Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
my immediate family, which includes my parents, two sisters and myself. This community is
exclusively set at five people, two married into and the other three where born from it. More
specifically, I am the eldest of the three siblings. My parents and I where born in Colombia,
while my sisters where born here in the United States. This creates a community that is truly
unique.
Literary Sponsors
This community of family is rooted in its literacy sponsors. The main literary sponsors
being my parents. As sponsors they lend their resources or credibility to the sponsored but also
stand to gain benefits from their success (Brandt 73). My parents are motivated by the human
nature of wanting your children to succeed. But there are other motivations as well. As literacy
takes its shape from the interests of its sponsors (Brandt 74), my parents encouraged their
values. With my success and my sisters success in our goals, through their help as literacy
sponsors, there is a sense of pride and it provides ripe material to boast to other parents with.
There is also the side-effect that if we, as their children, are successful we will be able to provide
for them when they are older and unable to do so for themselves. As my literary sponsors my
parents would encourage me to learn how to read then to write as I grew up. They would to read
me a night, and help me out with spelling tests. But besides the basic parental education, my
parents also talked to me in Spanish, making sure I wouldnt forget my native tongue. This was
not just done to me but other members of the family/community, my sisters. Even now that I am
no longer under their constant supervision they still take-up the roll of a sponsor and encourage
my education.
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The Discourse
sense of identity (Gee 279). It's rooted in values of cooperation, love, and peace. The Discourse
strives to resolve the unavoidable fights through cooperation, to leave the community in sense of
peace and love. It upholds these values through unique actions, absent in other Discourses, such
as scolding and punishments but also through encouragement either with words or goods. These
actions affect the attitudes and mannerisms of the Discourse's members. For example, if a sister
of mine was repeatedly reprimanded for attitudes and mannerisms believed inappropriate or
unsuitable of the Discourse she would likely act differently in the future. This is because each
Discourse has what it deems acceptable and not, even what might be so in one may be believed
literacy, but even more so for general education, as Gee describes in page 284, you are always
teaching more than writing or reading. My family comes from an educated background with
encouraging approach towards literacy, where it is taught and upheld. We commonly have
conversations from a variety of topics in either Spanish or English, we also tell jokes, hold
arguments, text in a family group-chat, converse through social media and write down events on
languages, unique to the other Discourses around me. But we also don't use complex vocabulary
as most engagements are casual. The words used are usually simple vocabulary with Spanish
Rhetorical Situations
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which is arguments. This creates a rhetorical exigence, a need or problem that can be addressed
and solved through rhetorical discourse (Grant-Davie 489), that the members must resolve.
Arguments may arise for multiple reasons in a Discourse, whether they are from anger or
rhetorical situation of an argument that could occur is one over responsibilities that I must do as
what responsibilities are mine and I must complete. The intended audience is those arguing, in
this case me and either of my parents. However, other members of the discourse, such as my
sisters, may be an unintended audience as they might overhear the argument. In this case, as an
argument is a conversation between at least two people to prove a point, the intended audience is
also the Rhethors, those responsible for the discourse and its authorial voice (Grant-Davie 495).
This because either side may seem themselves as the authorial voice, although that is more likely
to fall towards the elders, the parents. In an argument, there are constraints one will face. Such as
the background for the argument, or the limits one is willing to go to when arguing.
Another literate activity that occurs in my Discourse is group text messaging. This
includes both my parents and my eldest sister in a group chat. This discourse allows one to send
messages or ask questions to other members of the Discourse when someone is too far to
communicate in person and must inform multiple members at once. A rhetorical situation of this
activity is if I were to ask of something, say when I need to know something that multiple people
may or may not know the answer to. In a situation like this one and many others, the audiences
roles are suggested by the discourse itself (Grant-Davie 497) and as a result, the Rhetor is the
person who proposes the question/conversation or who conducts the conversation when multiple
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people are discussing. Group chats do have constraints however, as it is harder to understand
someone through text and someone is less likely to respond to a message immediately.
Bilingual communication is another literary activity that my community partakes in. Its
where we have a simple conversation in either two languages, or where one speaks Spanish and
the other responds in English or vice versa. These bilingual conversations serve the purpose of
hiding statements from eavesdroppers and other unintended audiences, or when a word or phrase
cannot be properly represented in one language. They are intended to simply aid understanding
between the communicating parties. For instance, if I wanted to comment something private in a
public place, by speaking in Spanish to a member of my community I can do so and not have the
unintended audience know what I am conversing about. The audience is mostly meant for others
in the community or other strangers that cannot speak English and require help. While a different
language draws an unwanted audience it also hides what youre saying from them. The Rhetor(s)
is the person(s) initiating the conversation. This does have constraints however as it unlikely to
parents and my eldest sister use a variety of social media to communicate with pictures, memes
or other media not expressible through text of voice. This is necessary when attempting to
communicate something that is much harder to do so vocally or to entertain another with online
memes, gags and jokes. An example would be sending a DM (direct message) of any piece of
media on Instagram to another member of your Discourse. The audience is only those who the
message is sent to, any prying eyes are an unintended audience. Social Media does have its
constraints, however, as the parties using it must have an account with the specific service being
used.
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This community has unique traits, of which I see some in me. For example, my
understanding not just one but two languages. This is seen through me as I take pride in being
bilingual and show interest in other languages. Another trait that both me and my community
share is that reading and writing taught can greatly impact the lives of those unfortunate enough
to not receive an education. However, there are traits that arent mirrored onto me. My parents
encourage and enjoy the writing and reading of various subjects, yet for me I prefer more visual
and audible forms of communication. This community has had a great positive aspect on me. It
has positively shaped my literacy, reading, and writing. Their roles of literacy sponsors and acts
to encourage my education have provided me with better literacy, reading and writing skills
despite any of my apprehensions. If not, for the supportive community, I could perhaps be in a
Despite what you learn from literacy sponsors in the end of it all youre unique in your
ways. As for how I write, there is a minimal planning process. Its comprised of reading the topic
and background information, then occasionally writing down a short list of main topics. Most of
the information is kept in my head where I work step by step. I like to imagine to reader, and
When writing, its usually an unpleasant and lengthy process consisting of several hours.
As a procrastinator, I am limited in the time I have to write a piece, and usually write it in large
chunks with frequent breaks in-between. During writing I tend to listen to instrumental music or
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go somewhere with background noise, as Im a social person, so I can focus on the words that
For editing and revising, I come back to the paper after a long break so that the material
is newer to me. It then usually consists of proofreading aloud, or having someone else look over
it, although I do occasionally take a break in the middle to check how its coming along. Once
finished with the task of fixing what the paper is saying, I finish with fixing grammatical and
logical errors.
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Works Cited