5/2/11 Final Portfolio

http://allisonsbsuwebsite.weebly.com/

4/29/11

This will be my final blog of the semester. Todays blog will be about the progress of my ethnography paper. So far my paper is coming along very well. I have 13 pages completed and all I have left to do is create my conclusion as well as my work cited page. All of my observations and interviews went along very well, the only problem I had was that during this semester I had a very bad stomach bug which caused me to get sick whenever I ate the Chinese food served at China Gourmet. This made my observations/interviews difficult because I would go in and order food to go but I would not be able to actually eat it. Other than that I did not really have any problems with my paper.

April 15, 2011

This week I read the Lay of the Land Essay written by a peer named Chantelle. Over all, I believe that this was a good essay. I feel that maybe Chantelle did not have a peer editor or she possibly did not read over her paper before posting it on her website. While reading the essay I came across many spelling and grammatical errors. Although the essay was well written and included all the elements that were required it seemed more like an observation done by a student teacher rather than a fieldworker. Chantelle, in my mind, may have been at the daycare center observing to fulfill hours for another class and used her time there, as well as the notes she took, to create the Lay of the Land Essay. Due to the strict requirements of Education Majors here at Bridgewater State, I understand why a student might "double dip" their research. At the same time, I feel that Chantelle could have done more to make the essay feel original to the project.

4/1/2011 Interviews

After reading the assigned pages on interviews I picked up lots of important information. First of all the difference between closed and open questions. Closed questions have one specific answer, such as "Do you own a car?" While open questions are based on a persons perspecitive and can be more controversal, such as "Tell me about the accident you witnessed last night." The article also had great tips on how to be a good listener. It talked about not intterpting, not fiddiling, having good eye contact, encourage responses with follow up questions, and having a structured plan with focused questions.

3/25/11

The reading I did this week, about interviews Mrs. Nicole Williams did while doing her research at Hanover Bowladrome, was very insightful. The interviews showed how different people, even at the same place at the same time, can have different perceptions. For example, mny of the women in the many womens leagues were there purly for the comrodery, while the men who bowled on Thursday night were very competitive. The reading also showed the employment currcumstances of the bowling alley. The alley, which is family owned, only has three employees who were not family members. Also it showed how bowling has gone through the generations of the families and how the people who worked there now were passing the tradtions on to their children.  The research showed why the manager, Hank who has been in the bowling alley buisness for 30 years, did not have all of the new electronics that are seen in many bowling alleys today.

3/17/11 Group Projects

For my groups presentation, we have the topic of fonts and colors. We plan to create a power point on what are the best and worse font and color choices for a number of different types of papers. My group consists of myself, Sierra, Lisa, and Jeff. We will each be discussing and showing examples of good and bad font and color choices.  Hopefully, m group will be able to educate the rest of our class on font and color choices for their future papers and websites.

Mid-term Portfolio

http://allisonsbsuwebsite.weebly.com/mid-term-portfolio.html

2/24/11

This week, I looked at four links of websites created by previous students of Prof. Nicole Williams. I saw many differences between these four websites. Personally, I found useful information on three of the four websites. Unfortunately, the website created by the only male student, Ryan, I did not find helpful. If anything I thought it was a bit confusing to follow. Although the three websites created by the female students were very different in structure and they all contained portfolios including work for their mid-term and final portfolios, they were all easy to read and to get ideas from. It was extremely helpful to see these examples before creating my own website.

Practice fieldwork

Popular Pizza
Seekonk Ma
Briarwood Plaza
Wednesay February 16, 2010
6:30-7 o'clock pm
-Small pizza place
-kitchen inclosed in back
-eat at counter
-9 picknic style tables
-man, mid 30's behind counter, green shirt and hat with Popular Pizza Logo
-Friendly
-2 men, mid 40's eatting at counter: both in work style clothes (jeans tshirt. sweatshirts) (both eatting pizza and drinking beer)
-All three men talk about sports game on TV
-Man, mid  40's came in to pick up food dressed in buisness style clothing talking on cell phone
-Cook in back came out to get soda
-Man in mid 40's and girl in late teens sit at table talking eattin a pizza. Very serious conversation split up by comical statements making teen girl laugh. Man dressed in sweat shirt and girl in tshirt and jeans.
-Many photographs of famous moments in sports on the walls.
-Dell Lemonaid machine next to soda machine. ATM also there

Slide, Roll, Slam by Nicole Williams

From the very beginning of this essay I knew that it was not going to be your typical boring eight page paper. Mrs. Williams grabs the attention of her audience using descriptive adjective that allow you to really see everything that she is describing to you. She goes on to explain the "lay of the land," which in this case is a bowling alley, and all of the people occupying it. Mrs. Williams goes as far as to tell what the employees are wearing down to the a mount of makeup that they have applied that evening. The fact that she discusses the ages and behaviors of the men bowling in the Monday night leagues allowed me to visualize the players as if I was presently in the bowling alley. Through making hypotesis's about the men, the leagues, and the bowling alley in general, Mrs. Williams invites her readers to request more as they wonder what else she will learn on her upcoming visits.

2/3/11 Research Topic

I am using a Chinese restraints called China Gormet as my research site. What I currently know about this site is the location, the hours and the prices. All of this information is easy to get due to their printed menu's that they give you with all take out orders. On average, lunch plates cost about $4.95 and dinner plates cost about $8. I have observed, in the previous times that I was there, that the same people work all the time. There is either a Chinese man or woman or a Caucasian woman who is in her early twenties working the cash register. There are two Chinese men that work in back cooking the food. I know that China Gormet is typically a take-out place due to its small size and that the food is amazing.

From my research I would like to learn how China Gormet can possibly charge so little for such large portions and still make a profit. Over the past two years that I have been regurally visiting my research site I have noticed that the prices have raised but not by much. I would also like to know who holds management positions and why they decided to hire a Caucasian twenty something year old to work with them.

1/27/11- Iowa 80/ Iresearcher

This week I read both Friday Night at Iowa 80 by Rick Zollo and Iresearcher by my professor Nicole Williams. After reading both essays I realized they had many similarities but they did not seem to be the same type of essays. In my mind Iresearcher was a first draft, or maybe an outline, for a paper that could eventually be an essay like Friday Night at Iowa 80. In Iresearcher Mrs. Williams talked about finding out about lots of information before having returned to her research site. Iowa 80 is a finished draft including all of the information that Mr. Zollo researched during his visits to the truck stop. In Iresearcher Mrs. Williams gives lot of background information about why she is planning on writing her paper on the bowling alley she visited as a child. She also states many questions that she plans to find answers for. Mr. Zollo's paper is the answers to questions that he might have wanted to learn about before writing his final draft. I found both of these essays to be very informative, yet in different ways.