Wardle describes how newcomers or rookies try to belong or get in a new community in, “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces.” The three modes are engagement, imagination, and alignment. Newcomers go through these phases or modes to when trying to belong to a new community.
Engagement is how a newcomer works with an older more experienced person. This is can be how they interact or the relationship they have with each other. Waddle believes that can be both positive and negative for a new comer. Negatively, a newbie could feel lost or without a sense of purpose in this new community.This works perfect for the rugby team. Everytime a new kid shows up to play they look absolutely lost when we start up a game of “touch” rugby. But the older guys direct them and get a feeling of what this new guy can do, and then go from there. Imagination occurs when the newbie starts coming into themselves and finds out where they fit in in the community. This is when a new kid has certain characteristics that fit a certain position on the rugby team. We’ll do many drills and the more the newbie evolves the more we’ll know, and they’ll know about themselves. This way we can see where they fit. Alignment involves being able to find common ground with vets and to explain your opinions. The newbie feels comfortable and prepared enough to start voicing their opinion and also agreeing with the vets point of view. Alignment can result in a loss of self as well. As for the rugby team, we all see how things are run and that’s the smoothest way to do things, it’s like everyone is on the same page.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your analysis on Imagination. One a newcomer feels like they belong with a specific group, club, etc, they can start to excel and bring more things to the table. With bringing new ideas to the table, they can eventually start getting their own authority. Soon they will be able to help give information and advice to other newcomers into the field.
ReplyDeleteIn Alan's case, I feel that he took the bad part of Imagination and took it too far by putting himself in Authority too soon. He referred to himself as a "God" because he was the only one in his position. He looked down on everyone else except the board of directors (who was the only authority higher than himself in his mind). The listserv emails, for instance, were always to everyone whether they involved the person directly or not. Because of this, Alan's emails weren't looked at or read if the first part of the email did not pertain to the department that the person was already working for. This disconnected him and Alan wasn't appreciated because of it. Alan didn't fit his position in a way that was beneficial to the company, so the company itself suffered because of all the conflicts that were caused.