During the first part of our class next week, Dr. Mackie J.V. Blanton, Associate Dean for Multicultural Affairs will join us for a conversation about Discourse Communities

We will prepare for this opportunity to talk with Dr. Blanton by researching for our selves how Discourse Communities relate to our class -- Information Networks in the Curricula. Discourse Communities each have their own unique environment--special terminology, jargon, attitudes, ways of doing things. We saw that last week when it seemed Rob used every 3 letter combination possible to describing the technology at Destrehan High School.

I am interested in our class being prepared to discuss issues of inclusion and fairness as that relates to building discourse communities. Dr. Blanton is especially qualified to help us discuss these issues. Before moving to his deanship, he was for many years in the College of Liberal Arts, English Department, specialty in Linguistics (the study of the nature and structure of human speech).

An example from George: The earliest discourse communities were oral only and are exampled by conversations at night around a fire that served to foster culture and plan tomorrow's hunt. From the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, discourse communities grew more and more specialized. Today, it is common for experts in a field to meet with other experts in a discourse community so specialized not even its members fully comprehend what others have written. Like the printing press, I expect the advent of ubiquitous information networks like the World Wide Web will begin moving discourse communities. Does this mean more specialized, less inclusive communities; or less specialized, more inclusive; or more specialized more inclusive; or less specialized, less inclusive?