Scouting for a Lifetime Millions… millions of discourse communities exist all around us each and every day. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, and Group Me are just a few of the many examples of the functional discourse communities that our world consists of today. A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses that are agreed upon as basic values and expectations and use communication to achieve set goals. There are six requirements to have a true discourse community. They must include: a community of people who share the same goals, regular communication, steady feedback and advice from one another, at least one means of communication that will assist in achieving an aspired goal, a lexis which is a …show more content…
To begin with, the scoutmaster is the leader of the entire troop. Among a long list of obligations, a scoutmaster’s job is to lead the scouts within the troop, be a positive role model, and prepare them to lead their fellow scouts. Followed by the scoutmaster is the senior patrol leader whose job is to lead the troop as a youth and prepare the meeting plans and activities each week. His role is vital in the troop because he keeps the morale of the scouts high in addition to teaching them to be prepared for life and all that may come their way. After the senior patrol leader comes the patrol leaders. Their duties in the troop are to plan individual patrol meetings, patrol campouts, and report to the senior patrol leader. Finally, there are all of the many scouts varying from ages eleven to eighteen. All of the scouts serve their roles in the vast array of troop positons. As Boy Scouts you learn to build lifelong habits, skills, and …show more content…
Jim Kellum, tells the story of when he was a teen in the Boy Scouts. He learned to survive in the wilderness and how to withstand the cold harsh temperatures. Later on when he was in the armed forces, he and another man were deployed to the Russian tundra to guard a downed bomber. Their instructions were to keep the plane secure from the Russians until help arrived to retrieve the bombs. During the night the weather became unbearably frigid. The wind whipped so hard it was like an icy knife through their bones. The two of them were all alone in this barren snow desert with a small amount of supplies and the continual threat of wolves that inhabited the area. Mr. Jim had to fire warning shots into the darkness to keep them away and to let their presence be made known to the Russians. He said that the only reason that the two of them survived the night was because of the wilderness survival training he was taught in Boy Scouts. Knowing these valuable skills of building a snow shelter, fire, and keeping warm in the worst climates gave me the pleasure of listening to his many exciting stories of the