In James Gee's article, "Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics," he talks about the tests and gates within discourse communities. These tests are giving by the members of the discourse community to see if other members are native to their community. If they do not pass the test the gates are used to exclude the non-natives. This can be seen in pretty much any series of classes here on campus. In order for you to enroll in a class you must meet all prerequisites and in order to meet the prerequisite you must have passed all required classes. This is set in place to keep students who don’t understand the material well, the “non-natives”, from continuing on in the class series. If they are able to pass the class and do well on test and quizzes then they have meet all requirements and are free to take the next class in the series, these students are like the natives to that discourse. Discourses also often pay close attention to the “correctness” of others, rather than the meaning. This is because it is quite easy to pick up on someone who doesn’t belong or is not ready to make it to the next step, or secondary discourse. By the language they use alone it is easy to distinguish whether or not they belong. Using the same example, when giving a presentation in class it is easy to distinguish whether or not the person know the subject matter well. If they do not they won’t get the good grade needed to pass the class and help them advance to the next one.
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