I have to say, the Commerce Week on Writing was actually very interesting. I say this because I actually was expecting boring type lectures. However, it was a very eye-opening experience. The two events I chose to do extended fieldnotes over was the memoir workshop and the Writing History Panel.
I was personally intrigued by how personal much of the writings presented were. Bobby Perdee used the memories of her granddaughter’s friendship with a pig to execute her brilliant literacy style. Dr. Tarpley of the Memoir workshop focused on the Texas City explosion as a starting point for the writing of her sister’s memoirs. It seems like the writing process is never an informal process for the reader. When it comes to the functions of writing (personal, functional, informational), I find it easy to spot. The point of conceptual and functinal information like instructing of how to cook or how to do an essay implies personal action on the body of the human to make lives more efficient. Informational literacy is used in assitance to the former and to persuade people to change their views. And personal (reading and writing for the heck of it) is the ultimate in indulgence of literacy.
In addition to these two events, the graduate students on Thursday presenting their ethnographic papers was also an intriguing experience. Up til that point, ethnography was kind of a science I couldn’t grasp. I knew the objective of the paper and how to get there, but to not know what the final project looked like was killing me. To hear the papers of the various students seemed to make the goal tangible. All were engaging, but the one involving the student whose literacy intruded upon his social skills was one that caught my eye. I was really shocked to see how much of his story related to my life. I was never social and I used television and books to escape into a world that wasn’t this. I have begun to engage myself with humans and fellow students to enhance my life. Not only should this improve my personal well-being, but I would like to t hink that my literacy studies and ethnographic research will also undergo tremendous transformation. By improving my mental well-being, I should be able to better focus on my schoolwork. And afterall, literacy is in of itself a social practice rather than a set of inherent skills.
Both Dr. Tarpley’s sister’s memoirs and the graduate students stories seem to point to the fact that personal tragedy and conflict are the sources for much of the emotional responses in writing, as well as the experiences and how they define human beings as what they are and not something else. I would have liked to delve into this thesis better. Does a culture have to go through problems and conflict in order for it to become a viable subject of fieldworking. This does not just have to be on the subject’s part. The researcher might have problems that he or she wishes to express through different people. Examples could include that of figuring human nature, the symbolism of artifacts and text, and the way economies develop.
I do not know if I missed the class that discussed the Analysis Memo of fieldnotes, so I really don’t know what to do. Once I figure it out, I will go back and edit this post. –
(Box Activity to be coming shortly)
Sounds good, Jeremy. Know what to do yet? More in Fieldworking, of course. One step beyond the surprised/intrigued/disturbed rhythm of expanded fieldnotes.
Enjoyed this review VERY much. Interested in submitting for NCoW? I’ll post this to the CWoW blog. Thanks!