Investigating Language Practices Group Assignment 

The Investigating Language Practices Group Assignment asks you to continue your exploration of language and literacy by investigating how language is used in a specific academic discipline or profession. Working with two or three other classmates, you will select an academic discipline or profession to investigate (for instance, electrical engineering, exercise physiology, real estate, or basketball coaching). You will collect example texts from members of that discipline or profession, interview members of the discipline or profession, and create a report about how members of that discipline or profession use language to communicate with each other. To learn more about this assignment, click on the items below: 

Goals of the Assignment 
The overall goal of this assignment is to help you understand how the language practices of a particular group are related to how members of the group view their discipline or profession. By learning about how language practices in one group are related to their view of a discipline or profession, we hope that you will be able to extend that understanding to the relationships between language practices and perceptions of culture, society, groups, and individuals in general. 

In this assignment, you will work from a specific exploration of a particular group to what we hope will be a more general understanding of how language works in society. We also hope that you will be able to investigate a profession or discipline that is of personal interest to you. For instance, you might work with your classmates to explore your major area of study, or you might explore an area that you are thinking about pursuing after graduation. 

Subject of the Essay 
The subject of this essay is the language practices of a particular discipline or profession (e.g., physicists, agronomists, financial planners, auto mechanics, or professional tennis players). 

Purpose of the Essay 
The purpose of this essay is to:

 describe and provide examples of language practices in a particular community 
 analyze the relationship between those language practices and how members of the group view their profession or discipline 

Audience 
Your classmates and instructor. 

Group Responsibilities 
Your work on this assignment will consist of collecting evidence of language practices (e.g., texts, interviews, articles about language practices in a given discipline), analyzing that evidence, and presenting a group report to your class. As a group, you will be expected to create a
brief handout summarizing your findings. 

Each group will be responsible for creating a portfolio containing the following materials: 

 A handout (one to two pages) summarizing your findings about the language practices of a particular discipline or profession. These findings should include a description of the language practices of the profession or discipline and an analysis of those practices. 
 Your group contract, which provides a clear delineation of responsibilities for the project and which lists agreements about how the group will  function (for example, what happens when a person misses a meeting) 
 Transcripts, notes, tapes, from interviews with members of the profession or discipline 
 Sample texts collected for analysis Copies of any articles collected about the discipline or profession 
 Individual analyses of texts, interviews, and articles 
 Any other materials used during the oral presentation

Individual Responsibilities 
In addition to your work as a group, you will also beevaluated on individual work. That work includes: 

 Analyses of texts, interviews, or articles 
 An assessment of your contribution to the groupassignment 
 An assessment of the contributions made by other members of the group to the assignment 

Strategies 
Focus on your presentation on several key findings about the language practices of a profession or discipline. Try to find an overall relationship or set of relationships that ties the findings together. For instance, you might indicate that the nature of the work done within a particular profession shapes its  language practices. 
Develop your presentation to support your analysis of the language practices on which you've focused. Provide examples from interviews members of the profession or discipline, passages from sample texts, and claims from articles about the discipline. Provide clear reasoning to support your conclusions. 
Organize the presentation and your handout to account for the limited time and space you have to present your findings. 
Write in a style that demonstrates sensitivity to audience, subject, and occasion. 
Demonstrate through all your choices in writing this paper an understanding of rhetorical context (audience and purpose). 

Requirements 
The requirements for this assignment include: 

 A presentation that involves all members of the group. 
 A handout of one to two (1‑2) pages, single‑spaced, one‑inch margins, typed. The handout should summarize findings and include a list of resources used to compile the report (i.e., names of people interviewed, lists of sample texts that were analyzed, and lists of articles consulted). Use an ink jet or laser printer (NO dot matrix, please, unless its print is very sharp and dark) and a legible 10‑12 point font (please avoid using all italics and script fonts). 
 You must submit photocopies of all articles and sample texts used in your assignment. You must also submit notes, transcripts, and/or tapes from interviews. 
 Individual analyses of materials collected during the project. 
 Individual analyses (in sealed envelopes) of contributions made by group members to the      project. 
 Any additional materials used in the presentation (e.g., overhead slides, posters).