Blogs
Blogs: 10pts per post (1 per week), 5pts per response (2 responses per week)
Each week I will post a question that will help guide your culture exploration. You will need to do a blog post (150-200 words) answering my question and then respond to two of your classmates’ post. You should respond (75- 100 words) to two different classmates each week. I will post questions on my blog by Tuesday at noon. Your answer to my question is due by Friday at midnight. Your responses are due by Sunday at midnight.
Weekly Questions:
Week 1: None
Week 2: What type of factors are you considering as your start to explore possible cultures to focus on this semester? Is any one factor more important than the others? Are you looking to learn something specific or are you open to learn whatever you can?
Week 3: Hopefully at this point in class you have figured out where you are going to do your fieldwork at. So, where have you picked to do your research? If you were to stop someone walking down the street and ask them what they think of your site, what would they say? Who belongs to this subculture?
Week 4: What are academic sources? Why do so many instructors insist that you only use academic sources in your work? What are examples of places where you could use non-academic sources? What do you consider non-academic sources?
Week 5: What kinds of sources have you gathered so far for your project? Have you found information in your sources that connect to what you are observing? What haven't you found that you are still looking for?
Week 6: Can you make any general conclusions about your community as of right now? And if so, what are those conclusions? Do you think that what you have been observing is specific to your community or that it would be the same if you want to that community on a different campus (for example, would what you are observing in a Frat at Ball State be the same at the same Frat at Kent State?)
Week 7: What type of plan have you come up with to finish your mini-ethnography? Do you need more research on a specific topic? Do you need to spend more time in your community? How do you plan on spending that time: interviewing? observing? participating in activities? In other words, how do you plan on finishing this assignment?
Week 8: For this week I want you to answer the following questions: What is the main theme that you see running through your research? If you have talked to some members in your community, does that theme seem to run through your site as well? As of today, 8 weeks into this project, what is your place in the culture? Is it similar to different to where you were 8 weeks ago? What changed?
Week 9: Yes, I know it is just about spring break (and there is no blog question next week during break), but you need a question for this week. :-) By now you should have visited your site a few times, interviewed one or two people, gathered research and have a good head start on your portfolio, all which is great. We started talking at the beginning of the semester on the benefits of fieldwork and what you can give back by doing your research. So, what can your give back to your community? You should know a good deal at this point, so what does your community need that you can provide them? What is your contribution? (to the community? to our class? to your own education?) Think about it.
Week 10: Groundwork Activity
Week 11: Week 11 already... wow. This week I want you to take a step back from your research and do a reflection of the research process thus far. What has been the hardest thing? What has been the easiest? If you could start over again what would you do differently? How has keeping a blog (yes I know it was required) helped you track your research process? How will it help in your final paper?
Week 12: What structure do you plan on using for your final paper? Why do you think that structure will be the best for what you want to do?
Week 13: None
Week 14: None
Week 15: None