Week 15 - Posting 15

In this final blog posting of the semester, I'd like you to reflect on your progress throughout the course. What do you feel you have really improved on within the fifteen weeks? What do you still struggle with? Explain. (Consequently, the answers to these questions can pertain to your writing process, the way you conduct research, organizational skills, critical reading skills, or whatever else you can think of). Lastly, provide a suggestion or several suggestions for how the class could be conducted more efficiently in the future. Is there an assignment you think could be reworked? Would you have benefited from more conferences? Less conferences? Etc. etc.

Week 14 - Posting 14

For this week, I'd like to give you folks the opportunity to do some more pre-writing for your portfolio reflections. So, pick ONE of the following questions to answer: What strategies did you develop to analyze the data for your mini-ethnography? What is your favorite piece of data (or data source) and why? (i.e. people you interviewed, observations you made, academic sources you read, etc). What do you feel is the best piece of writing you've done in the class (Exploring Subcultures, Annotated Bibliography, Research Proposal w/Literature Review, or Mini-Ethnography) and why?

Week 13 - Posting 13

As I've mentioned to several of you during the conferences, the mini-ethography will essentially be you (the researcher) telling the reader the story of the your subculture using your personal voice, the voices of your informants, research, etc. So, to practice doing this, tell the story of your most significant experience as a fieldworker observing one of your fieldsites. Make sure to use sensory details/descriptions, balance your voice with the voices of your informants, and try to see if you can bring in some points from the research you've done to supplement what you're saying. Good luck and have fun with this.

Week 12 - Posting 12

What is your understanding of the word "rhetoric?" What is your definition? What do you think constitutes rhetoric (is it our appearance, the way we dress, the things we say, the way we act, etc.)? Where do you hear the word rhetoric being commonly used in American society? Is its use generally in a positive or a negative context? Do you think there might be a rhetoric that coincides with your subculture? If so, what is it? How might you utilize rhetoric in constructing your mini-ethnography or your final portfolio?