DISCOURSE COMMUNITY PROPOSAL

When you meet someone whilst you're in college one of the first things you're asked is, "What's your major?"  Every time I reply with "Outdoor Recreation Education," they either look at me like "whudja say?" or just say something like "Damn! That's sounds hella easy, I should be doing that." Although it is indeed "hella" fun, it is in no way easy.  I found out after being an Outdoor Rec & Ed major for three years that there is an entire discourse community connected with outdoor recreation.  I think to generalize this and to determine the goals of this discourse community I will tell you my opinion of people of the outdoor recreation education; the one goal that unifies every last person, from climbing instructors to Yosemite tour guides, is that they all want to serve a variety of people and show them the beauties of the outdoors, whether it be from a tree or a river.  Another may be sharing information about the outdoors, not just the environment, but also techniques to complete goals like trail maintenance, or a reverse sweep in a kayak.  There are many ways our discourse community communicates, many blog, or have websites to comment on, there are also specific organizations which hold meetings and gatherings, but I may be getting ahead of myself by talking more specifically about genres.  Many of these sources are great for giving and receiving feedback on work, or just having educated conversations among peers.  There are plenty of different genres which take on my perception of outdoor recreation education being a discourse community, just to name a few; raft guiding, Challenge course helper, SCUBA diver instructor, mountain bike tour guide, caving instructor, etc.  Among these genres are a vast set of technical terms which the educated community would recognize some examples would include "Buoyancy Regulator," "V-Brakes," "Eskimo Rescue," "Juglans Nigra," (Black Walnut) "CEBA," and thousands of other terms.  These words and phrases are not always directly linked to one genre such as climbing, but can also be applied to the vast definition as well, I'm sure most anyone who claims to be an outdoor recreation educator understands the term and organization Leave No Trace.  After naming all of these organizations, genres and terms it is sad to admit that there is a very small threshold for actual outdoor recreation educators.  Because it is such a great field to become involved in many people have decided get involved with this beautiful community.  This is a field that I have been interested in and have been informally training in for all of my life.  I love being outside and I absolutely love teaching people things about nature, it's something I feel very passionate about.  I believe that if you love what you're doing, happiness will come to your life by itself.  It is both wonderful and terrifying, though it expands the field in which I love and play it also brings up more competition and more difficulty finding a job.  Either way this is a great discourse community to be a part of. Since I am an Outdoor Recreation Education major I have a tremendous amount of resources to site for any type of research I would need for an essay about my discourse community.  A few texts I have been able to get familiar with is "Outdoor Leadership," "Damn Bunch of Cripples," and "Leisure in Your Life."  These texts depict leisure theories, levels of perceived freedom, a hierarchy of leisure, many types of leadership and many other interests relevant to my discourse community.  Since I have had many of the same professors for different classes, I have been able to create relationships with most of them which would really help me find someone to interview that would have many helpful things to say.  The first person I would ask to interview is my favorite teacher here at Ohio University, Matt Vosler.  (Sorry, you're in the top 5)  Matt Vosler has had a lot of experience in the recreation world and has facilitated many recreation trips for the school.  He also has been a professor here for two years and has one of the nicest personalities out of anyone I know, he always likes helping people out.  One other person I would be interested in interviewing from this school is Dr. Bruce Martin, because he has written a book for our discourse community and has had years and years of experience teaching in and out of the classroom.  He helps with anyone who is looking for more information about his field, this is because he is also incredibly passionate about this discourse community.  With these resources in mind, I believe I can write a great paper about my discourse community.