Adam McManaman’s Music Producing Portfolio
There are numerous courses available at the University of Central Florida, ranging from art’s, biomedical sciences, photography, calculus, and personal finance. Numerous students take personal finance every semester and notice that it is a necessary class to attend for students at UCF whom seek to achieve financial success throughout their lifetime. Personal finance has proved to be a rigorous course for many students who are not financial majors. Students seeking Adam McManaman’s extra help outside of class often choose to attend the professor’s weekday office hours to obtain a better understanding of the course. Personal finance office hours give students the opportunity to receive one on one instruction from the professor or one of his financially educated tutors. The personal finance office hours creates a powerful discourse community in which students are given the opportunity of furthering their knowledge of personal finance. In a personal interview with one of the personal finance tutors; the mission statement of the group was described as “The outcome of the personal finance office hours is to provide the students with a strong financial background, in order to allow the students to make financially sound decisions outside of class and in the future”(McManaman Interview). Linguist John Swales, defines discourse communities as “groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals” (Swales 217). The concept of a discourse community is necessary to understand, in order to be able to fully identify the purpose of an organization, institution, groups, clans, clubs, and even sports teams. Personal finance office hours creates a dynamic environment for students to further their knowledge of personal finance, by providing financially educated tutors and teachers, who are equipped with the necessary tools and background to explain the course’s material.
In order to understand discourse communities completely, one must break a discourse community down into six main categories, which are the subject, community, division of labor, tools, rules, and the object. The personal finance office hours are composed of each of these categories, but identifying them can be difficult. Many of the categories within a discourse community directly correlate with one another. For example, the subject, community, and the division of labor, all rely around the common theme of the individuals that form the discourse community . The subjects of Adam McManaman’s personal finance office hours are the students and the tutors. English professor and highly regarded author Deborah Brandt explains the importance of tutors by stating “I am not advocating that we prepare students more efficiently for the job markets they must enter… Adam McManaman’s suggesting that we assist in the studies of individuals”(Brandt 45). Brandt’s claim of literary sponsors directly correlates with the subject of the personal finance office hours by explaining the interactions between subject and the community. Recognizing the differences between the tutors and students leads to the next category of a discourse community; the division of labor.
