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Umbrella or Bridge: Discourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC
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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
Chris FriendFollow
Rhetoric/Composition Professor at Saint Leo UniversityAdvertisement
Umbrella or Bridge: Discourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC
- Umbrella or Bridge Discourse communities as the centerpiece of FYC Chris Friend / @chris_friend / University of Central Florida
- Umbrella or Bridge Discourse 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 The ✤ Understanding how conventions, lexia, & Curriculum genres are situated w/in discourse communities
- 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 Major Units Writing Process Rhetorical Analysis Definitions Characteristics Discourse Community DC Ethnography Authority Genres Writing Process Rhetorical Analysis
- 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
- The Philosophies Umbrella and Bridge
- We see DCs as bridging other units together and as umbrellas, containing several concepts within.
- Assessment
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Assessment Goals ✤ Clarity ✤ Flexibility ✤ Simplicity ✤ Focus
- The Application
- Confidence
- Students comfortably and competently used the vocabulary of DCs.
- Repetition/Redundancy
- Repetition/Redundancy Major Units ✤ Repetition: Writing Process Characteristics include lexis and genre Definitions Characteristics ✤ Redundancy: DC Authority requires Authority rhetorical analysis Genres Rhetorical Analysis
- Audience
- Students wrote to an artificial audience—me. Still needs to be fixed.
- Thank you. Chris Friend Twitter: @chris_friend Email: friend@ucf.edu
- 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
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