The sharing of such assignments has been a staple of Longview's WAC Workshops. Seeing what other instructors have designed always serves to point up the incredible diversity of writing projects that can be offered and also illustrates the rich array of learning experiences Longview provides its students. Viewing assignments also stimulates teachers to think of new possibilities for existing or future projects.
This section features an in-depth look at some of these innovative assignments, large and small, which invite students to develop as thinkers and writers through a thoughtfully designed learning experience.
CINDY HERBERT, Computer Science
Cindy shares her Blog Exercise which invites students to create original responses to a timely article on social media and then post the response to allow critical feedback from classmates. Each student is expected to comment on other posts as a way of continuing discussion of pertinent topics in the article and to learn how to comment effectively.
Cindy shares her Blog Exercise which invites students to create original responses to a timely article on social media and then post the response to allow critical feedback from classmates. Each student is expected to comment on other posts as a way of continuing discussion of pertinent topics in the article and to learn how to comment effectively.
Introduction to Microcomputer Applications
Blog Exercise—Due Date: April 10, 2011 at 11:55 p.m.
READ THE ARTICLE
First, read the article posted in the ‘Blog Exercise’ discussion board and consider the points made about social networking, especially in light of what you are learning in this class and through your own experiences with technology in school or at work.
PART I. CREATING YOUR OWN POST (25 points)
Read the questions listed below and choose one that you would like to respond to in your post. It is appropriate to express your opinion, but it must be supported by concrete evidence from the article, this course, or other relevant sources of information. Be sure to document information from sources other than this article.
1. If you are a user of social networks, how do you feel about ‘unplugging’ from the social network train?
2. Do you think that using companies like Web 2.0 Suicide Machine and Seppukoo will become a trend in the future?
3. Discuss your feelings about Bells comment "This always-on lifestyle is being pushed as desirable, (but) there's a deeply rooted human need to have downtime," says Bell, director of user experience at Intel's Digital Home Group. "Perhaps tuning out of social networking is just a way of recalibrating that need for downtime."
4. What positive impacts have social networks, like Facebook, had on our culture? On your communication?
5. What negative impacts have social networks, like Facebook, had on our culture? On your communication?
Remember that everyone has read the same article, so there is no need for you to summarize it. Be sure to use concrete examples from the article to support your ideas.
FORMAT:
• Your post must provide evidence from the article, this course, or other relevant sources of information. Be sure to document information from sources other than this article. (5 points)
• Your post subject line should include the question number you are answering. (1 point)
• Your post should include the question and answer in the post. (1 point)
• Your post should be 10-15 sentences in length (1 point deduction for each lacking sentence).
• Writing in this post should be clear and well-organized to ensure a smooth, first-time reading.
• Point deductions will be taken for each occurrence of grammar, spelling, and punctuation problems.
PART II. RESPONDING TO ANOTHER’S POST (25 points)
1. Read all postings from others then select a classmate’s post to respond to.
2. Expand on this post by adding your own comments and reactions to it.
3. Offer your own insight; do not just repeat what was already said.
4. Whether you agree or disagree with the writer, provide concrete reasons why.
FORMAT:
• DO NOT complete this part of the project until you have written your own post (Part I)!
• Your response should be 10-15 sentences in length (1 point deduction for each lacking sentence).
• Write clearly and concisely.
• Fully develop your response.
• Point deductions will be taken for each occurrence of grammar, spelling, and punctuation problems.
Melissa contributes here a dynamic and provocative assignment based on Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World. Melissa used the novel as one of the texts in her Cultural Anthropology course in Fall of 2010. Read her guest blog post to learn more about her design decisions and how this comprehensive project came to life within her course.
The purpose of this assignment is to give you a chance to learn more about issues and topics related to technology while sharing your ideas with classmates. You will read the article, “Some ditch social networks to reclaim time, privacy,” and create a blog post in response. Blog postings will be conducted in the discussion board named ‘Blog Exercise’. You will also read other classmate’s blog postings and choose one to respond to. I will not be making comments on your postings as this exercise is intended to orchestrate discussion between you and your classmates.Intro to the Ethnographic Wiki!
ANTH 110: Cultural Anthropology
Brave New World Wiki Project-Phase 1
Your Assignment Sheet:
For this assignment, you play the role of an ethnographer who will be observing certain scenes within Brave New World. You are permitted to be creative in regards to why you are there. Are you watching video footage that the World Controllers taped of certain people, scenes, and conversations? Are you a friend of the characters and are "tagging along"? Are you the film crew in a reality show following these characters around? Are you an invisible being from outer space?
Of course I realize that you are limited in your observations to what Huxley actually writes about, but I this will actually help you focus your observations.
During the course of the semester, you will be writing ethnographic notes and an analysis for two scenes. One scene is due October 7. The second scene is due November 4. You will select your scene from the following List of Scenes.
For the first half of each assignment, you will need to create three Wiki Pages.
1. The First Page will be Your Researcher's Home Page. The Title of this Wiki Page should include your full name. Within this page, I want to see a brief biography. I also want to see under what pretext you are observing the characters from the book. Tell us what scene you are observing.
2. The Second Page you create will be your Raw Notes Page. The Title of this Wiki Page should include your name and an indicator that these are notes. The Wiki allows you to paste your notes directly from a word processing file.
3. The Third page will be your Ethnographic Analysis Page. It should be titled appropriate (including your name).You can paste your paper directly into the page. It should be the equivalent to 4-5 pages.
4. The last step should be to use the Link feature (it is the chain icon above) to link your Researcher Page to the Index of Researchers page and Link your notes and your paper to your researcher page.
(If you need help with posting your data to the Wiki or are very unfamiliar with computers, type the above information into three separate computer files. This will be same as writing papers. Bring the three files (your Researcher information, observation notes, and analysis) to my office hours and we will upload them together.)
The second half of the assignment is to respond to a classmate's analysis. The classmate will be randomly selected and communicated to you during class. Your response will consist of comments made to the Wiki as well as an "artifact" created based on the analysis and a short write-up of how the analysis and your artifact are related.
For the second half of the assignment, you will need to:
• Post Comments to the assigned ethnographic analysis.
• Create one Wiki page. On this page, you will present your "artifact" and a discussion of why you chose this artifact and how it relates to the analysis you read.
Checklist for Completing the First BNW Ethnography
This is a checklist for you to consider when completing the assignment.
1. Choose the scene from the first six chapters of the Brave New World novel.
2. Imagine who you will be as you conduct your ethnographic research.
3. Create a Wiki page for your biography.
4. Write a biography into your Researcher's Home Page.
5. Link your Researcher's Home Page into the Index of Researchers. You will need to edit this page to add your information. Make sure it is in alphabetical order by last name (your real last name, even if you are adopting another name for your persona).
6. Take ethnographic field notes (remember to use the principle of cultural relativity). You may use of the methods outlined or a method of your own choosing. There are no guidelines pertaining to the length of the ethnographic notes. They need to be thorough enough to write your analysis and the actual length will depend on your note-taking and the chapter you choose to observe. I recommend taking as many notes as you can.
7. Create a Wiki page and insert your notes into that page.
8. Link your Notes page to your Researcher's Home Page.
9. Using your notes as a guide, write an ethnographic analysis of this culture. Utilize cultural relativism.
10. Create a Wiki page for your analysis
11. Link it to your Researcher's Home page.
Checklist for reviewing another student's analysis and creating your cultural commentary.
1. You will be given the name of another researcher during class time. (If your assigned student does not complete his or her work on time, you may choose any other researcher).
2. Read the Biography, the notes, and the analysis posted by that researcher. They are available on this Wiki. Go to the Index of Researchers to find them.
3. You will need to create a Wiki Page where you will post your cultural commentary artifact and a discussion of how it relates to the ethnographic analysis you read.
4. Link your Cultural Commentary Page to the Index. You will need to edit the page to add your information. Make sure to follow the template described on the Index page.
Writing a Researcher's Home Page
Here are some guidelines to consider when writing your Researcher's Home Page.
First, keep in mind that this will be the "home page" for your own research products. You will end up linking your raw notes for both ethnographic observations and both ethnographic analyses here. You will also be linking your cultural commentary assignments to your Home page.
Second, you can "be" anybody as your ethnographic researcher. You can be yourself, yourself as an ethnographer, a space alien ethnographer, a "new" character that belongs to the Brave New World world. The Researcher's page functions for you (and your readers) as context. Before you do a cultural ethnography of Brave New World, you need to understand who you are observing this culture as.
Lastly, once you figure out who you are going to be as you observe your chapter/scene in Brave New World, start writing your biography. here are some examples of real anthropologist's autobiographical pages:
• Richard and Sally Price http://www.richandsally.net/
• William C. Meadows http://socantcrim.missouristate.edu/3192.htm
• Michael Fischer http://web.mit.edu/anthropology/faculty_staff/fischer/index.html
Your biography should be the equivalent length to these examples, but can be longer. You can use real examples of ethnographers' biographies as guides, but do not plagiarize them. You need to fill in the format with your own, original information. They can include "imaginary" educational backgrounds, previous research, and publications. Tell the readers which scene you will be reviewing. You can accomplish this in the context of your biography as "new research". Create links to your notes and your analysis from this home page when you are finished creating them.
Consider including or uploading images in your biography. There is a button in the text editing box that allows you to insert images, or you can copy and paste images into the text editor box. If you use images that require citations, please cite the website or give proper credit to the image(s).
Somewhere on this page (probably at the end or in the title of the Wiki page) your real name needs to be on the page. You could include your name as the author of the page, etc.
Lastly, go the Index of Researcher’s Page. Click on Edit and add your real name in alphabetical order (by last name). Create a link to your Researcher's Page from that index.
How To Make Ethnographic Observations and Make Notes
Making good ethnographic observations takes a lot of practice, so I do not expect you to be complete experts at this introductory level.
Here are five tested ethnographic note-taking methods that you will want to choose among for your observations.
In various scenes from the book, one form of note taking may be more useful than others. Using one of the frameworks below, you may want to write a column for each one and put your notes and observations into the appropriate columns. Or, you may wish to write your notes as normal and write the ethnographic categories into the columns.
1. 9 Dimensions of descriptive observation (Spradley, J. P., 1980)
• SPACE - layout of the physical setting; rooms, outdoor spaces, etc.
• ACTORS - the names and relevant details of the people involved
• ACTIVITIES - the various activities of the actors
• OBJECTS - physical elements: furniture etc.
• ACTS - specific individual actions
• EVENTS - particular occasions, e.g. meetings
• TIME - the sequence of events
• GOALS - what actors are attempting to accomplish
• FEELINGS - emotions in particular contexts
2. AEIOU (The Doblin Group/eLab; E-Lab 1997)
• A - Activities are goal directed sets of actions-things which people want to accomplish
• E - Environments include the entire arena where activities take place
• I - Interactions are between a person and someone or something else, and are the building blocks of activities
• O - Objects are building blocks of the environment, key elements sometimes put to complex or unintended uses, changing their function, meaning and context
• U - Users are the consumers, the people providing the behaviors, preferences and needs
3. A(x4) (Rothstein, P., 2001)
• Atmosphere
• Actors
• Artifacts
• Activities
4. Bringing the Outside In (Sotirin, P., 1999)
• Territory - including space and architecture
• Stuff - furniture, possession, private/public, visual signs, technology
• People - flows, dress, bodies, nonverbal behaviors, authority, affection
• Talk - conversation, vocabularies
5. POSTA (Pat Sachs; Gitte Jordan)
• P - Person
• O - Objects
• S - Situations
• T - Time
• A - Activity
Your notes will be the basis from which you write your analysis, so it is important to take good notes. You will be posting them in the Wiki and linking them to your Researcher's page.
A note about format: Typing up your notes may be necessary. If you have hand written notes and cannot type them up, it is possible to scan your notes and upload them to Wiki as .pdf files. Please contact me for instructions, if you require them.
How Do I Write An Ethnographic Analysis?
Anthropologists should write in a way that non-experts can understand. More importantly, you should write as though your audience has never lived in or observed the culture you are reporting on. So, you have to give your reader a little background.
The first part of your analysis will report what you observed. What did you see and hear? You need to identify the following:
• Who is this group? Who are the primary sub-groups, classes, and actors?
• Where and when did you observe them (all events in the book take place in the year A. F. 632 - can you find other clues to narrow it down for your scene?)?
• What connection do you have to the group (you can get a little creative here if you want)?
• Make sure that you pay attention to the language used and write about it - it is important.
The second part of your analysis is the interpretive part. What patterns did you see? What lessons are there to be learned (by the actors, by outsiders)?
One of the best ways to set up your interpretations is to ASK QUESTIONS of your observations. There are thousands of questions that you could ask. Choose several of the most important (to you) and write about them.
Possible questions include:
• How does this group act towards one another? Describe.
• What beliefs and values does this group share? What are they?
• How does this group define itself in relation to other groups? How?
• How does the group use spoken language?
• How does the group perceive a life event or phenomenon?
• How does someone become a member of the group?
• What kinds of behaviors are not acceptable to the group and result in censure?
A few notes about interpretation: Interpretation is your own thoughts about what you observed (be very self conscious about whether you are being ethnocentric or judgmental - aim for cultural relativity). Using the first person perspective is acceptable discuss your impressions and feelings, but use examples from your notes to support and enhance those thoughts.
Your write-up should be 4-5 pages. Your raw observations/notes need to be included and are not part of the page total.
You will need to create a new Wiki page to post the analysis and link it back to your Researcher's page.
Making Cultural Commentary
For the first part of the assignment, you will be posting ethnographic notes, a researcher page, and ethnographic analysis that covers one scene in Huxley's Brave New World. For the second part of the assignment, you will be using the materials of another student to create cultural commentary from an outsider's point of view.
Who Do I Research?: The week the first assignment pieces are due, you will be randomly assigned another student to review. Notification will be made during class. NOTE: If this student does not complete the assignment on-time, you are free to make cultural commentary on any other student who completed their work on-time.
Using the ethnographic observations and analysis made by the researcher assigned to you, you will put together an "artifact" of cultural significance based on the superstructure, social structure, or infrastructure characteristics of culture discussed in the scene analysis. This artifact will likely be from an outsider's perspective rather than the insider's perspective of the ethnography materials. You can be as creative as you want with the artifact, but the artifact must also be described in writing.
You may compose or create your artifact as a comment to the culture of the Brave New World from the following perspectives:
• Historical: You are an artist, writer, historian, archaeologist, film producer, etc. from an unknown future of the Brave New World and are capturing the essence and stereotypes of the past as located in the historical documents made by your assigned classmate/researcher.
• Emic (Insider's Perspective): You are another person within the world of the Brave New World and you are using your classmate/researcher's information to create a cultural artifact reflective of the observations and/or analysis. You may be a travel agent, a "feelie" film movie poster artist, a tour guide for the Reservation, an organizer of the solidarity services, a fashion designer for the various classes of people, owner of a dating service, a person designing a program for the hynopaedia a marketer for any of the products or sports/games mentioned in the book. You will create an artifact made to appeal to people in Brave New World based on the researcher's findings.
• Etic (Outsider's Perspective): You are a contemporary outsider of the culture described in Brave New World. You may be one of the discriminated groups (like historians, poets, frugal people, recyclers) mentioned briefly in the opening chapters. You could be a subversive person who is working actively (but covertly) against the World Controllers. You might be a person within a Reservation who reads the notes to get a better grasp of the strange visitors. In general, the "artifact" you produce should be written from the perspective of an outsider of the culture. You get to choose if your artifact is counterculture, is criticism (like Adbusting campaigns), or emulative of the culture described by the Brave New World ethnographer.
Your "artifact" can be in any one of the following formats (but additional formats are permitted):
NOTE: You do not need to learn a new technology to complete this assignment. If you want to put together a short film and already know how, you can. But, if you want to do a short film and cannot, you will need to thoroughly describe what you would have created (provided enough time, money, etc.).
• Literary Arts: You might compose a creative piece of prose, a screenplay, a mythological story, or poetry to describe a philosophical or moral dilemma, character, concept, social institution, or theme described in the ethnographic notes and analysis.
• Visual Arts: You might assemble a piece of visual art using traditional mediums, computer-aided mediums, photography, etc.
• Graphic Design: You could assemble a sign, poster, pamphlet, PowerPoint, or advertisement of a sport, saying, event, or item described in the Brave New World chapter reviewed.
• Geospatial: You could "map" out the activities and use of space described in the ethnographic materials, depending on caste, gender, etc.
• Other: The possibilities are endless.
After imagining, composing, creating, or describing your cultural artifact, you must write a paper describing how this artifact constitutes cultural commentary in support of, observance of, or resistance to the Brave New World. This paper should bring up specific links between the form you chose and material found in the ethnographic materials you referenced (specifically reference the Researcher's materials you use). Also, you should write as though your audience has never lived in or observed the culture you are reporting on. As a result, you must give your reader a little background.
There should be a strong introduction, thesis statement, and conclusion to your paper after discussing the interplay between ethnography and artifactual commentary. Some themes or questions you may consider addressing in your narrative include:
• Is your artifact loosely or strongly based on the insider's/ethnographic perspective?
• Where does ethnocentrism come into play in your artifact?
• How does your artifact reflect the world described in the Brave New World?
• How would characters in the book react to your artifact?
• Reflexivity is important in anthropology. Do you see evidence of your own personal bias? Where?
• Did you move beyond the ethnography to create your artifact? Describe this process. Did it make you uncomfortable?
• If there was something missing in the ethnography, what improvements could be made?
• Did the practice of observing another researcher's notes and research change the way you will make ethnographic observations?
The artifact itself can be of any length. You may use elements of others' work for your artifact, but ultimately, your work must be derivative and original (and well-cited). If you create a three-dimensional piece, you may attach a photo of your artifact. If you have questions about accepted media formats, please email your instructor for questions.
The paper should be at least 2.5 full pages, double-spaced.
You will need to create a new Wiki page to post your artifact and your discussion paper. Please link your Commentary Paper to Commentary Index. You will need to Edit this page to add and link your Wiki page.
