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last.updated 1.22.06

Week 4 Exercise: Your Discourse Communities

Purpose

As Swales explains, understanding discourse communities allows us to understand the conventions used to initiate members and how "the discourse reifies particular values and beliefs" (p. 22). This exercise will give you the opportunity to think about the discourse communities that you belong to and start pre-writing for your future assignments in this class.

Writing

After reading through Swales discussion of a discourse community...

• develop three heuristics for determining whether a group or collective is a discourse community
• describe at least two groups or collectives that you belong to
• use your heuristics to explain whether these groups or collectives are discourse communities

In a 250-400 word response, address these three points. The organization of your response is your decision.

Submit your work prior to class (7 pm) in the body of an email through Blackboard messages. Your work will receive a process evaluation.