weeks Reading Questions and brief description of Ethnography Project

Reading ?s:

Page 5: 1-3, 5

Page 9: 1-3

Page 11: 1-3

Page 32: 1-3, (#5 would be interesting if you had time to watch one of the movies!, but very optional)

Ethnography Paper/Project:

Choose a local culture (people/place) to do participant observation on throughout the rest of the semester. This culture will be one that is both easy for you to access, and one that you are familiar with/ comfortable participating within to some degree.

You will do research in two ways. First, your participant observation involves you going to the culture and being part of it (to various extents), while also taking Field Notes that will help you write about the culture for your final paper. While doing observations, you are expect to write down what you see, hear, feel, smell and taste! Yes, you are working on recording the culture to the best of your ability. After this, you will be asked to reflect upon, and analyze the culture.

The second aspect of an ethnography, of any good, thorough research, is going to the library to find written textual sources. But, rather than look solely for material DIRECTLY related to your culture, you are GOING TO HAVE TO FIND SOURCES THAT MAY NOT DIRECTLY CORRELATE to your culture. 

This second aspect of research can be "hard." Remember: you are not doing a book report. Remember: you are stretching your active thinking skills, your analytical skills. Remember: your culture is not boxed into a neat and tidy, measurable square. Your culture is a culture within a larger American culture. Therefore, when looking for textual support, do not narrow the kinds of sources that may be "right" for your project.

We will discuss this more and more, beginning Wednesday, but flowing into Week 3.

For now, I will leave you with the laundry list of tangible requirements:  

1) The essay must be 15-20 pages in length for regular WAR 2  (12-15 min. for those in my Enhanced sections), double-spaced, MLA format.

2) You are required to have 8-10 secondary sources, outside of your own Field Notes, observations, your own interviews, your own data analysis. 

3) You must cite your sources within your final paper, giving credit to those authors whose ideas and research you've used in your own.

4) You will be required to give a 10-15 minute presentation to the class in the last two weeks of the course. You will be expected to provide a visual presentation of your culture, and you may use audio as well. 

5) Rather than simply try to outline and summarize the culture, I'd like you to pick something within your culture that interests you from the get-go and, along with illuminating on your overall culture, analyze and describe in your final paper how that "something" represents or fits within the culture. 

In the past, some students have struggled in writing the final paper because they don't know what angle to take. Choosing a specific aspect or action (or whatever you want to call "it") of the culture to really research and pay attention to gives you an angle to go from.

My own caution/wisdom towards this requirement: make your choice an inquiry, not a proof. You after inquiring WHY, not trying to prove yourself correct. Again, this is an idea that we will discuss throughout the semester.