Field Notes III

By the end of the week, please post your final set of fieldnotes here to our course blog as a comment. Make sure and include the same kind of information as in previous fieldnotes. In this final set of notes, though, sketch out any tentative conclusions you are making about your research thus far. What strikes you as significant? Why?

Field Notes II

After you conduct your second observation of your space for your mapping project, please post a second set of field notes here on Tuesday, April 26.

As you make notes from your observations, please make sure you include the following information: 1) Date, time, and place of observation; 2) Specific facts, numbers, and details; 3) Sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, tastes; 4) Personal response to your observations—both the act of recording and how others responded to you; 5) Specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations/interviews, and any insider language; 6) Questions that your observations generate for you as the researcher (ones that you might pursue in your subsequent observations).

As you conclude this set of notes, please write a paragraph in which you summarize your observation, paying attention to what you noticed that was either similar to your previous observation or different. What do you think accounts for this?

Reflecting on the rhetorical conventions of a qualitative study

To start class today, I’d like you to reflect on how the study—“Creating Community”—was organized and written. That is, I’d like us to generate a keener sense of the rhetoric of a scholarly study within the field of ethnography. First, how would you characterize or describe the study’s organization? What is the purpose of each section and how do they relate to each other and develop the study’s main argument? What is the study’s main claim and where is it located? What kind of evidence does Amada Armenta draw on to substantiate her claim(s)? How would you describe the voice, level of formality, and other stylistic features of this kind of writing? What do you think you might take from this study when you start drafting your own piece later next week?

Field Notes I

After you conduct your first observation of your space for your mapping project, please post your first set of field notes here before class begins on Thursday, April 21. As you make notes from your observations, please make sure you include the following information: 1) Date, time, and place of observation; 2) Specific facts, numbers, and details; 3) Sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, tastes; 4) Personal response to your observations—both to the act of recording and how others responded to you; 5) Specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations/interviews, and any insider language; 6) Questions that your observations generate for you as the researcher (ones that you might pursue in your subsequent observations).

Please note: You are welcome to post the highlights or a summary of your field notes, especially if you take your notes by hand. If you type them on your laptop, then you're welcome to post all your notes, or a substantial section of them (since it's easier to cut and paste).

Generating a focus for your mapping project

Before class on Tuesday, I'd like you to spend some time developing a focus for our current assignment. To that end, please use your comment to this post to explain to the rest of class what you would like to focus your mapping project on. What space will you be mapping? What group(s) of people do you think you'll be observing and interviewing (or those that you'd like to)? What do you think might be significant about this space? What do you hope to learn from this project and why do you think this particular space is an important one to study? As you conclude this part of your comment, please describe how you plan to spend the next few weeks completing the research necessary for this study.

Second, given our work with the library databases today, I'd also like to you spend some time searching for possible sources that might help you with your project. Before Tuesday, please identify one promising scholarly article, read it, and present a brief summary (a substantial paragraph will do) that clearly states its main findings and gives a sense of the evidence it uses to support these claims.

As you complete these tasks, if you have any questions or run into any problems, please feel free to share those with us, too. I'll check the blog a few times over the weekend and get back to anyone who has questions. Thanks!

Writing about your own personal geography

Choose a spot that brings back a rush of sensory details—sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes. It doesn’t need to be an enormous natural wonder like the Grand Canyon. Try describing a private spot—a certain tree in your backyard, a basketball court, a relative’s dining room, the corner of a city lot, the interior of a closet, or a window seat that catches sunlight. As you think about the specifics of this place—its details and sensations—you’ll probably remember a dominant impression, a cluster of images, or a person connected to the place. These are all part of your internal landscape. Write a few short descriptive paragraphs using as many details as you can to paint a vivid impression of this landscape.

Reflecting on our first assignment

To start class today, I’d like you to take a few minutes and reflect on what it was like to write your first essay for this class. Describe your writing process and tell the rest of us about how your piece changed from your initial ideas to your final draft. How did your research shape the argument you made about the primary text you analyzed? What observations or feedback did your peers give you about your draft that helped you as you continued drafting and revising it? Ultimately, what did you learn about rhetoric, research, writing, or yourself by completing this assignment?

Analyzing appeals to logos

To make sure you've got a handle (as a writer) on how to analyze a writer's appeal to logos, I'd like you to spent he next 15 minutes or so applying what we've just discussed to your current project and draft an initial analysis of your primary text(s) appeal to logos, paying specific attention to its use of enthymeme and example.

First, if you haven't yet, identify the main claim of the text you're analyzing. Then, work together to understand what kind of reasoning the writer employs (deductive? inductive? from contraries? precedent?) and apply Aristotle's discussion of enthymeme and example to this persuasive argument. What premises underlie this argument? What common values or assumptions does the writer/rhetor presume his or her audience shares with the writer that make the argument possible? If you can re-write the chain of thinking as a more formal enthymeme, do so. If not, characterize how the writer moves from premises to the main claim. As well, explain any use of examples (rhetorical, historical, fictional, or analogy) and how they relate to the overall claim.

When you finish drafting this analyis, post it here as a comment to our course blog.