Analysis of shaggy dog stories. We started class with your presentations on the shaggy dog stories. Each group took a slightly different perspective, and you all found different sets of "essential" features for the stories. These presentations were WONDERFUL. You are clearly getting the idea of analysis. Your work to name and classify the different "moves" in the stories, and then to classify them again (by identifying which features were common to all the stories) is exactly the same process language researchers use when they identify genres, group identities, contextual language practices (like "getting to know you: talk, or classroom talk) - and it is the process Swales used to arrive at the features to define discourse communities.
Swales. We talked about Swales from two different perspectives. First we looked at how his essay was organized. And then we applied/tried out his "findings" to see how they corresponded with 4 (possible) discourse communities: Kean students; writing studies majors; education majors; and our class.
Organization of Swales essay. I asked you to notice the different moves the essay makes (as a way of identifying where the information you are going to need is located). You already know how to do this - so very quickly you identified:
1. an introductory section (about 20% of the essay's total length) where he states what other researchers have done and points out what he will add to this "conversation" (distinguish between speech + discourse community & define discourse community),
2. a long middle section (about 60%) where he gives is data/presents his "findings"/makes his point,
3.(I gave you this information, since you didn't have this part of the essay in your copy) a (surprisingly long) conclusion (about 20%) - which was in my text but was not part of your assigned reading.
Swales essay presents one pattern for writing about writing studies research. Important consideration for you: does this essay include primary data? Where would you put your primary data if you used this form? How much "space" should your data take?
Analysis of possible discourse communitis:
Kean students: Dina, Filip, Megan, Mark
English majors: Angie, Caitlin, Sabrina, Ashley
Education majors: Emily, Liz, Kristine
Our class: Marc, Debra, Courtney, Jayme
For next class:
Read: "Coaches Can Read, Too" by Sean Branick
Blog 4: post your analysis of your (possible) discourse community. Make sure to account for each of the 6 features. Give examples for each feature to support your analysis (e.g. examples of what the "public goals" are and how they are made public, what the genres for communication are, ways the group makes the genres their own, the language particular to the group , etc.)
We will start class with your presentations on your analysis, and then we will talk about Branick. I suggested that as you read Branick, you think about whether/how he used Swales features of a discourse community, how/whether this worked as a writing studies project, and what suggestions you would give this writer for strengthening his essay.
Have a good weekend!
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