Chapter Two - The Second Reading Response

Genres are a concept that was discussed thouroughly in this class. The young student certainly would consider them in his research paper. The second Reading Response taught him about the concepts of genres, intertextuality, and discourse communities. Understanding intertextuality and discourse communities elaborated on how Contributing Knowledge worked by basing new work off of previous works and allowing it to fit within an established discourse community’s guidelines. Studying the concept of genres and discourse communities in turn led to him to follow the course outcome of Research Genre Production. The student was already at LEGO fans as a discourse community. This very same discourse community would become the audience for the final research paper.

— Majisto

Michael Zmed

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1102H

6 September 2023

Reading Response for “‘Make Your ‘Move’: Writing in Genres” and “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community”

Genres appear to include every type of writing or other communication one can think of. From emails to text messages to advertisements, genres appear wherever there is information being conveyed. Even within genres, there is rarely one set way to write in the genre. In their essay “Make Your ‘Move’: Writing in Genres”, Brad Jacobson, Madelyn Pawlowski, and Christine M. Tardy demonstrate this idea by sharing several examples of sample emails written by students to inform their professors that they will be missing class. Some emails are longer than others, and some share more information than the other examples. However, the point the authors were trying to make was that each of those examples often share similar structural elements. For example, they often start with a greeting, a notification of absence, and a signature at the end. Genres are created from messages that have similar sections and exist for similar purposes.

One genre I have some experience in is sending messages in an online forum dedicated to the discussion of LEGO themes from the 1990s. The community has rules that dictate limitations on the content of messages to keep messages peaceful in nature and on-topic. Messages are casual in nature and most often center around discussing sets from the era or custom LEGO creations made by the members. For example, when sharing a creation I made, my message contained several images of my build, the name I gave my creation, and some other information like where I drew inspiration from. Out of those moves, the most essential one is the image, since the whole point is to show off the model you have constructed. Everything else is optional, but every extra piece of information helps to spur discussions. Knowing what is expected in one of these messages helps me share my creation and discuss it in a manner that the other members of the group understand.

On occasion, some people in the LEGO community will share something inspired by the creation of someone else. In a way, this is one form of intertextuality within the discourse community of this LEGO fan group. People will remix other’s models in order to improve upon the original design or add their own twist. The community insists that the original creators be credited, and will help the remixer to find the original creator in the event that they forget who inspired them. Other regulations exist as well. For example, it is expected that all shared creations will be made from LEGO brand bricks. Although this rule is not expressly stated, it is expected of users. This does limit the content that can be shared and discussed, for better or worse. James Porter gave the comparatively more intense example of the Continental Congress forcing Thomas Jefferson to remove the passage about slavery in the Declaration of Independence so that all the representatives, southern and northern, would agree to sign it. Porter argued that much of the Declaration’s content was effectively plagiarized and that there is almost nothing original. That would lead one to assume that his own work is not original. That may be true in the broader sense of ideas, but I do not think that accounts for everything. No one else in the history of humanity has written an essay with the same exact wording on the same topic with the same examples. Even the way he strings ideas together and comes to conclusions must be in some way original. Although his broader concepts may very well have been inspired and influenced by other writers who were in turn inspired and influenced by another slew of writers, only he was able to take those concepts and fashion them in his particular style with his particular set of life experiences. Being inspired by other’s work could be seen as a lack of originality, but much like the people in my LEGO community, one can build upon other’s ideas and create something greater than the sum of its parts. Critically acclaimed director George Lucas once said the phrase “it’s like poetry, it rhymes” in regards to scenes from his films that mirror each other. His words here essentially embody the concept of intertextuality. Works inspired by other works begin to form a poem that spans across the ages, each new work rhyming with the ones that came before it. Even though the new work is not completely original, the poem is forever changed by its inclusion in a way that none of the other works can. In that sense, every work is original, from a certain point of view. Much like how every human is similar in basic structure but genetically unique, every work created by a unique human has its own unique identity while still resembling its fellow works in some ways.