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Danielle Davis
Professor Ochoa
English 20/32
April 25, 2017
Analyzing Academic Discourse Communities Essay
Critical Thinking for Studying Abroad
A group of people who have a commonality, shared interest and common goal is one way
of defining a discourse community. Many people are unaware they are a part of many discourse
communities. To be an active member of a discourse community, one must adjust their spoken
and written language to accommodate to the proper setting. For example, at a work setting, an
employee would speak to fellow employees informally because they are of the same status. Yet
if the employee were to have a meeting with the boss, there would be a formal approach. To be a
part of a discourse community, each person must understand the expectation of each written and
spoken language to be able to adapt to the specific community. In this essay, I will explain how I
have adapted my spoken and written language to claim meaning and communicate effectively to
be a participating member of two discourse communities: EDUC 10: Critical Thinking and the
study abroad application process.
While attending Sacramento State University, there is a list of classes each student must
take to graduate. One of the general education classes was EDUC 10: Critical Thinking. The
class’s purpose is to enable the students to think critically in any situation. My professor for the
course, Professor Wilber, taught this class primarily as a discussion. There were days where
Professor Wilber would lecture the whole class and some days she involved the class in her
discussions. For example, Professor Wilber would be lecturing on the chapter we read as
homework, then would ask students in class to answer questions about the related chapter.
While lecturing we would take notes to prepare for any future exams. I adjusted my spoken and
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written language to be a participating member of my EDUC 10 discourse community.Recently, I
have taken the steps to become an active member in my studying abroad discourse community.
In their article, Schmidt and Vande Kopple describe discourse community as “[a] group of
people who share ways to claim, organize, and evaluate meaning.” When taking the steps to
acclimate myself with the discourse community, I had to step outside my comfort zone. The
steps I had to take to get into the program included: applying to get into the CSUS program,
interviews with professors informed about the country, get recommended by CSUS for the
program abroad desired, applying to the school abroad, and getting into the school. I adjusted my
appearance, spoken, and written language to be an active member of the study abroad application
discourse community.
Before taking the step to apply to study abroad, the only process I was familiar to that
