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- Find
and join a discussion group relevant to your discipline.
- After
joining a group, monitor the discussion this week to understand the
expectations of the group and the discourse conventions (intense audience
analysis-examine messages for shared discourse conventions, shared knowledge,
rhetorical strategies)
- Post
a message in one of these categories: requesting information, answering
questions and consulting for others, gathering facts and opinions, conducting
the job search
- Critique
each other’s posts
a.
author of message to individual or group sends his message to classmate
for help revising
b.
classmate responds, comments on grammar, style, technical content,
tone
c.
original author revises, copies to instructor
- Lessons
learned:
-
Students
are introduced to and have an opportunity to comment on, virtual communities
-
Learn
give and take of virtual communities
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"Build
communication skills, build valuable social capital, networked collaborators
exchange knowledge capital (information) for social capital (goodwill
and respect from others)"p. 158
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Learn
about transitional nature of communication
-
Way
to share information and experiences
-
Learn
to make intelligent, well-written requests for information, perceptions
of audience expectations because it is not required; it"places
emphasis on ethos building evaluative eyes of outside audience"p.
161
- Benefits
of writing in the matrix:
-
Natural
heuristic encourages investigation, new ideas
-
New
model of collaboration-distances do not matter-tapping living databases
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Situates
students within professional fields
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Provides
focus for discussions of ethos-creates persona of professional writer
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Students
understand "importance of professional presentation to reputations
of both individuals and organizations" (p. 161)
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