Week 5
Journal Assignment Due this week:
Use your journal this week to start exploring and uncovering possible topics for your second essay: an ethnographic essay. To prepare for your journal this week, read and review the following sections from your textbook:
Read Ethnographic Essay 1 and Ethnographic Essay 2, on pages 303-310.
Review all the material in the “Opening Up” section of this chapter, on pages 312-315.
Look as well at the “Subject matter” section of the Features of the Form, on page 301, for some examples of different groups other students have written ethnographic essays about, e.g., skateboarders, football fans, and birdwatchers.
Complete the following:
List different Groups that you are already part of and actively participating in. Identify the name of a person in each group you are a member of whom you could contact during the next two weeks to interview as part of your ethnographic analysis of the group.
List different Groups—community or campus or work-related or church or neighborhood or social or philanthropic—that you are not currently involved in but that you’d like to learn more about. Is there a neighborhood watch group in your area? Is there a group for young adults at the church down the street from you? Is there a Masonic Lodge close by? Identify the names of people you might be able to contact during the next two weeks if you decide to conduct your ethnographic research about one of these groups.
List different Trends that you would like to explore further. Perhaps you’re interested in the growing popularity of e-sports or edible cannabis shops or in people making changes in their lives to reduce their carbon footprint. Identify websites or names of people whom you could contact during the next two weeks to find out more about a specific trend on your list.
List different Hobbies that you may already participate in or that you would like to learn more about. Are you a bowler or Frisbee golfer or sand volleyball player? Have you always wondered what people get out of collecting rocks or salt shakers or stamps? Would you like to learn more about brewing your own beer or gardening or taxidermy? Again, identify names of people whom you could interview about their experiences with your listed hobbies or identify websites that would provide you with contact information.
Review the postings in the Course Introduction Discussion Board to see if anyone in class is a member of a group that you could focus on in your ethnographic essay. Consider adding to your own post in that forum the names of any other groups that you are a member of that you didn’t mention previously and that you’d be willing to be interviewed about if someone is interested.
