Matthew Albano

Mrs. Wolcott
ENC1101_CMB-14
November 13, 2014
Discourse Community
Before brainstorming ideas for this paper I first read the introduction to better understand the
authors strategies, background and purpose for creating this book. What I loved about the
introduction was that it mentioned how writing is more than just about the grammar but about the
content within the paper, just like how music is not just about playing the right notes but putting
emotion behind the music to help the audience connect with its message or story. Theres a TED
talk featuring Victor Wooten, an internationally famous guitar Bass player, on his presentation of
Music as a Language; he brings up several ideas but the one that really stuck out to me was that
most music teachers make the mistake of teaching the instrument before they teach the student
music. This is directly relates to how children across the world are being introduced to English,
we are learning the rules of grammar and organization instead of learning how to write. Theres
another great example in the introduction of the Writing about Writing book focusing on how
the SAT is graded; in the 30 minutes we are asked to write about a prompt the grader never
really cares about the content or the message behind the essay, the grader is mainly focused on
the organization, grammar and spelling (Wardle and Downs 2). The introduction begins to
define that in order to become a better writer the rules we had drilled into our head in school
arent necessarily the best way to go about writing because it can restrict how we write and how
we convey our message. However the purpose of the introduction is to point out several ideas
that we, the reader, should consider before glancing through the articles.

In a discourse community one characteristic that John Swales, a professor Emeritus of

Linguistics at Michigan State University, tells us is that the group of people must have a
common goal. In the book Writing about Writing by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs they
have hand selected each article that helps the reader, student, understand how to become a better
writer. In this class we began with steps to becoming better writers with articles such as Shitty
First Drafts by Anne Lamott to articles about strategies and research to back up their strategies
like Sandra Perls The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers. These articles
complement each other very well to eventually introduce us to the idea of discourse
communities. In articles such as James Porters "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community",
Tony Mirabellis Learning to Serve: The Language of Food Service Workers, John Swales
The Concept of Discourse Community and James Paul Gees Literacy, Discourse, and
Linguistics we learn in depth the characteristics, the purpose and the types of discourse
communities and their effects on our writing. In the Swales article we need to understand that the
6 characteristics are only guidelines to help us understand that groups like classrooms dont have
to start out as discourse communities but can end up as one once the group has established a
common goal, which is a goal itself to become one by the end. In Paul Gees article we go
beyond defining what a discourse community is and start to understand the types of discourses
and their purpose. The two main discourses we learn are Primary discourses, what we learn from
our families, and Secondary discourses, what we learn from social institutions. To understand
what a Secondary discourse is we can relate to the Writing about Writing book, it not only
teaches the readers how to become better and more efficient writers but it also teaches us how to
become a writing teacher by presenting us with information, methods and research on how to
become a better writer.

Even though my path is not the same as a writing teacher the book Writing about Writing
does relate to my major and my career on a plethora of levels. Musicians use language to teach
others, write articles or reviews of other musicians performances or other music related subjects,
in order to market ourselves we have to have good social skills and understand background
knowledge of other people and other subjects besides music. These are all subjects that have
been brought up in articles within the book help us understand how to become better writers
within our discourse communities.
This book also has helped me understand the importance of what we teach our students. The
whole purpose of this project is to see if the book actually helped us understand the material
which it was because the book was informing us that we must understand how to truly write
instead of checking off a list of rules. In my career as a music educator, specifically band
director, the Florida public schools are being challenged with the recent addition of End of
Course Exams where these exams account for 30% of the students final grade. I bring this up
because it becomes an issue of Am I teaching the students a test OR am I teaching them music.
The purpose of the exam is to make sure that students involved in the music classes understand
basic theory and can perform standard repertoire but I feel that it is more of a turn off towards
music classes and for me as a future educator who wants to inspire students to perform music
instead of telling them how to memorize a test.