English 110 Discourse Communities 9-18-13 Semester Blog # 2

Discourse communities consist of a group of people that share a common goal, pattern, or certain expertise. Over the years I have belonged to several groups and organizations that fall under those guidelines. The largest discourse community I have been a part of is the Miss Virginia Organization. A franchise of the Miss America Pageant. Each year over 30,000 women under the age of 24 compete on a local, state and national level trying to earn scholarship money to further their educational goals. The Miss America Organization is the largest provider of scholarship money to women nationwide. I personally know this because a portion of my college tuition was paid for when I was crowned Teen Virginia in 2011. The organization consists of several different layers of membership. You have girls that are competitors, local directors, state directors, board members, volunteers, mentors and judges.

As part of the community service aspect of the Miss Virginia Organization, members often engage in community service groups. Five years ago, I started a service organization called H.U.G.S. ( Helping Underprivileged Girls Succeed) With the help of members statewide we set a common goal of empowering girls in need of mentoring by providing positive peer role models and giving them school supplies.  As active members we collected school supplies to distribute, spoke about the importance of making healthy life choices and leading by example. As the founder of the service organization, I relied heavily on support from fellow members and the community. The common goal of reaching girls in need brought us together.

As I continue to expand my involvement with campus life, I'd like to be a part of the Old Dominion University Student Government Association. As with most organized involvement communities, there are levels of leadership in place. Meetings and social gathers give students a chance to voice concerns about issues they find concerning in their community or campus. Most members all share the goal of improving student relations and come to the group with their own level of expertise.

One of the mostly highly recognized sports programs in the NFL, the Washing Redskins, stakes a claim to a discourse community.  Fans of all ages pack into the stadium to cheer on their team to victory. Most football enthusiast use certain terms to discuss plays and on field procedures. In April, my goal is to audition to become part of this well known organization as a member of the Redskins Cheerleading program. Current members serve as ambassadors to the public, make appearances and recruit new fans of all ages.

Discourse communities have existed for hundreds of years. Some people refer to them as clubs, organizations, sports groups or religious communities. They all share common goals, require you to be productive members and give you a sense of belonging no matter what the end goal may be.

 

 

 

English 110 Writing Blog #1

During Eliza's first year at college her reading skill levels are centered around preparing and memorizing information to take a test instead of understanding and extracting information. As she grew into her sophomore year of college she began to understand the point of view of the author and her work improved. She learning different techniques such as skimming and selective reading. At the end of her senior year she was able to draw conclusion and had a better understanding of the text. Her critical thinking skills improved and she was able to form a connection to the texts she was reading.

According to Haas, these changes happened because most incoming freshman look at text as autonomous. As time progressed and she took different courses of she was able to develop a different skill set that improved her thinking outside of the box.

My previous writing instructions encouraged blog and journal writing as an outlet to express thoughts and clear of minds in hopes allowing us the opportunity to go back read what we felt at a certain point in our lives. Unfortunately in most public school systems, English classes focus on standardized testing and not creative thinking. Which causes students, like myself to focus on passing a test instead of truly understanding what we have read. In any career, comprehensive reading skills and understanding are more essential that cramming for a test and forgetting the material.

My chosen major is a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a concentration in dance. Understanding and comprehending what you have read plays a large part in the theater world of dance but most students studying dance plan on either teaching it or performing professionally. The critcial thinking skills will help me develop as a dance teacher but only provide a limited amount of help if I am professionally dancing. As a dancer we are know to use are body more than mind but with the short career span of a dancer, it's almost a necessity to have a backup career or be able to perform some other type of job training in order to be successful.