Contextual ePortfolio Content
Over the course of the semester, our class has been learning about what primary and secondary discourses are and how to apply them to our work in the class. The Digital Literacy Narrative assignment is about reflecting on a time in our lives in which we have interacted directly with a secondary discourse within our field or major. It is first an audio and then it becomes an audio with a written supplementary piece. The goal of the assignment, in my opinion, is to reflect on what people within our field or major are talking about and doing so that we have a better idea of the conversations we might be having in the future if we decide to stay in the field.
This text was challenging in a few ways, simply because I really have a very limited idea of what the overall discourse community looks like in the field that I have changed over to, but regardless, the assignment still demonstrated that I can write a script and turn it into an audio piece and a more developed writing piece. Additionally, it demonstrates that I am able to take what I have learned from the course textbook and apply these concepts to my writing.
The main modification that I made was adding two quotes from the course textbook. Prior to revising, I had forgotten to include this component into the first draft. Other than that, there were some sentences that I eliminated because I did not want to be too wordy and have “fluff” text floating around in the written piece.
Here is the link to the first draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15r6lbN8RI92PZWso_tKiu7vMotzJNk8BbPS7jasulyk/edit
Final Polished Draft
Because I made a recent decision to change my major from Sustainable Development to Psychology, I am still fairly new to the discourse community that is a part of the psychology department here at Appalachian State. With that being said, I am doing investigation now into what research and topics of interest that faculty and students within the psychology department are delving into. Both primary and secondary discourses are a prominent part of both academic and non-academic departments across the world. A primary discourse is what and how humans make sense of their world and how to interact with others in the world. A secondary discourse is very similar concept, but where the difference lies is in the type of group in which the learning is taking place. In a secondary discourse, one interacts and speaks the language of a non-home-based social group, such as a sports club/team or a school. Currently, I am learning a secondary discourse in the field of psychology by emailing the chair of Appalachian State’s psychology department and I am browsing research publications that psychology faculty have created or been a part of in order to better learn the secondary discourse.
The first way I am learning my secondary discourse is by emailing back and forth with the chair of Appalachian State’s psychology department. When I decided to make the major change, I reached out to my current academic advisor who recommended that I get in touch with the chair to figure out how I can get plugged into this community on campus. So, I sent an email to Dr. Rose Mary Webb informing her about my background and why I am emailing her, which is to inquire about who I can meet with and speak to about the department and about the Sustainability concentration in particular. Not long after I sent the email, I received a very warm and friendly email from her in return stating that the department is excited about the new Sustainability concentration and would love to meet with me to talk more about the concentration itself. When using digital means to communicate with someone, we as humans often make decisions about our word choices in order to continue this idea of being “digitally well-liked”, as Annalise Sigona puts in the class text Writing About Writing (Sigona 2017).
The second way I am learning my secondary discourse is by browsing and reading research publications that psychology faculty have created or been a part of in order to better learn the secondary discourse. I have received great advice and assistance from my professors in how to approach the psychology department and in how to approach the process of changing my major. I was directed to a site called ResearchGate and I have found various different publications of faculty and staff of Appalachian State’s psychology department on ResearchGate, such as, Amy Galloway’s publication on Parental child feeding practices: How do perceptions of mother, father, sibling, and self vary?. Interestingly enough, in the class text Writing About Writing, a point is made about how “prior experiences with writing create negative or positive feelings about writing” (Wardle et al. 2017), which is reflective of the field that I am working with and the belief-system that prior experience in general will have influence on our behaviors and attitudes towards that thing in the future.
All in all, there are several ways in which one can go about learning a secondary discourse. If one is a somewhat new or inexperienced member of a discourse community, it may be more challenging to pick up on the secondary discourse compared to other members who have been engaging with the community longer or more in depth. The two ways in which I am learning about my secondary discourse are by emailing the chair of Appalachian State’s psychology department and searching research publications that psychology faculty have created or been a part of in order to better learn the secondary discourse. Thus far, I have had both successes and challenges in doing so, but regardless, I am looking forward to being a more thorough member of the discourse community in the psychology department and developing the skills and language to assist me in taking part in the various secondary discourses within this discourse community.
Source:
Wardle, Elizabeth, and Downs, Doug. Writing About Writing. 2017.
Cameron Schaefer's ePortfolio 