First and Secondary Sources on Your Specific Discourse Community

Silvia – Assign. 3

Essay 3

Introduction:

In our first two assignments, you examined how the media and our surroundings engineer, influence, or shame certain identities. Throughout these essays, we’ve talked about discourse in terms of your discursive context, the arguments and ideas within which you set your own arguments and evidence. In this assignment, you will be analyzing discourse—or meaning-making—itself. Here, you will choose a specific discourse community and through primary and secondary research, you will develop an argument about how this community composes itself as a group through the way its members talk, behave, write, and read.

Texts:

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.”Borderlands / La Frontera. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999. Print. 75-86.

First and secondary sources on your specific discourse community.

Assignment:

Part 1: Provide a discursive context

As in our former essays, begin (at least your first draft) by locating your argument about your discourse community in a specific context. In order to provide this context, show us what the projects are of the secondary texts (such as Anzaldúa) that help you form this context.

What are some important terms your reader needs to be aware of in order to understand this essay and to understand your argument?
What is the project of the essay in question?
What are some key passages that make clear this author’s ideas and your own ideas?

Part 2: Your discourse community

Choose one discourse community and observe and analyze the tools, vocabulary, gestures, etc., that they use to communicate with one another. Develop an argument-driven thesis based on the first- and second-hand research you fulfill by exploring the following questions:

What is primarily discussed within this community?
What is the primary mode of communication within this community?
What role does writing play? Is it a major or minor role? What members of this group are primarily responsible for writing?
Where does this community fit within the larger picture of a society of communities? Why are the members of this community compelled to join it?
What does this community neglect to say? In other words, what appears to be taboo for this community? Why do you think this (these) topic(s) are taboo?

Some pointers:

Organize your essay thematically, not chronologically. Do not give a report of what you did while researching—instead, group your data and focus on reoccurring themes of interest in your data that give answers to your research questions.
Utilize some of the data you have collected directly in your essay: direct quotations or observations make excellent examples and are integral to the development of your argument.
Supplement your first-hand research with secondary sources, such as articles from magazines and newspapers, academic articles from databases, etc.

Part 3: The significance

Finally, bring parts 1 and 2 together to create a cohesive paper that argues one specific point. Some guiding questions for your main argument are:

What is the significance of this project?
How does this project add to current conversations about how communities communicate with one another? How does this influence our understanding of identity and how identity and desires are formed?

Formatting and Due Dates:

8-10 pages, not including your Works Cited page.
MLA Formatting: 12-point font, 1-inch margins, double spaced, as well as in-text citations for any quotes you pull from your sources, and a Works Cited page (feel free to pull the citations directly from this document and be sure to cite all documents that you include about your chosen space).
Annotated Bibliography due printed out in class on Monday, April 6. See Husky CT for more details