Author: jlarsen3

Drawing Your Conclusions

2. This first body paragraph talks about compassion fatigue and how it can affect a veterinarian and how it correlates with Gee’s “saying” building task.

3. My second body paragraph talks about the duties that veterinarians have to do within a single day on the job and how it belongs in the “doing” category of the building tasks.

4. The third body paragraph talks about how there is a combination of the building tasks “being” and “believing” which goes along with the identity roles in the Discourse of being a veterinarian and the basic schooling requirements for this Discourse.

5. My fourth body paragraph talks about the “values” within this Discourse which I named as the pros and cons of being a veterinarian.

6. My last body paragraph talks about how the negative sides of the Discourse can be a testing or deciding factor of whether people can continue practicing in the Discourse or not.

• Does my analysis of this particular Discourse have components that do not quite fit into a straightforward application of Gee’s ideas? What are they? (If so, perhaps you have something important to ADD to – or even CHALLENGE Gee’s sense of – the ways that Discourses work.)
  • I believe that my ideas fit into a straightforward application of Gee’s ideas, I just need to do some reorganizing of paragraphs and ideas to make those points more clear. For example I need to reorganize the part about compassion fatigue, and redo my paragraphs about identities.
• Are there reasons to consider the ways your Discourse works very similarly to other, perhaps related Discourses? Maybe your Discourse is a subset of a broader set of Discourses. (If so, perhaps your analysis may be able to tell us about this broader set of Discourses.)
  • I believe that my Discourse can connect to other medical professional Discourses such as general doctors, anesthesiologists, surgeons, and obstetricians. However, since a veterinarian has to be all of these at once, it is a broader Discourse.
• Our Discourse analyses are all limited by the source material from which we’ve drawn. Hopefully, you’ve chosen really good artifacts that help you reveal some key features of the Discourse. But there are probably some important LIMITATIONS that you can see. What are they? These are possibly areas for further inquiry should one pursue the project further.
  • The artifacts I’ve been using for this paper have given me general ideas of what a veterinarian does but does not go into detail or describe what those things actually mean. So, if I were to go into detail or describe a basic procedure, I would probably have to look at a new artifact.

Conclusion:

Being a veterinarian means you devote your time and energy to your patients, which are the animals that you help daily. Since this is a time consuming career, it is considered a lifestyle or your identity – which is why being a veterinarian is considered a Dominant Discourse………….

75 minutes

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The first revision I made was on paragraph 4, where I talk about the identities within the Discourse of being a veterinarian. I changed my paragraph into 3 paragraphs. The first one talks about the identities within being a doctor of veterinary science, while the two following paragraphs talk about smaller identities within the Discourse, and how some doctors continue schooling to become zoo vets.

When becoming a veterinarian there is a combination of “Being” and “Believing”, you need one to reach the other (Believing gets you to Being).“Being” is described as an identity in the Discourse, which would be the title of a doctor of veterinary medicine. “Believing” is described as the knowledge that counts for said Discourse, which would be to obtain a bachelor’s degree with a heavy emphasis on science and math and to volunteer with animals to get hands-on experience. ValuePenguin identifies some identities as being an “Owner of a practice, anesthesiologist, surgeon, obstetrician”. A veterinarian has to be all of those things within a single day – different patients brings upon different procedures and duties. Although being the veterinarian is the master of this Discourse, there are smaller roles (identities) that belong in this Discourse as well.

The second revision I did was on paragraph 3, where I talk about the duties that veterinarians have. I shortened a block quote and added ellipses to make the paragraph shorter and not overwhelming with duties that vets are entitled to do.

Since vets may experience more death and even different species of animals, they may be “Doing” a plethora of duties within a single day. “Doing” is described by Gee as activities that are enacted within the Discourse. According to ValuePenguin, veterinarians are entitled to “Examine patients to assess general physical condition… analyze test or data images to inform diagnosis, treatment or cause of death, treat acute illnesses, infections or injuries… operate on patients to treat conditions… prescribe medication and develop medical treatment plans…”. Also, according to the “Occupational Outlook Handbook on Veterinarians” vets are also described as being entitled to: “Examine animals to diagnose their health problems, treat and dress wounds, perform surgery on animals, test for and vaccinate against diseases, operate medical equipment, such as x-ray machines, advise animal owners about general care, medical conditions and treatments, prescribe medication, and euthanize animals.” All of these descriptions are actions or practices that veterinarians went to school for so they could become the doctor they set out to be.

60 minutes

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What I’ve discovered about my draft through this process of revision is that I need to do more explaining on certain pieces of evidence that I provide. If I do more explaining and give examples, the paper itself may seem more like it actually was written by me and can’t be claimed by anybody else. I could use more creative language so the information is more interesting to my readers and doesn’t become boring. I also need to work on incorporating my own analysis of ideas into the paper so my paragraphs do not just consist of the evidence I found from the artifacts I’m using. As a way of making my paper more interesting, I could look harder into the artifacts I found to look for any new relevant information that would be interesting for my readers and maybe things I didn’t even know about the Discourse itself. I need to determine if any of the information I write about will lead to a dead end (or multiple dead ends) and make an awkward spot in my essay where there is no way to come back. To finalize my paper, I need to develop my conclusion so all of my information gets tied together. Lastly, I need to cite my sources as well.

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1. My peers didn’t note anything about the artifacts that I chose to incorporate, however they told me I need to add a better analysis of them in my own words to help describe them more. For this, I plan to go back and re-read my paper and locate any areas where I can add details or put things in my own words.
2. My peers didn’t tell me that the evidence I chose wasn’t working, they all told me that they like the examples I gave. All I need to do, like i said in number 1, is to add more detail and expand on those ideas.
3. To get a reader on board with the Discourse project I need to connect and explain more how being a veterinarian is in fact a Discourse. For this I can explain how being a veterinarian is an identity for some people and how that is the basis of a Discourse.
4. The only really serious comments my peers left were to add more detail and then to add my own analysis at the end of each idea. To me, these were the most important areas where I’m going to focus most of my time on during the revision process.

34 minutes

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The main question or problem my writing seeks to address is I guess, whether being a veterinarian is actually a Discourse (saying/writing – doing – being – valuing – believing).

The idea or point I feel I’ve made successfully is that being a veterinarian is a Discourse, more specifically a Dominant Discourse. Also, that being a veterinarian goes along with Gee’s “saying (writing) – doing – being – valuing – believing.”

The idea or point I feel I need help with is maybe clarifying or expanding on the ideas I have already presented in my paper. Maybe ideas aren’t clear enough and need more explanation?

My number one concern about my paper is whether or not all of my ideas – paragraphs tie together nicely and create a smooth flowing paper for my readers.

I definitely need help from my peers on creating a title for my paper, and forming a conclusion so that everything gets connected back to my main claim, and summarizes everything I have talked about.

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15 minutes

Being a veterinarian (I believe) qualifies as a Dominant Discourse because it is who a person is, what they do for a living, and brings upon prestige and social goods. Gee defines a Dominant Discourse as: “Dominant Discourses are secondary Discourses the mastery of which, at a particular place and time, brings with it the (potential) acquisition of social ‘goods’ (money, prestige, status, etc.)” (8). I believe this to be true with being a veterinarian. I don’t think they get much prestige, however they acquire the status of a doctor (DVM doctor of veterinary medicine) and they obviously get paid money for the job also. One artifact that I am using said the annual salary (as of 2015) was $88,490.00 which equals out to an hourly rate of $47.59. Also, a social good that goes along with this job is that you know you are helping animals and caring for them when they can’t help themselves.

https://www.valuepenguin.com/what-does-veterinarian-do

From the simplified version of the worksheet – a combination I have found would be Believing + Doing/Being…       Believing (on the worksheet) is defined as knowledge, so I took that as what academics is required to become a veterinarian. Doing/Being is defined as practices/activities that are enacted in the Discourse and what identities are relevant. I believe this is a combination because as a veterinarian you need to apply the knowledge you learn from school every single day while you’re at work because it is who you are. The worksheet linked below shows all of the details on Believing, Doing, and Being.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HiP4aunDDNGTeKIbeFEbZ5ToUYmVsM9tsGw1UUtVrYM/edit

A potential sign system of the Discourse of being a veterinarian I think would be compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is defined as: a maelstrom of emotions from caring too much or too little – become emotionally drained or unable to recover from the slightest events to feeling numb about both patients and life outside of work. I believe this could determine what type of people are able to stay in the Discourse. This “test” might determine who truly is passionate enough to continue doing this job to help animals, despite how it could potentially affect themselves as the doctor.

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1.5/2 hours

The Discourse I am choosing for this assignment is being a veterinarian. 

The artifacts that I have collected are:

Life of a Veterinarian https://www.valuepenguin.com/life-of-veterinarian

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HiP4aunDDNGTeKIbeFEbZ5ToUYmVsM9tsGw1UUtVrYM/edit

Becoming a Zoo/Wildlife Vet http://www.drlucyspelman.com/doctoring-the-ark/becoming-a-zoo-vet.htm

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IZ7lns8rYxEaHhpXsnyJDK_WVutrHCA5jr5XKbrHIgA/edit

From the artifacts that I have collected on my chosen Discourse I feel as though I have a basic understanding of how being a veterinarian works. School wise, you need to have a basic bachelor’s degree that is heavy on science and math followed by four years of veterinary school. However, if you want to become a vet for a zoo and wildlife, you would need to do extra years of schooling that focuses on zoological medicine (anywhere from 1 to 5 years). When it comes to taking care of animals like in a normal practice, there are pros and cons. You are pursuing your passion in helping animals, but have to deal with their caretakers and the possible outcome of euthanasia. Your emotions will be altered throughout the job because you will witness all sorts of ailments that occur in animals. Vets experience death five times more than doctors for humans which can definitely alter you emotions. The job requires long hours as well. A normal practice may have normal 9am to 6pm hours (or such) but an ER veterinarian doctor can be working all hours of the day and night along with being on-call over the weekend. It is a demanding job with many opportunities since you can perform various tasks (anesthesiology, surgery, obstetrics).

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2.5 hours

Veterinarians or “vets” are physicians or surgeons that treat animals. They specialize in treating disease, disorder and injury in all types of animals. There are guidelines that they have to follow, along with following and preforming certain procedures.

Possible data sources: Animal hospitals (website), talking to actually veterinarians, shelters/clinics, taking my pet to their check up at the vet’s office.

Initial thoughts: Animal hospitals can give me specific details on types of animals they work on, specific language that vets use to communicate. Talking to actual vets can help me identify the identities in the Discourse and relationships between those identities.

Working as a pharmacy technician you have to understand different types of medications, where they belong in the pharmacy, and how to properly package them when giving them to patients. You should be aware of patient’s allergies to certain medications. You should also know substitutions for medications when the first choice isn’t available or because of insurance problems.

Possible data sources: Talking to actual pharmacy technicians, or pharmacists. Visiting a pharmacy. Searching a drug data base.

Initial thoughts: Me being a pharmacy tech I know the type of lingo used in the pharmacy and the proper things to wear in a pharmacy. I have a basic understanding of how drugs need to be handled.

Being a lifeguard you have to know basic first aid and how to perform CPR if needed, and how to perform rescues if someone is drowning. Depending on where you are lifeguarding you should know wave conditions and about shark sitings if you are at a beach. Also when high or low tide is.

Possible data sources: Talking to a lifeguard. Taking a lifeguard certification test – study that test.

Initial thoughts: Talking to a lifeguard would give me specific details about how the job actually is. You are responsible for other people’s lives while on the job and need to be ready to rescue/save a life if need be.

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Framing: Through our years of schooling there have always been students who never enjoyed reading. Why is that? With the help with two scholarly texts, I aim to answer that question.

Credibility/Intro Sources: In Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction written by James Paul Gee, we explore what a Discourse is; “Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (7). Using this text written by Gee, I will go into detail about how some students aren’t fully fluent in the Discourse of reading which is a contributing factor to why they don’t like reading. While reading Sponsors Of Literacy written by Deborah Brandt we learn about what a sponsor of literacy actually is. “Sponsors as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy – and gain advantage by it in some way” (556). Using this text written by Brandt, I will go into detail about how the people in student’s lives (sponsors) affect their feelings about reading or learning in general.

Perspective: The scholarly texts written by Gee and Brandt help give more meaning behind the key issue which is; why don’t students enjoy reading, while the Raising Cairn narratives I incorporate throughout this paper help explore and give examples of the reasoning behind why students don’t like reading.

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• Here in my first body paragraph I moved some words around and rephrased some sentences to make my statements more clear. I also added “or” in one sentence to add an – his teacher didn’t help him OR give him academic freedom. I also added “but” to the statement “this evidence here…” because it is a foundation for critical thought.

First of all, when it comes to disliking reading sometimes situations occur like in The Mean Teacher written by Noah Luccini, that is the reasoning behind it. The narrative is about himself as a young boy in the fourth grade whose teacher was not as helpful as she could’ve been. He writes, “…she’d throw worksheets at us and just sit at her desk. Doing this didn’t help us learn it”. Not only that but he adds, “She forced me to find a new book and I was not happy about it and remember having a lot of trouble getting through the book she gave me because I was so uninterested in it”. From the examples given here, his teacher Mrs. Page didn’t seem like the type of literacy sponsor that a young student needs in order to succeed. Brandt writes; “Sponsors are delivery systems for the economies of literacy, the means by which these forces present themselves to – and through – individual learners” (556). So as a sponsor, Mrs. Page didn’t do much to help Noah as a student or give him the academic freedom to choose his own reading book which ultimately resulted in him being uninterested in the assignment. But this evidence here helps answer my question: when students aren’t allowed to choose their own reading material, it makes the assignment dreadful and painful to get through. Students crave academic freedom that not all teachers allow. However, even when some students get the freedom they want, they still aren’t comfortable with reading or they still dislike it.

• Here in my second body paragraph I also rephrased some sentences and added/took away some commas and combined some sentences to make things flow better. I also added “but” and “or” to certain areas of my explanations of quotes to add alternative thoughts or set a foundation for critical thinking. I even added “and” in some places as a foundation for thought and as an addition to my previous thoughts.

Secondly, if someone enjoys reading they might have moments of dislike if they feel uncomfortable in the classroom setting like in Comfort written by Alexandra White. This narrative goes into detail about how she would distract herself during reading time during class but would go home to her grandparents bookstore, and read! Why would she not read in class? Alexandra writes; “I was always a slow reader growing up and when I started to notice other kids around me weren’t as slow as me, I started to retreat from the idea of reading”. As a child in school she felt judged by her peers but with this example of not feeling like she fits in in the classroom setting, maybe Alexandra isn’t fluent in her secondary Discourse. A secondary Discourse, as defined by Gee is; “These may be local stores and churches, schools….Each of these social institutions commands and demands one or more Discourses and we acquire these fluently to the extent that we are given access to these institutions and are allowed apprenticeships within them” (8). If Alexandra is a slower reader than her fellow peers, it might be possible that she is not as fluent in her secondary Discourse compared to her other students which can lead to intimidation and the fear of reading in front of them. Along with intimidation, other outside forces can make a person (student) feel uncomfortable about reading or even writing in a classroom.

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