To help you learn to read critically and incorporate effective textual support, you will complete reading responses for several of the assigned readings this semester. Reading responses ask you to use direct evidence from the course readings to answer a prompting a question. This means that each reading response should include at least one quote or paraphrase from the assigned text.
Reading Responses should be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document using MLA or APA formatting (including an APA title page or MLA header) and in-text citations and a Works Cited/References page. There is no word count for these responses, but you should be thoroughly answering the question with specific evidence that is incorporated into your own writing. To do this, I recommend around 250 words, but you're welcome to write more or less if you feel like that's what you need to answer the question.
This Week's Prompt:
Now that you are getting a handle on the concept of genre, we are going to add in another layer: how genres work in communities. For this, please read Ann Johns “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice”.
After reading, answer the following question:
- What's the relationship between a genre and a community of practice?
- Think back to a time you joined a new community of practice. Name the community. What genres did they use and why?
- Following the model set by Johns where she outlines genre conventions of academic writing, perform a similar kind of analysis (but much more informal) for your chosen genre. What kind of topics did it cover? What rules did it have for the writer? What kind of language did it ask you to use? What did its goals seem to be for the community?
- Are you surprised by anything you have found regarding your own genre and community reflection? Why or why not?