assignments ENGL389 Topics in Writing: Ethnographic Writing:
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Overview: This installment of your ethnographic essay is the first that requires sustained contact with your site. In fact, it is probably the most labor-intensive part of the semester in that respect. It is the draft that will take us to the mid-term of the semester. The tricky part of the assignment is the balance: how do you balance physical description of the site with the more ephemeral aspects of what makes this site a culture?
Details: In order to successfully complete this second installment you need to conduct observations enough to be able to write to the following:
Landscape or the physical qualities of your site. Is your site a room or a series of rooms or a different sort of space all together? If you were mapping this space, what physical aspects would you need to include? What do things look like? Is it run down? Brand new? Green? What does it smell like? Sweat or new carpet?
WARNING: This part of the writing is the easiest to do because you are just looking and describing, but it is also the most boring to read. You might do a lot of this to get to a final draft of this assignment and, ultimately, the completed creative piece, but how much of it you will actually include will depend on what is interesting and necessary to the overall understanding of your site.
Artifacts. Just to get it out of the way, artifacts are not people. Artifacts are things. But they aren’t just any things. They are things that mean something to that particular culture, maybe they mean more than the sum of their parts, like a metaphor. Maybe they mean something other than what they normally do in the regular world. Do people pass around this soccer ball at your site to determine who gets to talk when? Is there a special pen that the head waitress takes orders with that people always comment on? Do all the kids where resistance pins from Star Wars?
People. By definition, a culture is not just a blank space, it’s not an empty room. It’s filled with people, with sound, with movement. You should capture two aspects of the “people” in your group. Can you describe the overall population, the vibe of the people in the room, the look of them, the sound of them? Can you give me a few up-close and personal individual versions of people? What about a general overview of the crowd? Think about how the Rocky Horror piece did this. We got a few case-studies of people and then a general description of the group.
Rituals. So, you are probably seeing a pattern here. A culture is not just a bunch of people sitting silently and not interacting in a room. The things they do demonstrates what they care about, what binds them together. So it is important to capture the activity of a place: What happens in this place? What do people seem to do over and over again? What activities do people seem to engage in more than just a one time flukey deal?
A Unifying Idea. Your paper will be constructed using the details captured in the requirements listed above, but it is not enough to simply describe these elements. The larger point of this part of the project is to begin to make a preliminary guess--a thesis, a hypothesis, a main idea--about what makes this culture a culture, what makes this site valuable and interesting to write and read about?
Your ability to answer this question will require that you interpret the information you get from your observations and to take a leap, make a guess, at what they mean in sum and what they say about your culture/site.
But Not a Totally Unifying Idea. All that said, it’s important to realize that this is only the first part of your encounter with your site. The second half--the research you’ll do for the sources assignment--will potentially modify your guesses and hypothesis. That’s the point. That should happen. In future installments in this long project, you’ll test out the themes, thesis, main points that you attempt to establish in this one. So you don’t have to be totally sure. You have to make the interpretive leap.
I know that this is a very different way to construct an argument. All your academic life in the humanities, you’ve been asked to start with a thesis and prove it. I am asking you to collect data and then develop a thesis from what the data tells you. This is, of course, the scientific method. I know it can feel sort of unsettling, but you’ve got to trust the process will yield something.
The revised draft of this installment is due as part of your midterm portfolio. More and better details about that assignment are available by clicking on this midterm portfolio link or in the drop down menu for this class at the top of this page. But, as you revise for midterm, consider not only the ethnographic research work that is required of this project, but the writing itself. As with the first installment, consider how well you are developing “nice, elegant writing in parts of the piece--that suggest a tone or style that you might be trying to develop, a writer's voice, throughout the piece.”
Some Specifics on Format
This paper is worth 10% of your overall grade.
IN ORDER TO EARN A “B” GRADE FOR THAT 10%, YOU MUST
IF YOU DO NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A C GRADE, you will receive a grade of “F” for 10% of your overall grade in this class.
Details: In order to successfully complete this second installment you need to conduct observations enough to be able to write to the following:
Landscape or the physical qualities of your site. Is your site a room or a series of rooms or a different sort of space all together? If you were mapping this space, what physical aspects would you need to include? What do things look like? Is it run down? Brand new? Green? What does it smell like? Sweat or new carpet?
WARNING: This part of the writing is the easiest to do because you are just looking and describing, but it is also the most boring to read. You might do a lot of this to get to a final draft of this assignment and, ultimately, the completed creative piece, but how much of it you will actually include will depend on what is interesting and necessary to the overall understanding of your site.
Artifacts. Just to get it out of the way, artifacts are not people. Artifacts are things. But they aren’t just any things. They are things that mean something to that particular culture, maybe they mean more than the sum of their parts, like a metaphor. Maybe they mean something other than what they normally do in the regular world. Do people pass around this soccer ball at your site to determine who gets to talk when? Is there a special pen that the head waitress takes orders with that people always comment on? Do all the kids where resistance pins from Star Wars?
People. By definition, a culture is not just a blank space, it’s not an empty room. It’s filled with people, with sound, with movement. You should capture two aspects of the “people” in your group. Can you describe the overall population, the vibe of the people in the room, the look of them, the sound of them? Can you give me a few up-close and personal individual versions of people? What about a general overview of the crowd? Think about how the Rocky Horror piece did this. We got a few case-studies of people and then a general description of the group.
Rituals. So, you are probably seeing a pattern here. A culture is not just a bunch of people sitting silently and not interacting in a room. The things they do demonstrates what they care about, what binds them together. So it is important to capture the activity of a place: What happens in this place? What do people seem to do over and over again? What activities do people seem to engage in more than just a one time flukey deal?
A Unifying Idea. Your paper will be constructed using the details captured in the requirements listed above, but it is not enough to simply describe these elements. The larger point of this part of the project is to begin to make a preliminary guess--a thesis, a hypothesis, a main idea--about what makes this culture a culture, what makes this site valuable and interesting to write and read about?
Your ability to answer this question will require that you interpret the information you get from your observations and to take a leap, make a guess, at what they mean in sum and what they say about your culture/site.
But Not a Totally Unifying Idea. All that said, it’s important to realize that this is only the first part of your encounter with your site. The second half--the research you’ll do for the sources assignment--will potentially modify your guesses and hypothesis. That’s the point. That should happen. In future installments in this long project, you’ll test out the themes, thesis, main points that you attempt to establish in this one. So you don’t have to be totally sure. You have to make the interpretive leap.
I know that this is a very different way to construct an argument. All your academic life in the humanities, you’ve been asked to start with a thesis and prove it. I am asking you to collect data and then develop a thesis from what the data tells you. This is, of course, the scientific method. I know it can feel sort of unsettling, but you’ve got to trust the process will yield something.
The revised draft of this installment is due as part of your midterm portfolio. More and better details about that assignment are available by clicking on this midterm portfolio link or in the drop down menu for this class at the top of this page. But, as you revise for midterm, consider not only the ethnographic research work that is required of this project, but the writing itself. As with the first installment, consider how well you are developing “nice, elegant writing in parts of the piece--that suggest a tone or style that you might be trying to develop, a writer's voice, throughout the piece.”
Some Specifics on Format
- While page length is really up to you depending on what you have to say in this section, you should be turning in at least 5 and probably no more than 7 pages for this first assignment.
- Ten or Twelve point, Times New Roman or comparable font, typed and double-spaced, and one inch margins all the way around.
- Please title this draft (even if it turns out that you don’t end up using this title).
- Please put your name, date, and ENGL 389 in the top left corner of your paper—no cover page.
- Please put your last name and the page number in the top right corner of subsequent pages.
This paper is worth 10% of your overall grade.
IN ORDER TO EARN A “B” GRADE FOR THAT 10%, YOU MUST
- Turn in a draft that includes the five elements described in this assignment.
- Produce a draft for workshopping. Check the syllabus.
- Participate in the workshop as a reader and writer.
- Complete a revision plan as part of the workshop experience
- Turn in your completed, revised draft as part of your midterm portfolio. Again, consult the syllabus for due dates.
- Meet all of the requirements for a “B” grade.
- Attempt to revise this installment along with the first installment (The Writer in Her Place) into an entirely new draft of the the first half of your entire final project.
- Attempt some nice, elegant writing--that suggest a tone or style that you might be trying to develop, a writer's voice, throughout the piece.
- Produce a draft for the midterm portfolio.
IF YOU DO NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A C GRADE, you will receive a grade of “F” for 10% of your overall grade in this class.