An effective way to engage with the topic of writing is to consider how writing matters in various communities on a daily basis. This paper provides the chance to reflect in a personal way about a writing community you successfully joined by learning how to use the language and reasoning skills of that community. By using personal experiences and anecdotes, you will trace your movement from an outsider to an insider in a particular community. Examples of writing communities include a specific workplace, a sports team, a church community, a social or college club, a different country and language, a specific discussion forum–online or in-person.
personal narrative that explores a particular writing community that you are very familiar with and that you feel comfortable discussing with your peers. This writing community should be one that you have chosen, rather than one you were born into. Pick a clear writing community, explain and analyze the writing community’s specific language practices and value system, and show readers that you have become a full member of this community by learning those language practices. Follow these specific steps:
1. Include a main point or take-away (thesis) in the beginning of your essay to clearly indicate to readers what the essay is about and what overall point you wish to make.
2. Identify the community’s specific reasoning (logos), its values and emotions (pathos) and explain how you built your credibility (ethos) as a new community member.
3. Explain some of the tensions and limitations of this writing community: do some members demand or disapprove of certain language use?
4. Use what cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz calls “thick description” in your essay to identify a particular setting, mood, and people’s characteristics (names, ages, etc.). Show, rather than tell, by using sensory details in your own writing that cue readers to visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and kinesthetic aspects.
5. Highlight one or two particular incidents (anecdotes) in which the community’s language practices are nicely evident.
6. You may use quotes from individuals of this community, or from texts the community uses. Make sure to integrate such quotes into your essay.
7. Your audience are your peers and myself, your instructor. Thus, tailor the language of your essay to us, your real audience, and use a style that is distinctly your own.
Please stick with the above steps and let me know if you have any questions.
Note – Something related to teaching experience or topi will be great
