1. After reading the notes on how to revise from the weekly prompt 8, please read this short paper written by one of my students in Disc 200 (Click Here to Download the paper), and then offer ways to revise it for a better grade. What kind of changes is necessary in your idea to revise this paper for a better grade? What will you do to improve this paper? What process or strategy you use? What suggestions do you have for this student to improve their paper? Please use the sources offered in this week’s weekly prompt to suggest revisions for this paper. Write at least one short post (150 words)

2. After reading Swales’s “the concept of discourse communities” (Click Here to Download),

please read this posts “I have been blessed in the aspect that I grew with two primary Discourses. As my mother is Mexican and my father is from the United States, I have grown up in a multi-cultural environment with more than one native language. Even though I acquired French at a very young age through my primary socialization, I do not consider it a primary Discourse because I no longer master it like I did as a child, and has become a secondary Discourse to me. Developing in Mexico and The United States has allowed me to have a better understanding of what Gee means when he says that `It is a truism that a person can know perfectly the grammar of a language and not know how to use the language`. When I began my studies at UMKC, I considered to have had a good level of the English language, yet it is very true what Gee says. I have learned things that seem so simply or obvious to people in the United States that I had to learn throughout time and experience. I have also learned to adapt to the difference in culture and political views. Because even though I grew up in a household with an North American father, I had not fully mastered such Discourse until I was soaked in experience. Another aspect Gee addresses, we must be exposed to fully learn anything, as it is highly improbable to master something learned solely in a classroom.

I believe to have two primary Discourses, because I acquired them in my primary socialization. However, I also feel as if I have much to learn as I am not completely dominant. I have the same thoughts on my secondary Discourses, such as dance, as it has been something I have done through my entire life, yet I could not say I am or ever will be fully dominant. That leads me to question if one can be fully dominant of any Discourse and at one point is it considered to be?”

and respond (300-word) and see if you have access to that discourse. Please make a comparison/connection between Gee’s ideas and Swales’s discussing the ideas of discourses and discourse communities, enculturation and access to discourses. Is your discourse community a dominant or non-dominant one? Can someone from the outside of your community master your discourse? What are the testings? etc. Please try to describe in detail your discourse and why you think these two are very similar or very different. Please make sure to cite Gee or Swales.