignments
✤ Process Analysis
✤ Rhetorical Analysis
✤ Discourse Community
Ethnography

7. The Problem

8. Duplication

9. “The staff at the
restaurant where I work is
a discourse community.”
×25 per class.
Every semester.

10. Missing Expectations

11. Students identified a
discourse community but
did nothing with that info.
We wanted analysis/
extension/conclusions.

12. The Task Force

13. Our Mission

14. We were tasked with
finding a new approach
to DCs that could help
students apply, not just
state, their knowledge.

15. The Dirty Work

16. We decided to create a
sequence of assignments
and evaluation rubrics—
helpful, but overkill.
And hard.

17. The Solution

18. Course Sequence
Major Units
Major Units
Writing Process
Rhetorical Analysis Definitions
Characteristics
Discourse Community DC
Ethnography Authority
Genres
Writing Process
Rhetorical Analysis

19. Course Timing
Major Units
weeks 1–4 Writing Process
weeks 5–6 Definitions
7 weeks? week 7 Characteristics
Are you DC
nuts? weeks 8–9 Authority
weeks 10–11 Genres
weeks 12–15 Rhetorical Analysis

20. The Philosophies
Umbrella and Bridge

21. We see DCs as bridging
other units together and
as umbrellas,
containing several
concepts within.

22. Assessment

23. Definitions
Evaluates term’s function to
✤ Purpose: Understand A show knowledge construction
specialized language &
its use in academic Illustrates how specialized
B definition enhances meaning
conversations
✤ Supporting text: None Explains differences in
C definitions
from book; students
look up specialized
definitions D States that definitions differ

24. Characteristics
Evaluates how characteristics
A form group identity
✤ Purpose: Understand
what a DC is & how it Illustrates hierarchy of
B characteristics w/in the group
functions
✤ Supporting text: “The Explains (w/ examples) how
C group meets characteristics
Concept of Discourse
Community” by Swales
D States that group is a DC

25. Authority
✤ Purpose: Understand how & Evaluates how authors’ use of
why authors adjust writing for A authority is appropriate for each
different audiences audience
✤ Supporting texts:
Illustrates how citation &
✤ “Learning to Serve” by B authority work as negotiation
Mirabelli
✤ “Reading & Writing Without Explains (w/ examples) styles of
Authority” by Penrose & C citation, quoting, and
Geisler establishing authority
✤ “Identity, Authority, & States difference in authority
Learning to Write in New D between articles
Workplaces” by Wardle

26. Genre
✤ Purpose: Identify the Evaluates how DC uses genre in
A “furtherance of its aims”
origins, use, affordances,
& constraints
Illustrates intertextuality w/in
B genre samples
✤ Supporting texts:
✤ “Generalizing about
Genre” by Devitt C Explains scene of genre’s use
✤ “Intertextuality & the States genre is used in specific
DC” by Porter D scenario

27. Assessment Goals
✤ Clarity
✤ Flexibility
✤ Simplicity
✤ Focus

28. The Application

29. Confidence

30. Students comfortably
and competently used
the vocabulary of DCs.

31. Repetition/Redundancy

32. Repetition/Redundancy
Major Units
✤ Repetition: Writing Process
Characteristics include
lexis and genre Definitions
Characteristics
✤ Redundancy:
DC
Authority requires Authority
rhetorical analysis
Genres
Rhetorical Analysis

33. Audience

34. Students wrote to an
artificial audience—me.
Still needs to be fixed.

35. Thank you.
Chris Friend
Twitter: @chris_friend
Email: friend@ucf.edu

36. Gratitude: Visual Credits
✤ Color scheme (You are beautiful) ✤ Stormtroopers by JD Hancock
by Sanguine on colourlovers on Flickr
✤ Umbrella and bridge title images ✤ Luke Alike
courtesy Microsoft
✤ Maybe He Won’t Notice
✤ Old schoolhouse by
✤ Stupid Garbage Compactor…
WarzauWynn on Flickr
✤ Guard inspection by Defence
✤ Bullseye from Rob Ellis' on Flickr
Images (UK Ministry of Defence)
✤ Rocket failure by jurvetson on on Flickr
Flickr
✤ Teacher’s apple by Forty Two on
✤ Thumbs-up by wynner3 on Flickr Flickr