WA3: LITERACIES BEYOND THE SCHOOL

We’ve been reading and writing about your own literacy past for several weeks now, including your experiences with the “rules” for writing in school. What about the “rules” in for discourse in communities that extend beyond the school—at work, at play, at home, at church, someplace else? In this essay, we are going to extend our exploration of literacy into spaces where you many not expect it.

So what are your experiences in other communities of practice? How does one become a “literate” fan of professional basketball, for instance? What do “real” fans of professional basketball know (and wear and say and talk about) that those merely pretending to know will not? How do real fans of professional basketball recognize one another?

Perhaps you are a fan of a particular soap opera (or several). What’s it take to be a literate viewer of soap operas? What do viewers (“in the know”) expect from their soap operas? What should they not expect?

In other words, what’s it take to be considered literate in a community of practice beyond school?

For this writing assignment, you will be asked to take much of what you found out during your interview and convert it into prose. That is, write a formal essay in which you describe—in great detail--a community of practice beyond the school. What’s it like? How’d you get involved? What do literate members know, value, say, and wear? What are the “rules” nonmembers might unknowingly break?

Description: Formal essay about the “rules” and expectations governing “literate” practices in a community of practice beyond those directly associated with school. Examine the expectations governing what may be considered “literate” practices in a community of practice with which you have quite a bit of familiarity but that actually extends beyond the “school” literacies you examined in WA2.

Questions to explore: You may be a great chess player or a dedicated soccer fan. Maybe you are really involved with organizations like the Girl Scouts or the Boys and Girls Club or the local Humane Association. Perhaps you’d like to examine rap music as a “community of practice.” Maybe you’d like to look back at the various communities of practice making up social life during your high school days. Boy, I don’t know of many communities with tighter boundaries than the various cliques in teenage cultures (subcultures). We will talk about some possibilities together, so no worries.

Purpose: To begin exploring and rethinking what it means (and what it can mean) to read and write in different places and for different purposes by examining and analyzing communities of practice that extend beyond the school.

Resources: Draw ideas from your own literacy experiences (especially as revealed via the in-class interview), and anything else you think you can use.

Additional idea generators: Examine the expectations governing what may be considered “literate” practices in an academic community of practice. That is, what’s it take to write well in school? You may consider the following questions:

1. What do nonmembers have to learn, be able to recognize, find valuable, and/or embody before they may be considered “literate” in this community of practice?
2. How is membership in this context expressed?
3. How is competency determined, by whom and according to what measure?
4. What strategies must one use to be heard, understood, and taken seriously within the rhetorical spaces of this community of practice?
5. What should be the long-term goals of literate members as determined by what this community finds valuable and possible? How does one know when they’ve reached these goals?

Constraints:

Page-length minimum for PEER REVIEW: THREE PAGES (double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font)

Due date ___________

Page-length minimum for INSTRUCTOR REVIW: FOUR PAGES (double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font)

Due date ___________