"Coaches can read, too": Revealing the nature of the game

Establishing a Territory:

Bra nick starts by talking about how important coaching is in any form of football, be it little league or the pros. He goes on to talk about some of the effective characteristics that coaches have to possess to be successful. It seems that he is focused on showing exactly what goes into being a coach so that their team can win. He reveals that coaches have to have many forms of literacy in order to be able to succeed. Some of the literacies are reading their players, organization of plays, making and pursuing goals, and having the competitive edge.

Establishing a Niche:

Most people know the rules and how to play football, and many also know how hard players work in order to be able to play on a regular schedule. However, it doesn't always seem like many people know exactly all the preparation that coaches have to do as well. Bra nick shows this by discussing the different factors that coaches have to have in order to win their games.

Occupying the Niche:

The end sentence in Branick's introduction is how he occupies the Niche. “How do football coaches, as members of a specific discourse community, go about reading their players and the game in order to get optimal performance and a positive end result”(561)? With all the characteristics and goals of coaching that he provides earlier in his introduction, it's obvious that coaching isn't as easy as just calling plays randomly; there must be a method that coaches follow and a strong communication between the players and coaches so that everyone is on the same page and can go after the same goals.

"Learning to Serve": Word games and food

This reading really hit home with me. The examples he uses I normally see when I work at the Diner depending on the waiters and waitresses working that night. But I digress...

I believe Tony Mirabelli's question was “How do waiter and waitresses compare to workers that have a 'higher education' job (Ie: working for a big business or office)? ” In gathering data, Mirabelli worked at restaurants and interviewed other members to get a better sense of how they interacted with customers. He also took notes about the customers he served and many text based items from the restaurant. He was able to see how the senior waiter (John) evolved through his time there and how far he's come. Mirabelli talks about how the knowledge of an item on the menu affects the customers he serves. If a waiter doesn't know specifics about an item, customers normally don't order them. In a restaurant like Lou's in the text, there are a significant amount of items that a waiter would have to memorize to be able to explain to customers. Knowing what main course meals are, what they come with, what can be substituted, and so on can be a staggering amount of information.

His findings seem to be that waiters not only have to know basic literary skills, but they have to go above and beyond to really interact with customers to make them feel like a member of the family at the restaurant. Also, waiters need to be able to think quickly and be good at 'suggestion' to be able to make a sale and to excel with getting higher tips from customers. Reading not only the menu, but people themselves, is a difficult skill to learn. Waiters and waitresses have to be creative to succeed, and Mirabelli suggests that being a waiter could be even more difficult than a white collar job because of the interaction with other people. It's harder dealing with a customer face to face than it is through a telephone.

Project 4 Proposal

I planned on examining the discourse community of the Union Street Diner. The Diner is a “mom n' pop” restaurant that is an Athens local location. The restaurant is a community in itself: the workers interacting with customers in order to provide a service to others. As a member of the community itself, I feel that there's an interesting dynamic between the workers themselves and the customers they serve.

I believe this community is significant just to show the relationship between the community and the “outsiders” of sorts that aren't directly related to it. Swales talks about how others can be partially assimilated into a community and then they leave. I think there might be more to that statement. In the case of the Diner, I do not believe that there is partial assimilation. I think the customers they serve are part of the discourse itself; perhaps as a symbiotic relationship. Without the customers, the Diner would not be able to function; without the Diner, the specific demographic that takes advantage of the 24 hour service wouldn't have a cure for hangover food cravings. I believe there is something to say about specific relationships between the community and the people not assimilated themselves.

Without a doubt, Swales will be used as a source in the paper. Along with his characteristics of a discourse community to define it, I wanted to go deeper into his thoughts on an outsider's partial assimilation with a community in comparison to my thoughts about symbiotic discourse communities. With the Diner itself, the terminology used is not a hard code to crack. Anyone outside of the community itself can pick up on it easily with listening a few minutes to any of the workers talking to each other as we work.

I was also thinking about using Gee as a source talking about the different levels of authority. I wanted to compare new workers to old workers and how they differ. Myself, for example, I've worked their the shortest amount of time but I'm already in a position of authority in my own right. Other workers have been there for years and years, but do significantly less and are not as highly regarded as others. In the case of the Diner, it's also an interesting relationship because it's under new management. The Diner is trying to get it's feet before doing major expanding; everyone there is trying to learn everything (Owners and Managers are trying to learn other jobs to better train new workers).

I also want to look at Tony Mirabelli's article on “Learning to Serve”. The article itself is based on food service, so it will relate to the community as a whole. It might also address something on the relationship between the workers and customers. This article also talks about misconceptions between food service workers and other workers as part of a big business company. Food service isn't rocket science; treat customers well and cater to them. People think that food service are just blue collar workers who didn't want to go through school and get a “real” job. However, in some cases it's what's necessary to do in order to get that higher education and a better job. It's also, unknown to many people, a strenuous job trying to be a Diner worker (or food service in general) being able to think quickly and accommodate to everyone at once so everyone is happy.

Along with that, Mirabelli talks about how authority between the customer and the waiter changes based on who is the one talking. While the customer has higher authority because a waiter is to serve them, Mirabelli talks about how waiters can use witty techniques of conversation to 'suggest' a specific dish if the waiter knows what the kitchen wants to sell.

Resources

• Mirabelli, Tony. “Learning to serve.”Writing about Writing: A college Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 57-65. Print.
• Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics.”Writing about Writing: A college Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 57-65. Print.
• Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.”Writing about Writing: A college Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 57-65. Print.

"Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces": 'Order Up!' vs. 'Come Get the Damn Food!'

The three ways Wardle reports newcomers belong are Engagement, Imagination, and Alignment.

Engagement is referring to, in simplest forms, just talking and discussing with other members of a workplace; being active instead of passive. This helps develop relationships between co-workers. An example would be just talking to superiors in a workplace and getting to know them. At the Union Diner (my project 4 topic), I started this by talking to everyone who was working with me that night. I tried to find everyone's name and tried to get to know them better throughout my first night there. I also made sure I knew what was expected of me in my job and tried to make sure I got things done in a timely fashion to their expectations. As the dish washer, I know my position isn't the most glamorous, but it has to be done. Doing the dishes in a timely fashion helps keep the Diner running smoothly, never running out of clean dishes to serve food on.

Imagination talks about a newcomer expanding on the job; finding new ways to pursue the goals of the workplace they are a part of (in good or bad terms depending). It also discusses what I think is making a name for yourself and find out how you belong and relate to the other workers in the workplace. An example would be making your job methods more efficient in order to make yourself useful in the workplace, I guess. At the Diner, the owner bought a new rack for dishes to be hung on to create more space. He made it my job to assemble it and reorganize the dishes. When I got there, all the dishes were scattered and just placed in a different area depending on who else did the job the nights before I worked. I organized it into a system that everyone understands and it has stayed that way since I reorganized.

Alignment refers to molding yourself into the position. You need to be able to focus your priorities onto a focus that is the same as the rest of the workplace. I guess an example of this is a new worker understanding how their job is done and makes sure it is done the way they are told to do it. Once they are skilled at doing it their way, they can branch out and explore new ways that get the job done, but might be more efficient. At the Diner, everyone is working to make a satisfying meal for the customers. We all need to make sure we are on the same page in order to provide that experience for those who come in. If one particular person isn't doing their job quite as well as the next person, then the entire place suffers. For example: a cook isn't cooking food appropriately, food gets out late. If a server isn't courteous with customers, they could walk out frustrated.