Clara Martinez

Discourse Community

9/10/13

One of the most important ways to communicate is trough writing. When you write you have to take into consideration who the audience is and the message you are trying to deliver. The act of communication through writing can be defined by the term a Discourse Community. A discourse community is a group where people or the members use writing to share their common goals, values, specialized vocabulary and genres. My family, friends and work are the discourse communities I belong to. Discourse Communities have showed me details in writing that make me enjoy it, from having fun, being random and free to being cautious with what I write and be aware of the little details, but not to forget to transmit emotion. They have helped me discover my strengths and weaknesses, not only that, but I have learned to enjoy the beauty of writing. The most important community for me is my family. They have showed me how family will always be there for when I need them, they show me how much they care and love me, by their language and actions. My family, or the members consists of my mom (Juanis), dad (Jesse), brother (Jesus), and my aunt (Mary), we all live under the same roof. We do almost everything together like going to the movies or to the mall, even for a doctors appointment they still want to come with me, it is embarrassing. They are extremely loud and they act like little kids. They always call me amargatorade which is a combination of the Spanish work amargada, meaning bitter in English and Gatorade, dont ask me where Gatorade comes from, I have no clue! My mom and dad run the house, pretty much everything they do is for us, and they always put us before themselves. My parents dont really tell us any of the rules we pretty much know them and follow the social norm. I respect my parents a lot, to the point that I really dont even remember how they act/look when weve done something bad, they get more disappointed than angry. At the end of the day even if I disappointed my leaders; theyll still be there for me when I need them. One of the reasons we write is to express how much we care and love one another,

Clara Martinez

Discourse Community

9/10/13

which defines the importance of support. Personally Im not as affectionate as they are, because Im the reserved one in my family. A piece of writing is not simply a piece of paper with letters on it, but it can be a time machine that takes you back to a certain time in your life that is sacred. This time machine can take you back as many times as you want, and it makes me feel god to reread them. At times when you feel sad and see the silly words they use, it makes you laugh and appreciate that you have your family. My second discourse community is probably one of the hardest to gain membership, it isnt an easy job there are a lot of rules involved. Our patients are so diverse, no patient is the same and our number one goal is to provide quality care with an individualized psychiatric care for each of the patients. In order to gain membership you must apply online at the Texas Department of State Health Services website. Afterward youll be interviewed and be given a contract plus attend a 3-week mandatory orientation, not just anyone is hired. In this orientation theyll try and cover all the rules, goals, and expectations, the Dos and Donts of the job. We are taught many things we cant do with the patients, for example we must not touch them without their consent not even a slight pat on the back. Most of the patients have suffered a very traumatic experience such as rape, where touching can trigger them and cause them to have a flashback to that traumatizing point in life. The three most common types of cases we see at our facility are depression, bipolar disease and schizophrenia. Anybody can be a patient and admitted as long as the doctor proves that you are a harm to self or harm to others. We mostly deal with adults but we sometimes have adolescents and children which the lowest age has been 4. Each patient has a specialized treatment plan because no patient is the same, the treatment plan goes from warning signs to the coping skills and/or diagnosis.

Clara Martinez

Discourse Community

9/10/13

Furthermore, at the El Paso Psychiatric Center (EPPC) writing is very fundamental for the benefits of documentation and for the patient which targets our number one goal. First of all, the language mostly spoken is Spanish, so it benefits you and your patients to be bilingual. Now regarding the employees, for your benefit you must know medical abbreviations such as q15 (every 15 minutes) or BM (bowel movement), which are mostly used in charting their vital signs and activities of daily living which are written in their designated paper or typed out in the computer. For example, if you mess up and put the wrong vital signs with the incorrect patient then you failed to provide an individualized care since those vitals werent really the patients. Once you have built a rapport with a patient, theyll feel confident enough to show you what they have written down in their journals. If you see that in their journal per say they wrote down they dont want to live here anymore, nobody likes them or they methodically wrote down how they are going to kill their roommate, we must report it. This helps us provide quality care which is preventing them from harm themselves or others, we wouldnt of noticed this dangerous behavior. If we neglect what we write down or what the patient writes down then we have failed the patient, this rarely happens because we are very cautious. This community has showed me how important it is to pay attention to every detail in writing because it could really make or break someone. Friends is my third discourse community, basically anyone can become a member you just need to talk to me, this is the informal and most random group of them all, where it is all about freedom and fun. Rules, no rules exist except probably not to be boring or insult one another. This community is where one can freely express what it wants to, if we want to say an outburst of profanity it is completely normal within us. Like all of the other three groups we speak English and Spanish. When we communicate we use a lot of abbreviations, e.g., WTF (what the

Clara Martinez

Discourse Community

9/10/13

fuck), IDK (I dont know), and LMFAO (laughing my fucking ass out). We meet everywhere, especially social places such as the mall or the movies. Our topics are so random we can be talking about our day and all of a sudden we see a dog and start talking about guys. Writing here is really important because now that school has started it is harder to see each other since our schedules are so different and not to forget our extracurricular activities. We usually message each other either by computer or cellphone, and once in a while talk on the phone. My friends have showed me that when writing, it is good to have fun with it and express what you are feeling and to be free whenever you have the opportunity. My family, friends, and work have helped me look at writing as something else other than just a boring paper to write that will eventually be thrown away. Expressing what you feel while having fun and putting your heart into it allows you to feel that freedom you might not get at home, and experiences like these are the eye-openers that show where writing can take you to a whole new place.