Ashanty Barrios 10/22/13 English 106 A.

Halliday Reading Response to Wardle

Elizabeth Wardle analyzes a study done on a person named Alan to discover what made a community and how in order to be a part of that community; there must be conformity by an individual. She mentions that Alan did not assimilate himself with the way he wrote and therefore the community did not accept him as one of their own. She states that participation in new communities requires accepting for oneself identities that are at odds with the values of other communities to which one belongs (Wardle, 2010). In this case, the staff was not accepting of Alan and his arrogance. Wardle also mentions three components that Wegner associates with belonging to a community and they are engagement, imagination, and alignment (Wegner 156). As Wardle examined the emails that Alan wrote, she found that he had an attitude where he imagined himself of higher authority and superiority. I found that she accurately describes the qualifications for a writing community. In todays society, unfortunately, one must change their ways and adjust to the standards of a particular group in order to be accepted or considered a member of that group. By not doing so, you are considered an outsider and therefore will have a hard time fitting in with the group, in this particular case, its the workplace.