Hello, My name is J.D. Ochsner I'm a 21 year old senior from a little town called Roseland, located 15 minutes away from Hastings Nebraska. I grew up on my family's farm, we raise cattle, and sheep, we also grow corn alfalfa and soybeans. I have spent most of my life working on the farm and I plan on returning to it when I graduate from college, which should be in 2 semesters. when I'm home I enjoy working on old tractors, working with my cattle and working on my 1980 chevy luv that I drive back and forth from Lincoln (its a hunk of crap). I have one sister, she is 25, married, and is an extension educator for Nuckolls, Thayer, and Clay counties. My mother owns a store in Hastings where they sell craft goods, beads and fabric, and she also works in the county extension office as a 4-H assistant. With a family that is so involved in extension and 4-H, 4-H was a very important part of my life growing up, I was very involved with showing cattle, sheep, and various clubs. I'm a very active person, I have a hard time just sitting and doing nothing, which absolutely drives my girlfriend nuts!
I wright because... well typically I don't, I don't write as a hobby, I don't typically enjoy writing, so other than scientific reports, and essays, I don't really write. I write because I want to convey to my instructors that I know the mode of action for the common chemical 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) is the chemical replicates auxin (plant growth hormone), and essentially the plant grows itself to death.
To me a community means, a group of people who are interconnected, weather it be threw location being the community that you live in or work in, it can be a community of like minded individuals, or maybe a group of people of the same class or tier. Being a part of a community means to me that you help each other out, you are there for one another, and you feel a certain bond with each other. I like to think that I'm part of the Agricultural community, the UNL community, the East campus community and the Roseland community. These communities came from my chosen profession, my school where I attend, my group of peers that I associate with, and the the community that I originally come from. They are all communities, because they all fit at least one of the criteria I had previously listed. Writing plays a role in all of the communities that I am a part of, because at least on the most basic level they use writing as a tool to convey knowledge.
JD, I am so excited to hear about your ag. interests! Though I grew up in the suburbs, I have always thought of myself as a "country girl stuck in a city girl's life" and now I have two horses that live in Ashland. As a writing teacher and someone interested in literacy, I also think your ag background is both fascinating and ripe for some really cool research! I imagine writing, words, language, reading, and literacy play a much greater role in those ag communities you name, than you imagine. For example, how does ag news communicated or news in your community? What writing do farmers do all the time? If we think of texts more broadly (than just those that are words on a page) what texts do farmers interact with all the time? It could be really interesting, for example, to think about what role writing and literacy plays in your small community or in 4H or extension work?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting the degree to which you understand community as being based on supporting one another. How do you see the idea of discourse that Harris talks about being used to represent support? As a shared discourse community, I imagine there's specific linguistic or written ways that "support" is represented? Harris also talks a lot about conflict. How do you see conflict and support working together or against each other in a community? Can they mutually exist?