Feb 24 Blog Post

       In her article, Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces Elizabeth Wardle argues what the role of identity and authority is in our writing and how these element influence the discourse community we affiliate ourselves with. Wardle helps present this idea through following a young man, Alan, and his struggle with joining a discourse community.
QD:
3.)  I believe that Alan did not yield positive results because he was not willing to conform. Granted conforming to fit into a discourse community is not always a good thing but showing a little flexibility would have increased his chances of making it into this discourse community. This flexibility is what would have granted him positive outcomes .
4.) I definitely believe that a lot of language is spoken unconsciously. You never think of the entire sentence you are going to say before you say it (at least most of the time this is not the case).
5.) I agree with Gee because according to Gee your Discourse makes up who you are and Alan refused to change his Discourse to join the discourse community because he wanted I believe he was trying to maintain his identity and did not want to change.
6.) The way he is portrayed in this article, Alan seems to be a tool because he is simply used as evidence and an example even though he really was not part of the community.
7.) I never had an authority figure in an academic setting lose their authority. My coach however has been thrown out of games before because he was not able to control his temper and the ref suspended him from the game.
AE: 1
     To assert your authority over texts you have to write with confidence and seem like a credible source for people to believe your writing. Most discourse communities involving anything academic or sport related I have not been the authority figure because those are both areas that I have a lot to learn in. When it comes to discourse communities with my groups of friends there is never one clear cut authority figure but sometimes I make decisions for the group since my personality sometimes may dominate some of my other friends'. Not being the authority figure is not always a bad thing especially if there is still room for learning so that some authority figures can act as tutors or teachers.
       Summary:  In addition to further expanding on our understanding of Discourses and discourse communities, Wardle also did a great job of making her article easy to follow. This article was an easy read which made me more willing to pay attention to what she was saying because it was not an effort to understand her points like it has been in some of these past articles we have read. This article was interesting, beneficial toward me, and I believe it is one of the few article regarding this topic of Discourse that I will be able to take something from.