Blog Post #4

How is Professor Chandlers class a discourse community? (As per Swales model)

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
In English 3029, all students have a set of common goals. The ultimate goal is to pass the class with a high grade and complete a successful research paper. Also, all students are English majors, so we all have a common goal of getting our degree in the same major.

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.

Within English 3029, students communicate with: •email •blogs •group interaction and collaboration •Handouts such as a calendar and syllabus

3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

Within the English 3029 classroom, students use the conversation and lesson to engage with one other on the particular topic. It is in the classroom which students provide the most feedback and information to one another.

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.

In English 3029, students collaborate with one another providing feedback to one another and feedback to and from Professor Chandler. Also, as stated above under statement two, the students within English 3029 communicate in various mediums aside from face to face communication.

**NOTE: This discourse requirement can go either way in being a discourse community. Students have a more direct line of communication with the professor rather than among themselves. Why this is seems to be unknown because their are opportunities where students can communicate with one another outside of the classroom. Each personal blog as well as the "hub" blog has a comments section where other students can comment and make conversation. Although this never or rarely happens, most students still look at other students blog to see what they have written but fail to leave a comment, opinion, or feedback. Such observations could make this class on the verge of not yet being a discourse community.

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.
English 3029 is a research analysis class which requires a large range of technical terms. Without knowing the meaning of terms such as research, analysis, rhetoric, and language analysis an "outsider" or "non student" of the classroom would be lost. Most students go into English 3029 not knowing any terms but because of the classrooms discourse, each student learns the specific lexis in order to conduct and understand the shared common goal of a successful research paper.

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

This is also a requirement that could go either way. The members are only in the class because it is a major requirement in order to graduate. Towards the end of the semester, each member of the class will know all the content and be almost experts in the field of research analysis. I believe this requirement is not fully developed yet to be a discourse community.

**NOTE: Also, the community of English 3029 is constantly changing members. The members of the classroom community are not the same from semester to semester. The only thing that stays constant within the community is Professor Chandler. She is like the "hub" to the class providing the right information to each student form semester to semester. She gives the members of the classroom the correct knowledge in order to understand the content of the course. Most students go directly to the "hub" instead of consulting each other as members of the group. Once again, it is little observations like this that could make English 3029 on the verge of being an actual discourse community.
Overall, I think the class DOES have the potential to be a discourse community. I just think we are still in the growing stage of getting to know one another and our personal beliefs. As the semester goes on I can see our class flourishing into more student to student interaction rather then each student connected directly to the hub.
***THESE OBSERVATIONS ARE FROM MYSELF AS WELL AS GROUP MEMBERS BRENDA AND JESSICA. Our observations are not a definite conclusion. ***