Definition Essay: Defining A Community

Community, in a broad sense, is a tremendous part of what makes humans tick. It can help us stay mentally and physically healthy. Few can doubt how important community is, but it is a vague concept. Trying to define community is as difficult as defining literacy but both are important concepts we strive to understand. One underlying theme I see in literacies is that people use them to find their place in the world. Literacy is a combination of skills learned concepts used to interact socially with others and define ourselves, which we all strive to do starting at an early age and continue doing throughout adulthood. The definition of literacy is no longer restricted to being able to read and write. Expanding outside of that definition means the struggle to find a new one. Anyone you ask about literacy and its meaning will have a different answer, and it’s possible that none of them are wrong. Sylvia Scribner observes, like myself: “Many, although by no means all, of those grappling with the problems of definition and measurement appear to be guided by such a search for the essence – for the ‘one best’ way of conceptualizing literacy.” (35) As students, we are used to being taught black and white or right and

The next obstacle is the vernacular of the site or community. Even if you are proficient in the abbreviations and slang of one site or circle, another might be completely foreign to you. We might need to research the terms on our own and ask other members to teach us the more obscure terminology. Many groups online have vastly complex literacy composed of vernacular, common jokes, and ongoing threads of thought that would make no sense to a newcomer without the background information that everyone else seems privy to. It’s a Burkean Parlor and we must adjust to the conversation that has been going on long before we arrived and will continue on after we’re