INTERTEXTUALITY

It is quite clear through several feedback processes like presentations, meetings, design reviews, grading of work by the TA and even through the guidance and support of the leaders and experienced members of the group that the new members in the group apprentice.

Porter in his writings on intertextuality has mentioned how books often speak about other books and that “all texts are interdependent” meaning texts often refer to many other texts and therefore writings are always linked to other materials (Porter, 87). Similarly this practice of apprenticeship has been evident in the book ‘The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway: Early Years’ by Charles A. Fenton. In the 1920’s, Gertrude Stein, an established writer actor mentor to Hemingway introducing him to expatriate artists and writers. She also had a great influence on Hemingway’s writings and played a major role in his success later on.

Ezra Pound, another such writer fostered the young talent that she saw in Hemingway which helped him a lot in realizing his own potential. He played apprentice and toned his writing skills under these influential writers who helped him in the rungs of his career. Thus it is clear that the practice of apprenticeship which is also being carried out in GAPS community is not something new but has been running since a long time.

Sources:
Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Writing about
Writing.Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. New York: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2011. 86-100. Print. 5 March 2013.

GENRES AND LEXIS

GENRES

According to Swales, “a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicatie furtherance of its aims” (Swales, 472) which I believe is essential for the community to achieve its different sub-goals that are ultimately linked to that main objective.
There are different teams within GAPS itself representing the different genres of this discourse community.
i) Electrical,
ii) sustainability,
iii) prototype and
iv) structural teams.

These teams complete GAPS. (Das (interview, 14.03.2013)).
All these teams work for their respective departments. The electrical department would focus on working of batteries, circuits and other developments and materials research.
The main goal of the structural team is to create a detailed design including dimensions, materials and a cost estimate of the solar panel mount whereas the prototype team collaborates with the structural team regarding the best design and constructs the detailed design agreed upon.
The sustainability team designs the implementation, integration, interaction and operation of the deliverable system.
These different genres within the community are all striving ultimately for the same goal by dividing the work among themselves for better utilization of its resources.

LEXIS

Swales speaks of Lexis being an important component of the discourse community (Swales, 473). Some specific terms like soldering, torque, solar panels, charge controls, batteries, AC circuit breaker, etc.are often used while working during discourse in this group. Apart from that no other special kind of jargon is used as such (Das (interview, 14.03.2013)). One reason for this is ‘effective communication exchange between experts’ as narrated by Swales in his note (Swales, 473).

Sources:
Das, Rajarshi. Lexis and genres used in GAPS. Interview (Personal). 14 March 2013.
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing.
Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 466-480. Print. 5 March 2013.

Issues within GAPS

Issues: Budget and communication between advisers and the team

Despite the good understanding amongst the members of the GAPS community, there are some existing issues in this GAPS community. After interviewing its members, I noted that the two main issues were the budget and the communication problem between the advisers and the GAPS team.

1) Budget: Every EPICS team has a limited assigned budget for one semester. The budget for GAPS is very limited owing to very few sponsors. Things like the solar panels, charge controls, batteries, AC circuit breaker, etc. do not come for a handful amount and since GAPS is looking to have cheaper alternative power solutions arranged for the Colombian community, it is now a very big challenge for GAPS to be able to do so within the assigned limited budget.
(Rakheja (interview), 17.03.2013).
2) Communication: There seems to be some problem between the understanding of the advisers and the students. Upon interviewing few members of the prototype team in GAPS, I recorded that they were of the opinion that their advisers are not very clear about their demands and hence it proves very difficult for them to meet their needs. The prototype team members also confirmed that their prototype has been rejected by the advisers quite a few times and that they hadn’t received good constructive feedback from the professors.(Das (interview, 14.03.2013))

In spite of all these issues, GAPS still tries to remain focused about its goals and keeps working hard as a team.

Sources:
Das, Rajarshi. Lexis and genres used in GAPS. Interview (Personal). 14 March 2013.
Rakheja, Akshay. Goal of the community, intercommunication and feedback process of the GAPS community. Interview (e-mails). 17 March 2013.

Feedback process in GAPS

The members of GAPS community meet every week. These meetings have to be recorded by the group members. For every class meeting that is held, the members have to update their contributions on the project and report it to their respective team leaders. The team leaders then provide all the members individual feedback on their work.

These leaders then have to present a visual power-point presentation during the class indicating the progress in the project and tasks to be undertaken for the weeks to follow. These presentations contain issues and problems faced by the group. The GAPS team leader plays an important role by presenting the collaboration of the developments within each team, assessment and comparison of that with the ultimate objective and the semester plan to the TA. The TA provides constructive feedback to all the group leaders and suggests improvements in their plans. Also as all the group members record their contributions in a notebook, the TA evaluates all these once in every four weeks and grades the students providing them constructive feedback and information about the developments in their work.

Life in darkness (Pathos)

Imagine a town without electricity. It is night time and the entire village plunges into darkness. Now this might not just sound that awful but in simple words, it almost means that there is nothing at all to do post evening.
There is much more to it than it meets the eye.

• Since no machines would run, the economic development of that town would be very minimal.
• Transport would be steam-driven, animal-driven or human-powered.
• Contacting each other would take hours, perhaps even months, that too even if it is simply about conveying a small message.
• From the security point of view, this would be highly unsafe.
• People in the town wouldn’t be able to watch TV, have fans operating during hot summers or use a refrigerator for its benefits.

Well it’s not just one village, but many such remote villages in Colombia that are deprived of this great gift to the mankind of Michael Faraday.

Could you really imagine staying in such a town? Would you really want to stay in such a place?
Well I am assuming your answer is negative.

GAPS is a learning discourse community in Purdue trying to create alternative power solutions for such electricity deprived villages in Colombia and free them from their misery and hardships and give them a much better life that they deserve. Colombia is just a start, the real life picture could be much bigger and these handful people at GAPS are trying to set an example for others to follow.

Hierarchy of the community

Every EPICS community is associated with the project and community partners who evaluate the project as per their needs and guide the students through their feedback. Members with appropriate degree relevant content and discoursal expertise form a significant part of discourse community.

A. The professor heads the hierarchy in GAPS.
B. The professor is succeeded by the TA (teaching assistant) in the hierarchy who helps in grading the students. There is one TA assigned for this community.
C. There is one prime leader of the whole GAPS community who falls directly under the TA.
D. There are four leaders of each of the four sub-groups viz. structural, prototype, electrical and sustainable, within the GAPS who function under this prime leader.
E. All the students belonging to the GAPS community are guided by these leaders for the projects of their groups.
Some of these members are relatively more experienced than others as they are returning members for the community (members who have worked for the same GAPS community in the previous semesters).

Mechanisms of intercommunication

In his note on discourse community, Swales mentions that a discourse community shows intercommunication mechanisms amongst its members (Swales, 471). There are several methods of intercommunication in GAPS too.
Now, the GAPS community currently has students from many different countries and different backgrounds. All these students are well-versed in English and communicate directly in the same language with each other in the group. While communicating with the Columbian community partners, Spanish language is sometimes used. For communication within the group, the following mechanisms are used.
1) People within the group interact face to face generally to exchange ideas but if these ideas seem complex, then they present them using computer skills or draw it and explain.

2) When not in class, they contact each other through cellphone messaging or emails and even call each other when necessary. The most common mode of interaction is emailing.

This is very effective as students generally check their emails very often and stay updated with the instructions sent to them by the TA (Teaching assistant) or any other group member (usually the group leader). (Rakheja (interview), 17.03.2013).

These interactions are very important both during the class and outside the class as they demand quick responses, further contributing towards the achievement of the target within the deadline.

Objectives of GAPS

“A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” according to Swales (Swales, 471). GAPS stands for Global Alternative Power Solutions. Very suggestive by its long form itself, the common public goal of GAPS community is to develop alternative energy solutions to provide power to remote villages in rural Columbia through collaborations with Columbian universities, communities and industries (Rakheja (interview), 17.03.2013). Being a part of another EPICS group myself, I realize how important it is to achieve the goals by the end of every semester.

Every community also has certain aspects that are deemed important and valued. Since it deals with sustainable methods of generating power and electricity, GAPS values planning, innovation, hard-work, knowledge and application of science concepts and software programming skills greatly. The experienced students and the teaching assistant in the group prove very helpful in inculcating these values to the new incoming students in the group. Several processes are carried out to ensure that these values are attained and these processes involve discourse to great extent.

Source:
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing.
Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 466-480. Print. 5 March 2013.

What is GAPS?

EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) is an existing learning community in Purdue that provides opportunities for students to work on real-life projects. This further is divided into many groups that have different specific objectives related to engineering in which these students design, build and deploy real systems to solve engineering-based problems for local community service and education organizations. One such group is GAPS that I am interested in joining the next semester. Being deeply fond of calculus and mechanics, one main reason I could deeply identify with this group is due to the use of concepts of physics and math and their direct application in achieving the prime goals of this community. I interviewed three of my friends who are a part of GAPS community and asked them various questions that helped me identify several aspects of a discourse community in GAPS. In my next posts I would talk about these aspects and certain other issues relating to this community.

Why I’m interested in GAPS!

GAPS deals with having alternative power solutions. This involves a lot of working on solar panels and electrical circuits. I have always wanted to something like that. Being extremely fond of calculus and mechanics, another reason I can deeply identify myself with this group is due to the use of concepts of physics and math and their direct application in achieving the prime goal of this community.