i told myself i was going to start early on this draft, which i then (of course) didn't. i started thinking it over yesterday, and did some writing this morning. i told my classes that i find introduction the hardest, although it wasn't as difficult with this project as it often is. possibly this is because we talked wednesday about ways to start the paper, although it seems just as likely that it's because this is a topic near to me personally and i find it easier to write about.
i even made a couple different starts, just to see how they felt.
there's the "Look How Scholarly I Am" approach, where you drop some names:
When scholars like James Gee and John Swales talk about
discourses or discourse communities, they have a tendency to focus on language
use, which might lead those new to the concepts to think that highly physical
activities –like soccer, yoga, or dance- don’t really qualify. As a dancer of
four years experience, however, I can say definitively that this isn’t the case.
…
i like this okay, although it feels a little abrupt. it probably needs something at the beginning -why am i even telling people about gee and swales? i need something to get me from zero to discourse. and probably some of what this paper would need to do is keep talking about how gee and swales defines DCs and make sure that i'm making a case for dancing being included.
or the "This Paper Is Obviously Aimed At My Classmates and Teacher" approach:
The community I chose to write about is the swing dancing
community, which I have been a member of for four years now. A friend showed me
the basic step and two turns for East Coast Swing at a wedding in Kentucky, and
I was immediately hooked. As soon as I could, I found the nearest group of
swing dancers and started taking lessons. ...
in spite of my somewhat smirky title for this approach, it works fine, i think, for this paper. it won't work for later ones, obviously, but i think it can work for what is essentially a chance to introduce yourself, and explore language use, in front of classmates.
and then there's what i think i will call the "Anthony's Sink Or Swim" Approach:
We came to an awkward stop on the floor and my practice
partner, Rich, said, “That’s not working.” “Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re losing the
tension we’d normally get on the one-two, so there’s nothing to carry the
swing-out. We need something else.” Rich considered this, and nodded, “Okay. I’ll
throw in a couple crazylegs to get us situated.” Four years ago, the first time
I went to a dance lesson, I could never have imagined a time when this would be
a normal conversation for me. But although language might not be the first
thing you’d think of when someone mentioned swing dancing, it’s become like a
second language for me.
In some ways, I mean this literally. There are many dances
under the umbrella of “swing” –the Charleston, East Coast (the Jitterbug), West
Coast, Carolina Shag, Lindy Hop, Balboa, Boogie-Woogie- but for the most part
they share a common set of terms that refer to specific moves, or types of
moves. Most dancers will understand what a basic, a whip, a swing-out, a
sugarpush, a tuck turn or a pop turn mean, even if we don’t always do these
moves in the same way. Similarly, most of us know things like crazylegs, tacky
annie, and shorty George, very specific moves from the swing tradition. But
when I say that swing dancing –or, to be more specific, Lindy Hop, has become a
second language for me, I mean something more subtle.
this is the introduction i ended up finishing. reflecting on it, i'm realizing a couple of things. 1) i'm not sure how well i've thrown people into my group. the incident i'm trying to recreate for them might be too long. am i going to lose everyone's attention in the 5 sentences i'm taking? is there anything i can do about that? could i just shorten it somehow to rich's sentence about the crazylegs (not one of my favorite moves)? and then 2) i'm at the end of my second paragraph and not a thesis statement in sight. does this matter? i'm not convinced it does. i think this paper can be a place where the rules are a little more relaxed. and i've done some of the major work, right? DC identified. language mentioned. one example given. i think as long as i don't leave people in suspense too much longer i can get away with it.
BUT. i don't think delaying as long as i have with this third example would have worked with the first two. those introductions lent themselves to more formal statements of argument. which might be why i liked this one so much -i don't usually get to write a casual, let's-see-where-things-take-us sort of argument. if i can tighten up the very beginning, and get rid of some of my scene setting, this is probably the one i'll go with.
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