As both a student and a writer, I have come across many different discourse communities. While I generally tend to write in my own distinct style, it does vary in terms of casualness, diction, sentence length, etc. For my academic papers, I avoid being casual, using pronouns, and choosing basic or uninteresting language and diction. If there’s a blog post for a class, I tend to make things more personal, adding little jokes and pieces of my personality. And for fiction, such as my short stories or snippets of possible novels, I focus less on how I sound and more on how well I’m able to depict everything in a scene, every movement of a character, etc. through my writing. Last semester I took Creative Writing: Fiction, which really helped me to hone in on my writing skills while also being in a supportive community of other writers and people interested in writing. This was one of my favorite discourse communities I’ve come across so far academically/in college as its focus was something I cared deeply about and I was surrounded by others who also cared deeply. Currently, I find myself in a printmaking community through the art class I’m taking. Learning about printing processes, figuring out the techniques, and sharing feedback with a group of people is one of the most efficient ways I could think of to take on printmaking. I think without this class, I’d be very lost and overwhelmed. As I continue with this project, I imagine myself branching out to other printmakers on the internet or here at Saint Louis University (SLU), trying to gain more venues of community and support. I see myself with more confidence in two forms of artistic expression, as well as another way to reach out to others who write and create art (my blog).