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Introduction to the Community

The community that will be discussed here is my family. The people in this community

include Alyssa, Alec, Mom, Dad, and myself. What connects each of us together is the fact that

we are a family and we support each other. This will discuss how a community Im a part of uses

reading and writing, how literacy sponsors teaches each other in the community, and how the

community influences writing.

Literate Activities

Every member of the community engages in are several literary activities throughout each

day. A literary activity is any activity that requires one to be literate, or being able to read,

write, and communicate, to accomplish the activity. (Wardle, 64) An activity this community

does are board games. For example, the game of Risk requires everyone to be able to read the

locations on the board, a world map, and it requires communication between the players. Each

person must be able to learn the rules of the game, such as how to move an army or start combat.

They must also be able to communicate these rules to the other players, because in order to know

all the mechanics of the game each player needs to have either read or heard the rules and been

able to understand them. Some individual activities within the community include my sisters

abilities to play music. Alyssa has played the flute, viola, and clarinet. With each of these

instruments she must be able to decipher all the notes and symbols, and know what each means.

In order to be able to play her instruments she must be literate in how composers write new

musical pieces and be able to read and understand what make.

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Rhetorical Situation

Rhetorical situations are defined as an activity, an event, or a situation rhetorical when its

shaped by language or communication- also called discourse- that tries to get people to do

something. (Davie, 484) A literate activity in this community would be Mom helping me with

English work while I was in elementary school. In elementary school, I had to learn a certain

number of vocabulary words every week and she would help me to study these words. In this

situation, there are several exigences or problems that can be addressed by communication

(Davie, 485). One exigence would be that my mom wanted me to do well in school, so she was

willing to help me learn some vocabulary. Another reason could have been that she wanted me to

learn more words to be able to communicate at a higher level. My exigence with this was that I

was told to go to the living room and repeatedly write each of my vocabulary words. In this

process, there was a lot of writing, as I rewrote the vocabulary words and their definitions every

time I failed to define one. The text in this would be the vocabulary words that I had to learn. As

for rhetors and audiences of the writing, the outcome of this situation was a list of vocabulary

words and definitions, not a writing piece. There wasnt an audience either that was supposed to

see the list, but the rhetors who went into creating the list would be my mom and myself. Some

constraints to this writing would be the list of words assigned by the teacher, and the difficulty of

the words that I had to memorize. Here was just one example of a literate activity from my

childhood and how it can be analyzed using the rhetorical situation. It also shows how my mom

was a literary sponsor during my elementary school years.

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An example of a type of text that demonstrates rhetorical situation would be any

propaganda ever. Propaganda tries to communicate to an audience to urge them to shift their

views and potentially do something that they otherwise would not have thought of doing. A

specific example of this would be how the United States during World War II made posters and

advertisements encouraging people to buy war bonds to support the war. Propaganda could be in

the form of events like rallies or through more modern means in activities like television or

through the internet. Commented [AW1]: Add example for rhetorical situation,
where it may be used.

Literacy Sponsor

When I was younger my mom was an important literacy sponsor in the community. A

literacy sponsor is any agent, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach,

regulate, or suppress literacy-and gain advantage in some way. (Brandt, 72) She was the one

who would help my siblings and I with English homework when we were younger and who did

the most when it came to teach us the basics of language early on. Of course, as time went on

English teachers began to take over the learning, in literacy and all the other categories of

academics. There are several possible motives that would make sense here. The first motive

could have been that she wanted to see her kids be able to communicate, read, and write, and be

able to do so at a higher level. Another reason would be that she wanted to see us doing well at

school, and by teaching us these language skills, it would help us to get better grades.

Another example of a literacy sponsor in this community would be me with Alec. He likes to

play video games, as said before in the literate activities, and sometimes theres a process when it

comes to downloading a game or moding a game. Over time Ive learned how to download and
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mod games as well as work with files, so as to not accidentally download a virus, break the

game, or download it in the wrong place. While I was still living at home I would help him and

attempt to teach him how to work all the files, mods, and games so that when he wants to mod

his games or download a new one he can without assistance. We also will play similar games

every now and again so it allows us to play games together. This is very much a literate activity

as well because there is a lot of text. When working with files and codes it is extremely

important for every letter to be as it needs to be, because if one line in a code is broken, it wont

run, or the game wont run, or your computer might not run.

Discourses

Discourses, also defined as identity kits by James Paul Gee play a part in what

communities everyone is a part of. For this community, we know we are together in this group

because been with each other for many years now, and we put great value in family. Each of us

in this community behaves differently, although at times there are similarities. An example of

this is my siblings Alec and Alyssa are related in how they act at times, but Alec has a similar

personality to me in that he is much more introverted. While the entire family isnt Christian we

do have Christian values, which affect our mannerisms and behaviors. For instance, being

forgiving, caring about others, and having self-control. Despite the similar environment my

siblings and I grew up in, each of us have developed very different attitudes. Alec tends to be on

the quieter side, I tend to talk a bit more, and Alyssa is the most vocal out of us three.

As a family we all connect together to form this discourse. Some of us are more likely to be

sarcastic, usually my sister and my dad fit together well here. I tend to be more serious and Ive

been told Im a lot like my moms brother, and Alec tends to be more comical. We each have a
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niche in our community that we fill and different ways that we communicate to each other

because of that. Overall though we work really well together and living with each other for as

long as we have weve learned how to communicate to each other, we got references, all that

stuff that you get after knowing people for a long period of time. Commented [AW2]: Attempt to analyze the community
further and connect everything together

There are a lot of literate activities everyone in the family does, as mentioned before. Alyssa

is proficient in music and if she ever wanted to could teach others to be able to read and write

musical pieces or lyrical songs. Alecs activities include YouTube videos, games, and ice

hockey. He needs to be able to read and write effectively to enjoy these activities, and he must be

able to communicate plans and ideas to be better at playing hockey.

We value literacy in that it lets us learn and be more effective, and hopefully be more

successful in life. There are many things someone could be literate in that allows one to be

successful, things such as speaking new languages or dealing with money, and plenty of other

activities such as those discussed before.

Personal Writing Process

For myself specifically I tend to write a few sentences, I might write more sentences or

less depending on my train of thought and how well connected those thoughts are. Then I tend to

look them over to see if it makes sense. After that I might just delete the entire paragraph if it

doesnt make sense or flow well enough. otherwise I will just do the small edits and move on. I

tend to like to plan several sentences ahead before I start to write what Im thinking. That can be

good and bad, because if I go too far ahead then I may forget a previous point, or I might not be
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able to think properly and it will take longer than it should to get writing. If I have plenty of

information I may sometimes be able to rapidly throw some information down that I can then

revise and edit after all the thoughts are on the paper.

Influence of The Community on Writing

For the longest time, I would never let my parents or anyone I knew well to read the

pieces of writing that I created. As a result, the members of my community have not had a direct

impact on my writing, although the beliefs and values that the family shares may appear

depending on the writing assignment. The only writing assignment that has been heavily

influenced by a member of this community has been my resume writings, which I learned a lot of

how to do and continue to get advice from my dad, who is a manager of a branch in a company.

He has a lot of experience with resumes and he knows what managers are looking for when

hiring people, and I take what he says with resumes and incorporate it into mine when I must

write them. Although recently Ive not had to write any. I have had outside influences on my

writing, but close to none from those inside.

Conclusion

There are hundreds of ways to incorporate reading and writing into daily lives. Through

examining this community, you can see how the community influences writing with literacy

sponsors as well as through the Discourse and identity that the community has. Specifically, for

this community the literacy sponsors are able to use language and their skills in reading and

writing to better teach other people any activity that uses those skills.
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Citations Commented [AW3]: Gave Citations its own page

Wardle, Elizabeth. Writing about Writing: a College Reader. Bedford Bks St Martin'S, 2017.
Gee, James. found in. Writing about Writing: a College Reader. By Wardle, Elizabeth, Bedford Bks
St Martin'S, 2017.

Brandt, Deborah. Found in. Writing about Writing: a College Reader. By Wardle, Elizabeth, Bedford
Bks St Martin'S, 2017.

Davie, Keith. Found in. Writing about Writing: a College Reader. By Wardle, Elizabeth, Bedford Bks
St Martin'S, 2017.