blog 15

Johns Summary: In Johns article Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice, she talks about how communities of practice and discourse communities relate and tie into each other. She states what it is to be in an academic community and what they are like. After she talks about both communities, she goes into talking about the conflicts that can occur with them.

Questions:

1.     There are many problems that Johns outlines in her article with discourse communities. First, is that everything costs money and that many people who do not have it at their disposal, which may cause them not to join at all. Second she talks about authority within the community. Authority causes people do disagree about who should be in those certain positions. Also, when discourse communities change it can cause problems because people do not like change when they have been doing one thing for so long.

2.     I think John is saying here that when people grow up there values and beliefs may change. I think an example would be like someone changing religions because of a new person in there life.

3.     I think that Learning to write and speak in a new way at college is like a new discourse community. I think that when coming to college, I learned a new way to write and threw the rest out the window. Also since I am not from around here, you learn a new way to communicate from people from around here.

4.     I do think that Johns views on these things impact your identity. I think that as you grow learning and the way learn helps you to discover more about yourself. I also think that the way you learn and when you learn things can change your views and beliefs.

5.     I don’t think I have had much authority in college to write what I want. It is always the same way, you have an assignment sheet and you have to follow what it says. You never get to fully do what you want and express yourself.

6.     It is considered a minefield because you always want to follow the rules because you never know how far you can take it without getting a bad grade. I have been punished many times for breaking rules that I did not see fit for the paper. What happened was that I was forced to fix it or I would not get a good grade.

MM: Understanding what Johns is talking about can help in becoming a part of a new discourse community by trying to decide if it is really the best thing for you mentally and financially. I also think it can be bad because you can be persuaded to think certain things that the groups believe.

Johns reflection: Overall I thought that this was a good reading. At parts I found it a little hard to follow and understand where she was going with things. I think this was helpful in making me think about all the writings we have done in class, and how much freedom we have had with them.