Howard Hinds

Professor Pierson
9/22/2017

Paper 1: Autoethnography
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The Community and Its Effect on the Writing Process

The community that I chose for my autoethnography would be that of my closest friends.

What sets this community apart from similar communities, such as my friends in general and my

family, is that this group is as connected and important to me as my family is and just as enjoyable

and informal as my friend group. This community includes Tanner, Erich, and myself. We have a

very similar current lifestyle and are connected by our shared comedic tastes, experiences. For

example, our community enjoys television shows like Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia and

Archer which are shows that make jokes in a similar fashion as our community does. We often

make references to those shows in our Discourse. We share many experiences together as we all

grew up in the same town and went to the same high school.

We also share a similar current lifestyle since we are freshmen at UCF making similar

transitions into adulthood such as literary activities. Literary activities that our community engage

in would be texting, driving/navigating roadways as we carpool to different locations, shopping at

grocery stores, eating out, and playing videogames. Tanner and myself act as literacy sponsors for

Erich. Deborah Brandt states that Sponsors are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract,

who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy and

gain advantage by it in some way (Brandt, Deborah Page 72). Tanner and myself became the

literacy sponsors of the group since we have been in this community since our days in middle

school and Erich did not attempt to join this community till our transition from high school to UCF

where he became our apprentice. Tanner and myself had more knowledge that we could pass on

to Erich as we entered [the] reciprocal relationship that a sponsor and an apprentice have (Brandt,

Deborah pg. 73). What motivated Tanner and myself to include a new person into our community

was the need for another person to help us since tanner and I already have been helping each other
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since the formation of this close community in middle school. However, for Erich to be an

apprentice he would have had to pass through gates put in place by the literacy sponsors and

tests to test his fluency in our Discourse. For example, on one occasion Tanner and myself

opened a gate by inviting Erich over to watch a few episodes of the show Its Always Sunny in

Philadelphia which is a show that is constantly referenced in our community for it contains jokes

that Tanner and myself find hilarious and love to make. And as literacy sponsors, we tested Erich

by seeing if he not only enjoyed the show and its type of humor but if he would be able to reference

the show in our groups activities and adopt a similar attitude that is in the show that reflects in the

Discourse. In a sense, Tanner and I would see if Erich was able to be fluent in the show so to see

if he could be fluent and literate in our Discourse and ultimately our community after

apprenticeship. As our apprentice, Erich learns of previous jokes and funny incidents that have

happened to Tanner and myself so that he too could reference those things in the future just like

tanner and myself have been. Erich would become fluent and a part of the community since he

would now be able to understand our references to things he was not able to do before joining.

As for the Discourse, which is a sort of identity kit which comes complete with

instructions on how to act, talk and often write (Gee, James pg. 278), I assume an identity with

the other members of the Discourse that is much different than any other identity I would assume

with my other Discourses such as with my family, school, or at/for a job. The reason being is

because the Discourse I have with my closest friends requires a far lower amount of

professionalism than many, if not all, of my other Discourses. This Discourse values humor far

more than any other discourse especially since the majority of communication in the friend group

is an attempt at making a joke or referencing a previous incident that was considered funny.

Language that is unique to this Discourse would be the use of the word "Ight" as an abbreviated
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form of the word "Alright". We use this word exactly like another Discourse would use the words

alright and okay however this discourse uses it to save time while texting other members and to

show understanding of a previous statement made. The use of this unofficial word in the Discourse

shows how informal the Discourse is compared to other Discourses in my life such as the one I

undergo as a student. It would not allow me to use made-up words in everyday text. This Discourse

also requires knowledge of previous occurrences and their comedic values since references to

events in the form of an inside joke are often used. These inside jokes are the primary form of

"tests" used to determine who is a pretender in the group. Members would laugh after the reference

and pretenders would not understand the reason for laughter. This Discourse also has a very loose

and relaxed approach towards what it means to have literacy in the Discourse. A person is

considered to have literacy in the Discourse so long as they understand the references being made,

can make jokes in a similar style, and are comfortable using our slang terms such as ight and

boi. And although this Discourse does not read books or writes papers together, the Discourse

finds those kinds of common literary activities to be school work that we need occasional breaks

from, we still have many other literate activities.

Common literary activities include texting, carpooling (whether driving, navigating, or

picking the playlist), shopping at grocery stores, eating out, and videogaming. The most practiced

literate activity performed in the community would be texting. Its exigence, as Keith Grant-Davie

would say, or the reason for the existence of this literary activity and its discourse in the

community would be the need for members of the community to communicate and ask questions

to each other when they are not physically together (Grant-Davie, Page 490-491). Its exigence can

be unveiled by answering three questions. First, what is the discourse about? The discourse

involved with texting in the community is primarily concerned with asking questions along the
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lines of what will we be doing today/tonight. Second, why is the discourse needed? The

discourse is needed to answer the questions that members have and present in the discourse. Third,

what is the discourse trying to accomplish? The discourse is trying to answer the questions

presented so that there will be less confusion in the community which allows them to operate more

efficiently. The audience of this discourse would be any person who reads the text message. The

intended audience would be whoever was meant to receive the text while the actual audience could

also include people who may have accidentally received the message due to sending to the wrong

number or people who went through the messages of the intended audiences phone. The rhetors

would be the author of the text and the reader since the author might text slightly differently to one

member than another and so the reader has an impact on the way the text will be shaped. Personal

constraints and constraints on the readers are very similar in the sense that both are constrained

depending on if they have their phone to receive the text messages, service on that phone, and

some battery life on that phone.

I do see this communitys beliefs about and use of reading and writing in myself. I do not

believe that this community has a strong influence in the shaping my literacy, reading, or writing

in most other communities. However, this communitys beliefs have had an influence in some

similar communities such as my overall friend group mainly because it has a very similar attitude

towards literacy, writing, and reading. The reason I believe that this communitys beliefs does not

have a strong influence on my literacy, reading, or writing is because I alternate those beliefs

depending on the current community I am with. For example, the way I formulate an answer to a

question in a community such as this English class would need to be entirely different from the

way I would formulate an answer to a question in my best friend community. This is because I

have different beliefs toward a way I must read or write to be literate in that community. For
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example, in my close friend group an answer to a question is needed to be short and to the point

while sometimes humorous to entertain the group while an answer in my academic community

often needs to be well thought out, precise, and able to answer all parts of the question while

displaying knowledge and understanding of the material discussed. So, my belief towards writing

would alternate between the belief I hold in one community to the other instead of one influencing

the other. And if my beliefs stayed the same throughout each community I went through, if those

beliefs did not align with that of the community, I would not be a member of that community.

Writing Process:

I do plan ahead before I write papers like this one. I say what I am about to write down in

my head first in an attempt to replicate the way to speak. I do this because I do not struggle to

speak to people but I do struggle to write papers/essays and the more I can make writing like my

speech the easier it can be for me. And by planning this way I can only plan one sentence at a time.

So, Im writing the text in my head first and writing it down as I have a usable sentence. Adding

on to each previous sentence. Because of this, I write in one sitting to try and maintain the mental

process I had going for those sentences. In a way, my writing is like taking journey into a forest

where each step is a sentence and the forest itself is my mind so taking a break while writing would

be leaving that spot in the forest I left and having to retrace all my mental footsteps to get back

where I was and hopefully remembering where I was going for the next sentence and subsequently

the rest of the writing. I write alone and in a quiet environment when working on a paper like this

since I rely so heavily on my thoughts for this kind of writing and I cannot think if I cannot hear

my thoughts while someone or something is making noise. And because I rely so heavily on my

thoughts to write I can only focus on what I am trying to write. Unfortunately, I have not had much
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experience editing or revising papers and essays like this because most of the ones I have done

before this one where timed. And since I write sentence by sentence, I dont know exactly when I

will finish the writing in its entirety so I often wrote to the last possible second which meant I did

not have time to ever go back and change things. Now that I have an opportunity to really edit and

revise I hope to do so after the peer review by taking in to consideration what they thought I missed

and what should be changed and how.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Downs, Doug. Warren, Elizabeth. Gee, James. Writing About Writing. Third

edition. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins. 2017. Print.

Downs, Doug. Warren, Elizabeth. Brant, Deborah. Writing About Writing. Third edition.

Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins. 2017. Print.

Downs, Doug. Warren, Elizabeth. Grant-Davie, Keith. Writing About Writing. Third

edition. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins. 2017. Print.

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